Just a month before he’s set to turn 100 years old, Mel Brooks is making one hell of a birthday gift to the world: The donation of a 20,000-document archive of his works to the National Comedy Center in Jamestown, New York. Besides serving as a chronicle of Brooks’ legendary career—including 15,000 documents and 5,000 photographs—the archive’s donation means Brooks’ legacy will sit alongside that of his long-time comedy partner and friend Carl Reiner, an early supporter of the Center whose own archives were donated to it shortly after his death back in 2020.
As described in a New York Times article, the archive makes for a pretty hefty trove, dating all the way back to Brooks’ Army service during World War II, where he kept a notebook of comedy ideas while busy hunting for Nazi landmines in the European theater. They also include a long tour through his film catalogue, including storyboards and other documents for all of his films—there’s reportedly a full script for Spaceballs in there, from back when it was called Planet Moron—and even an early draft for the lyrics for The Producers‘ “Springtime For Hitler.” (Of one line that was excised from the finished version—”Maybe other men have vigor and dash / But other men don’t have that mustache”—Brooks told The Times, “I’m very proud of the mustache line, but in the end, it didn’t make it in.”)
Brooks expressed especial happiness that his work would find a home alongside Reiner’s. Referencing their long-standing “2,000 Year Old Man” books and routines, he said “I’m honored that my contributions will be preserved for future generations at the National Comedy Center—especially because it’s a place that was meaningful to my best friend, Carl Reiner, who believed in the importance of preserving comedy’s history. I know he’d be happy that our work will be around for the next 2,000 years, or maybe even more.”
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