The 10 Funniest Moments In Mel Brooks Movies, Ranked

Mel Brooks is the ultimate maestro of comedy that has provided the biggest laughs in cinema since the 1960s. We rank his funniest scenes.

Some filmmakers make an imprint on humankind by creating different worlds and characters that inspire audiences to think outside the box and conjure up emotions that have been lying dormant for years. Then along comes Mel Brooks who delivered the absolute best medicine – laughter.

The EGOT winner has parodied different genres and time periods including a musical about Hitler, an adventure in space, Universal monsters, and more. No matter what category Brooks is tackling, there is a ton of hilarious jokes in each of his films that bring gigantic smiles and belly-aching laughs.

10 Marcel Marceau Speaks in Silent Movie

With the huge success of Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein, Mel Brooks decided to take on the silent film era with his new comedy Silent Movie, which followed a trio of best friends (Brooks, Dom Deluise, and Marty Feldman), who set out to make a silent movie with the biggest stars in Hollywood in order to save a film studio.

True to its title, Brooks made the entire film silent with the exception of one spoken word, which was ironically uttered by the famous French mime Marcel Marceau in a brilliant scene that still evokes laughter and shock.

9 Harker Gets a Face Full of Blood Twice in Dracula Dead and Loving It

Dracula Dead and Loving It has buckets full of laughs and blood. These two ingredients mix well together in one particular scene that is funny on several different levels. Professor Van Helsing (Brooks) is asking Harker (Steven Weber) to kill a vampire via a stake through the heart.

The small Van Helsing is hiding behind the door as the big, strong Harker is driving this wooden object straight into his victim when what seems like a swimming pool amount of blood is released onto Harker. Van Helsing steps back into frame asking, “one more time”, then quietly steps out of frame again. Harker reluctantly gives the bloodsucker another stab and the same amount of blood spews right into his face.

8 Frankenstein Meets a Blind Man in Young Frankenstein

The funniest moment isn’t with Gene Wilder here. It’s with Gene Hackman, which some usually forget that he’s even in this film. The amount of silly humor in this short scene is outstanding and works perfectly with the nuanced performances of Hackman and Peter Boyle.

In the clip, Hackman plays a lonely, blind man who wishes for a friend. Enter the monster, who Hackman welcomes with open arms. The blind Hackman serves soup, toasts a drink, and lights a cigar, all of which go horribly wrong for the monster as he screeches in pain. Even the small subtle joke of the blind man saying, “Let me see”, is flawlessly delivered and brings up a good question as to why Hackman was never in more comedies.

7 “I’m Richer” in Life Stinks

Brooks went to the riches to rags tale with Life Stinks, where he played a billionaire who cared nothing for others or the environment. After a bet with a rival businessman that had him play a homeless man for a month, this character learned that there are more important things in life than material objects. It’s one of the few of Brooks’s films that has a heartfelt message underlying all the humor and satire.

In this brilliantly funny scene, Brooks gets into a heated argument on the streets with another homeless man on who is richer. It quickly devolves into a Three Stooges WWE match as the two slap, hit, and push each other into metal fences.

6 The Last Supper in History of the World Part 1

Of course, Mel Brooks was up to the task of telling the religious origins of our planet in his own unique way. The film plays out like a sketch comedy series that tells a lot of stories from the bible, including how the fifteen commandments, no sorry, the ten commandments were made. The funniest moment comes in at The Last Supper, which seems like a comedy improv assignment where a “What If?” scenario plays out. What if the famous Last Supper had an annoying waiter asking guests what kind of soup they wanted or if there will be separate checks?

What follows is the simple ordinary dialogue that could be encountered in everyday life, but when set against the Last Supper with Jesus, it’s comedy gold.

5 The Scheme is Hatched in The Producers

Nobody thought that Mel’s directorial debut about a Broadway musical called Springtime for Hitler would be a success, but absurdly it was. He even won an Oscar. The whole point of the story was to make such a horrible stage production that would fail so that you could reap the insurance benefits. Gene Wilder as Leo Bloom and Zero Mostel as Max Bialystock make for the perfect comedic duo here, consistently playing off each other’s unique brand of comedy.

In this sequence, the fraudulent scheme is devised, which sends both characters into an opposite reaction, including high pitch screaming, face slaps, and getting wet.

4 Nurse Charlotte Diesel in High Anxiety

Perhaps one of the greatest characters ever created, Nurse Charlotte Diesel played by Cloris Leachman still musters up some of the biggest laughs in cinema. She is truly an underrated character, which Leachman just owns every time she’s on-screen. High Anxiety is Brooks’s foray into the thriller-noir genre with a wonderful cast of characters and some hilarious jokes throughout.

If you think Nurse Ratched is bad, wait until you meet Nurse Diesel. It turns out that Nurse Diesel is into BDSM and torture, particularly with her boyfriend Dr. Montague (Harvey Korman). The funniest moment being a dinner scene as Nurse Diesel almost feeds the good doctor, but then laps up her spoonful of food herself with the appropriate loud slurps.

3 Pay the Toll in Robin Hood Men in Tights

Kevin Costner made Robin Hood the big hit of the early 1990s, so it was only fitting that Mel Brooks expressed his parody of the classic tale. Still to this day, the absolute funniest moment in this movie comes when Robin (Cary Elwes) tries to cross a small two-inch stream with his comrades.

Little John (played by the large Eric Allan Kramer) challenges him to a fight in order to cross the tiny stream of water. After a broken stick war, this large man falls into the 20inch deep water and screams bloody murder in fear that he will drown. The sheer physical comedy of the scene is pure genius and is still as funny as it was in 1993.

2 The Sherriff Arrives in Blazing Saddles

It’s supremely difficult to pick the funniest scene in a movie like Blazing Saddles, Mel’s love letter to the western genre. The best joke in the film has to be the arrival of the new Sherriff (Cleavon Little). From the moment that Gabby Johnson yells from the roof, “The Sherriff is a BING”, the laughs start rolling in.

Then, Sherriff Bart is met with guns in his face, racial slurs, and hostile abuse. In retaliation, Bart holds himself hostage in a cheeky display where he puts a gun to his own head and acts as two people until he ends up safely inside his new office. Breaking the fourth wall, he looks into the camera and states “You are so talented and they are so dumb.” It’s a joke that works on multiple levels and is one of the best scenes in the film.

1 The A**hole Joke in Spaceballs

This old-school joke that has been around for many years was perhaps best shown in Spaceballs, which is Brooks’s take on Star Wars. To intimidate the princess, Dark Helmet’s crew starts firing lasers at her, which infuriates him, because he thinks they’ll kill the Princess before he gets the combination to Planet Druidia’s air-shield.

Come to find out, most of the people aboard Spaceball 1 have a common last name: “A**hole”. This prompts Rick Moranis to use the famous line, “I knew it, I’m surrounded by Assholes.” The whole scene is about 40 seconds long but is a prime example of timeless and brilliant comedy.

About The Author

Bryan Kluger
(34 Articles Published)

Former husky model, real-life Comic Book Guy, genre-bending screenwriter, nude filmmaker, hairy podcaster, pro-wrestling idiot-savant, who has a penchant for solving Rubik’s Cubes and rolling candy cigarettes on unreleased bootlegs of Frank Zappa records.

Bryan has been in front and behind the camera since the early ’90s and is the head film critic on Boomstick Comics, High Def Digest, and also leads multiple podcast shows related to film, TV, music, and pro-wrestling (My Bloody Podcast, The Celebrity Hour, NO BS Podcast.)

He can be found writing screenplays, serving as Deejay at iconic bars and clubs in the Dallas area, and playing video games on Twitch.

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