Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

Mel Brooks Talks To Conan About His Jewish Roots

The latest installment of Conan O’Brien’s “Jibber Jabber” is perhaps his best yet.

Our favorite red-headed comedian interviewed Mel Brooks, “the funniest man on the planet Earth,” who talked to him about growing up in Williamsburg — where if “you take a wrong step, you step on a Jew” — finding out humor wasn’t Jewish-specific (a big surprise), and “Spaceballs.”

And that’s only the first five minutes of an impressively long hour and twenty minute show.

Here’s what Mel had to say about it afterward:

 

It’s hilarious. Watch now.

 

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.