The 2000 Year Old Man is a comedy sketch, originally created by Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner in the 1950s and first publicly performed in the 1960s. Brooks plays a 2000-year-old man, interviewed by Carl Reiner in a series of comedy routines that were recorded into a collection of records, as well as being performed on television.
Sketch
Reiner was the straight man, asking interview questions of Brooks, who would improvise answers in a Jewish-American accent. The free-wheeling semi-improvised sketches covered a wide variety of topics from marriage and children to transportation. The brilliance of the sketch was elevated by the quick improvisational wit of Mel Brooks, who would usually use a question as a springboard to unplanned exposition and tangents that would be as much of an astonishment to his partner as it was to the audience. Reiner continued to act as the voice of the audience, providing questions and challenging Brooks' answers. "He was like a District Attorney" claims Brooks. Reiner's knowledge of history and momentous events raised the bar on the exchanges. "I knew the questions" quipped Reiner, "but I didn't know the answers." While Reiner deferred the great lines to Brooks, he knew his friend well enough to follow along and cross paths enough to prop him up for more opportunities.
History
The foundation for the routine was created during production of Your Show of Shows where Reiner was an actor and Brooks was a writer. Reiner describes the first instance: It began as a joke between the two that was then shared at parties. Reiner started bringing a tape recorder to the parties as Brooks never said the same thing twice. Numerous people such as George Burns suggested to the two that they put their material on an album, but only Steve Allen managed to coax the two to come record it in his studio. Reiner recalls the moment he and Brooks realized the first album was going to be a hit:
Recordings and performances
Brooks and Reiner released five comedy albums. The 2000 Year Old Man character appeared on one track for each of the first three albums, and the entirety of the final two.
2000 Years with Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks
2000 and One Years with Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks
The last in the series won the 1998 Grammy Award for Spoken Comedy Album. The album 2000 Years With Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks was added to the Library of Congress' National Recording Registry as part of its 2008 selections. There have also been numerous compilation albums such as Best of the 2000 Year Old Man and Excerpts from The Complete 2000 Year Old Man. Their first television appearances performing the sketch were on The Ed Sullivan Show in February 1961 and then on The Steve Allen Show eight months later.
Animated special
A half-hour animated television special, The 2000 Year Old Man, premiered January 11, 1975. The dialogue for the special was performed before a live audience. This special has since been released on home video. The musical introduction was Bach's Sinfonia to Cantata #29 performed on a Moog synthesizer by Mort Garson. All five comedy albums were compiled and newly remastered on a 3-CD/1-DVD box set by Shout! Factory for the 50th anniversary. The 2000 Year Old Man: The Complete History DVD was released November 24, 2009, and features an interview with Reiner and Brooks; the 1975 animated 2000 Year Old Man television special, and clips of the two appearing on The Ed Sullivan Show and The New Steve Allen Show. Many of the jokes were eventually brought to the screen in Brooks' film History of the World, Part I.
Appearances in other media
Mel Brooks appeared as the 2000 Year Old Man to help celebrate the 2000th episode of the original Jeopardy! hosted by Art Fleming, in which the three highest-scoring undefeated champions at that point returned to play an abbreviated game for charities. During his pre-game appearance he recounted how the show was done 2,000 years earlier—"It wasn't this hippy-happy-dappy game you've got here … the moment you walked out of your cave—Jeopardy!" On the March 17, 2014 airing of the current Jeopardy! hosted by Alex Trebek, Brooks and Reiner read an entire category of clues as their characters. Mel Brooks adapted the character to create the 2500 Year Old Brewmaster for Ballantine Beer in the 1960s. Interviewed by Dick Cavett in a series of ads, the Brewmaster said he was inside the original Trojan horse and "could've used a six-pack of fresh air." In the episode of The Simpsons entitled "Homer vs. Patty and Selma", Mel Brooks appears as himself, riding in a limo being driven by Homer. After Homer incorrectly identifies the act as "The 2000-pound man thing," he and Brooks engage in a brief sketch, with Homer playing the part of Carl Reiner. When Homer is pulled over by the police, Chief Wiggum offers to give Brooks a ride and says they can do "the $2000-Man thing." Brooks agrees, but asks that he not play Reiner's part—"I hate Carl Reiner!" he says. In the episode of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip entitled "The Option Period", comedy writer Rick Tahoe uses The 2000 Year Old Man as an example of an ideal comedy sketch.
