Happy 100th Birthday Mel Brooks: A Magical History of the Hollywood Legends Work with Disney
EGOT winner Mel Brooks turns 100 years old today, so let’s take a journey through his life and legacy as it crosses paths with Disney magic.
On June 28th, 1926, a Hollywood Legend was born. Born Melivn James Kavinsky, Mel Brooks has become one of the most celebrated creatives in the entertainment industry. The multi-talent actor, comedian, director, songwriter, and screenwriter is responsible for some of the biggest projects in Hollywood history, including Spaceballs, Young Frankenstein, The Producers, and Blazing Saddles.
Just after the new millennium (Mel-ennium if you will), Brooks achieved what only 18 other creatives have managed to do, win an Emmy, Tony, Oscar, and Grammy award during his ongoing career. Kicking off those awards was his 1968 Best Original Screenplay Oscar for The Producers. His next major award breakthrough came in 1997, where he won an Emmy for Best Guest Actor on Mad About You. His first Grammy was awarded to him in 1999 for Best Spoken Comedy Album for The 2000 Year Old Man in the Year 2000. Finally, Brooks swept at the 2001 Tony Awards, taking home Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical, and Best Original Score for the Broadway adaptation of The Producers.
For Disney fans, Brooks has quite a few projects alongside the House of Mouse. Brooks’ career with Disney is robust, spanning across movies, television, and the Disney Parks!.
His first project with Disney (which wasn’t technically Disney at the time) was an appearance in 1979’s The Muppet Movie. Brooks’ starred as mad scientist Professor Max Krassman. In his fairly small cameo, Kermit the Frog and Fozzie Bear are captured by the villain, Doc Hopper. They're brought to Professor Krassman's laboratory, where he demonstrates a machine intended to perform a brainwashing experiment that would force Kermit to promote Doc Hopper's frog-leg restaurant chain. Before the experiment succeeds, the other Muppets rescue Kermit, and the heroes escape.
Nearly 10 years later, Mel Brooks would work with Disney officially for the first time on a Disney Parks attraction! Starring in the pre-show for Mickey’s Audition, Brooks was an important part of the then Disney-MGM Studios celebration of Hollywood.
But his desire for presence at the Walt Disney World park didn’t stop there! After meeting then CEO Michael Eisner, Mel Brooks began working on his own attraction at the park. The attraction was meant to fill the thrill ride gap in Disney-MGM Studios lineup, with Eisner choosing Mel after his successful take on family horror in Young Frankenstein. Originally, the experience would have been rooted in the hit horror comedy, but Disney quickly expanded that concept into Mel Brook’s Hollywood Horror Hotel. The story would’ve invited guests into the production of a new Mel Brooks film at an abandoned Hollywood hotel. As guests explored the set, they would soon realize that the monsters weren’t actually actors, they were the real deal. It would’ve fed into slapstick comedy using classic Hollywood monsters as the cast. If the concept sounds a tad familiar, the Mel Brooks attraction would eventually inspire the fan-favorite Twilight Zone Tower of Terror.
From 1992 onward, Mel Brooks continued to make occasional appearances across Disney projects. After appearing as himself in Disney's Mickey's 50 anniversary celebration in 1992, his work shifted primarily to voice acting. In 2004, Disney's animated film Home on the Range featured his comedic song "The French Mistake" from Blazing Saddles. He later voiced the recurring character Grandpa Mel on the Disney Junior series Special Agent Oso from 2009 to 2012, introducing his humor to a new generation of viewers. Brooks returned to Disney in 2019 as Melephant Brooks, a toy elephant in Pixar's Toy Story 4, and reprised the role in the Disney+ short series Forky Asks a Question. More recently, following Disney's acquisition of 21st Century Fox, Brooks has served as an executive producer on the FX series Very Young Frankenstein.
Happy Birthday to the legendary Mel Brooks, and thanks for 100 years of comedy and incomparable storytelling!