{"id":40070,"date":"2026-08-12T04:51:56","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T23:51:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=40070"},"modified":"2026-08-12T04:51:56","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T23:51:56","slug":"mel-brooks-documentary-directors-judd-apatow-michael-bonfiglio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=40070","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Mel Brooks&#8217; Documentary Directors Judd Apatow &#038; Michael Bonfiglio"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div><iframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"pmc-protected-embed-1\" class=\"pmc-protected-embed\" width=\"100%\" height=\"200\" src=\"https:\/\/playlist.megaphone.fm?e=PMC4666175689\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"true\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For over 75 years, <a href=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/tag\/mel-brooks\/\" id=\"auto-tag_mel-brooks\" data-tag=\"mel-brooks\">Mel Brooks<\/a> has been making people laugh. Hard. He\u2019s brought to the screen Mongo, Lili Von Sht\u00fcpp, the grandson of a certain mad scientist (aka Young Frankenstein), Frau Bl\u00fccher (\u201cA little Ovaltine, perhaps?), Louis XVI (\u201cIt\u2019s good to be the king\u201d), Max Bialystock, Leo Bloom, Barf, Dark Helmet, President Skroob, Yogurt, and so many others.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The comedy icon, who turned 100 years old on June 28, is the focus of the two-part <a href=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/tag\/hbo\/\" id=\"auto-tag_hbo\" data-tag=\"hbo\">HBO<\/a> documentary <em>Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man!<\/em> (released as he approached the century mark), directed by Emmy winners <a href=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/tag\/judd-apatow\/\" id=\"auto-tag_judd-apatow\" data-tag=\"judd-apatow\">Judd Apatow<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/tag\/michael-bonfiglio\/\" id=\"auto-tag_michael-bonfiglio\" data-tag=\"michael-bonfiglio\">Michael Bonfiglio<\/a>. It\u2019s got six <a href=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/lists\/emmy-nominations-full-list-nominees-scorecard\/\" data-type=\"pmc_list\" data-id=\"1236975707\">Primetime Emmy Awards nominations<\/a> \u2014 tied for the most of any nonfiction project \u2014 including Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special and Outstanding Directing for a Documentary\/Nonfiction Program.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Apatow and Bonfiglio join the latest edition of Deadline\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/tag\/doc-talk\/\" id=\"auto-tag_doc-talk\" data-tag=\"doc-talk\">Doc Talk<\/a> podcast to discuss their profile of one of the greatest comedy minds of this or any century (his career really got started in the aughts \u2013 the original aughts \u2014 two millennia ago as the 2000 Year Old Man). The filmmakers tell us how they got Brooks to drop the veil to allow a glimpse at the man behind the laughs \u2013 how Sid Caesar paid Brooks out of his own pocket to write for<em> Your Show of Shows<\/em>, how he foresaw that his future lay not in TV but in films, his remarkable lifelong friendship with Carl Reiner, and his magnificent love affair with fellow Oscar winner Anne Bancroft.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Apatow explains how he approached interviews with the legend \u2013 and why he feared Mel might yell \u201ccut\u201d at any moment. The writer-director, himself one of comedy\u2019s great talents, explores how Brooks worked around Warner Bros executives who wanted him to dump so many of the best parts of <em>Blazing Saddles<\/em> before the film\u2019s theatrical release (\u201cLose Mongo punching the horse,\u201d was just one ill-considered imperative from the exec).<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Apatow and Bonfiglio also get into how Brooks managed to skewer racism, Nazism and other \u201cisms\u201d without ever losing sight of the key objective \u2013 to make it funny. And they opine on who, along with Brooks, belongs on the Mount Rushmore of Comedy \u2013 were such a thing to exist.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That\u2019s on the new episode of Doc Talk hosted by Oscar winner John Ridley (<em>12 Years a Slave, Shirley<\/em>) and Matt Carey, Deadline\u2019s senior documentary editor. The pod is a production of Deadline and Ridley\u2019s N\u014d Studios.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Listen to the episode above or on major podcast platforms including\u00a0<a rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fopen.spotify.com%2Fshow%2F6RTnLdlxMHrhWh3Cx3YP1a&amp;data=05%7C02%7Cpatrickhipes%40deadline.com%7C48081c817439450e028808def7f87601%7Ce950f25546e44144a778a6ff4f557492%7C0%7C0%7C639220843662534488%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=CuoMPrOIDo7JmSLtuMTZFznAEmra13tr5N%2BxtBTgeH4%3D&amp;reserved=0\"><u>Spotify<\/u><\/a>,\u00a0<a rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.iheart.com%2Fpodcast%2F269-doc-talk-a-deadline-and-n-123087810%2F&amp;data=05%7C02%7Cpatrickhipes%40deadline.com%7C48081c817439450e028808def7f87601%7Ce950f25546e44144a778a6ff4f557492%7C0%7C0%7C639220843662603587%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=Rj5YMzW3kHNVSn84UVI3btgNJWT5J6hTYQ0%2FpMZplvM%3D&amp;reserved=0\"><u>iHeart<\/u><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpodcasts.apple.com%2Fus%2Fpodcast%2Fdoc-talk-a-deadline-and-n%25C5%258D-studios-podcast%2Fid1712365528&amp;data=05%7C02%7Cpatrickhipes%40deadline.com%7C48081c817439450e028808def7f87601%7Ce950f25546e44144a778a6ff4f557492%7C0%7C0%7C639220843662666224%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=uPhfdv7wyy4jDDMvqtHG8v%2FJL3T2RWlz89Uo63OIBg4%3D&amp;reserved=0\"><u>Apple<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For over 75 years, Mel Brooks has been making people laugh. Hard. He\u2019s brought to the screen Mongo, Lili Von Sht\u00fcpp, the grandson of a certain mad scientist (aka Young Frankenstein), Frau Bl\u00fccher (\u201cA little Ovaltine, perhaps?), Louis XVI (\u201cIt\u2019s good to be the king\u201d), Max Bialystock, Leo Bloom, Barf, Dark Helmet, President Skroob, Yogurt,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40071,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/deadline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Judd-Apatow-Michael-Bonfiglio-Doc-Talk-Podcast.jpg?w=1000","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pics-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40070\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/40071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}