Music of the Day, 28 June 2025
it's good to be the king ... of comedy
Well, no one can seriously be considered the best of all kinds of comedy—it’s a diverse field of entertainment, for starters. I hope that just for today, in celebration of his 99th birthday, we can agree to crown the legendary Mel Brooks the king.
A couple of weeks ago, while researching for another birthday MotD, I learned that today is Brooks’ birthday. Especially given how much I’ve been enjoying some of his movies lately, I wanted to mark it in this space. But how? I’ve featured other great songs by him here, and didn’t want to repeat myself. Remembering one of his lesser known movies, I thought it might have something suitable … did it ever!
It’s been a very long time since I’ve watched History of the World Part 1;1 I remember seeing it when it was released in 1981 and finding some bits very funny but others, not so much. It did give us the evergreen line, “It’s good to be the king.” And I had a vague recollection of finding “The Spanish Inquisition” mostly funny, in large part because it’s so over the top.
And maybe that’s the kind of comedy Mel Brooks is the king of—taking elements of reality and twisting them so far that only the pecksniffs and Mrs. Grundys among us can’t laugh. Given where mainstream American culture is now, I think it’ll be a long time before anyone will be able to come close to unseating Mel Brooks from that throne.
I recently discovered that the Internet Archive, aka Wayback Machine, has a video archive section that includes movies … which can be downloaded. If I were an evil villain, I’d be twirling my mustache right about now.
Happy 99th birthday to Mel Brooks, with deep thanks for all the laughs. If you have a favorite Mel Brooks project, please share in the comments.
and I just learned that this was the late great Gregory Hines’ film debut
A huge influence for my twisted sense of humor. And “ pecksniff” what an appropriate word!
He's been a major creative influence on me, particularly since I saw 'Blazing Saddles" for the first time.
Mel actually turned "It's Good To Be The King" into a pseudo-rap record that made Billboard's R&B charts. It likely inspired soul hyphenate Sylvia to respond with her own tune, "It's Good To Be The Queen", soon after.