Mel Brooks Receives AFI Lifetime Achievement Award

Mel Brooks Receives AFI Lifetime Achievement Award

The 41st edition of the AFI or American Film Institute Life Achievement Award will honor one of the greatest comedy directors of all time, Mel Brooks.

The gala started with songs from some of Brooks’ biggest movies like “I Want to Be a Producer”, “The Producers” or “Blazing Saddles”.

The guests continued the evening talking about their shared memories. Billy Crystal said that in rare occasions one gets to thank his heroes, and then went on to talk about how the two got to know each other a lot better when they found out Brooks’ son and Crystal’s daughter were in the same class during grade school.

Carl Reiner kept the tone of the evening light hearted and fun by joking about how only three people thought Brooks was the funniest man in the world, himself, Sid Caesar and Brooks himself.

Conan O’Brien also praised Brooks’ storytelling abilities remembering how his whole family would stay up late when he was invited on the “The Tonight Show”.

When the 86 year old Mel Brooks took to the stage he was greeted with a lengthy applause before he started joking about the whole evening in his characteristic style.

The entire Mel Brooks AFI tribute can be seen on TNT with the premiere being on the 15th of June.

Posted by Kade Quinn on Sunday June 09 2013, 4:23 AM EST. Ref: LA Times. Link. All trademarks acknowledged. Filed under Entertainment, Featured News. Comments and Trackbacks closed. Follow responses: RSS 2.0