Starred review from May 1, 2022
Brooks may be 95 years old, but his distinctive and familiar voice is still vigorous, ingratiating, and funny. He still lands a punchline with finesse. He should, since the stories he shares in this 15-hour unabridged audiobook of his memoir have been polished over decades of talk show appearances and TV specials. Brooks focuses on his professional life rather than his private life (although he begins with his Brooklyn childhood experiences and military life prior to writing for Sid Caesar, and tales from his 40-year marriage to Anne Bancroft occasionally pop up). Brooks offers behind-the-scenes tales of writing and filming such classic comedies as The Producers, Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, High Anxiety, and Spaceballs. He also reads a lot of hilarious material from his films, his "2,000-Year-Old Man" comedy albums with Carl Reiner and classic Your Show of Shows skits, proving great comedy stands the test of time. He also offers insightful anecdotes about turning The Producers into a Broadway musical and its bumpy road to success. VERDICT A comedy legend shares tales of making his classic movies, celebrity encounters, and some of his funniest material. This is a masterclass in comedy not to be missed.--Kevin Howell
Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
Starred review from October 11, 2021
In this laugh-a-minute memoir, actor and producer Brooks (Young Frankenstein) looks back at his rise through Hollywood, gleefully doling out punch lines along the way. He begins with his childhood in Brooklyn, where he lived with his older brothers and mother (“my first comic foil, and enabler”) and at school slipped into comedy like a well-worn glove: “I ... allowed to hang around with the bigger kids because I made them laugh... you don’t hit the kid that makes you laugh.” Brooks recounts his early days as a writer on Sid Caesar’s Your Show of Shows in the 1950s; appearing in 1962 on the very first Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, where he shared the stage with Groucho Marx, Joan Crawford, Rudy Vallee, and Tony Bennett; learning how to bend the truth, after he told producer Joe Levine that he cut a scene from the end of his Oscar-winning film The Producers (“On every movie... since then; I’ve often lied when the studio objected to something by saying, “It’s out!”); and taking a giant leap forward as a director by writing “the greatest farting scene in cinematic history,” in 1974’s Blazing Saddles. Studded with snickering asides and rapid-fire jokes, Brooks’s account of making it in show biz is just as sidesplitting as his movies.