I want to get to the point where I can casually attach extra fingers at important events.
(screengrab via NY Daily News)
Mel Brooks had his hands and feet immortalized in the concrete outside the Mann's Chinese Theater in Hollywood. Wait, what year is it? It's 2014 and Mel Brooks hasn't had his handprints memorialized in cement for decades already? He has had a bronze star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for 4 years now, although 2010 also seems incredibly late for a man whose Oscar-nominated Young Frankenstein premiered 40 years ago. To reiterate: the Chinese Theater has the hand/shoe prints, the Walk of Fame is made up of bronze stars.
I desperately need to wash my hands. pic.twitter.com/fKVl4FyMFt
— Mel Brooks (@MelBrooks) September 8, 2014
Still, the 88-year-old Brooks hasn't lost his touch, and even gained some by adding a prosthetic sixth finger to his left hand in order to make his submission for the sidewalk, y'know, funnier than everyone else's. He explained what he did on Conan later last night:
Before bringing his father onstage, Mel's son Max Brooks, author of World War Z,told the crowd "About time, huh? Comedians never get their fair share of recognition in Hollywood. How often does a comedy get best movie of the year?" The answer, if you exclude dramas with comedic elements, is six times, the last of which was Annie Hall in 1977.
His brief speech welcoming everyone to "this wonderful charade" was, as you would hope, full of quick jokes and self-awareness as he discussed arriving in Los Angeles from Brooklyn in 1952 and how the Chinese Theater became a personal landmark for him, reminding everyone that it is where bad guy Hedley Lamarr is shot at the end of Blazing Saddles, falling next to the prints of Douglas Fairbanks and asking "How did he do such fantastic stunts with such little feet?" before expiring.
I just now noticed that he underlined the L in Hedley.
The comedian, actor and director also told the crowd that he was wearing shoes given to him by George Raft (best known as Spats Colombo from Some Like It Hot) in 1948. It's fortunate that the late Raft can't complain however, since Brooks later tweeted that they would never be the same.
(by Johnny McNulty)