TV Commercial Production with Mel Brooks

Having been a devoted fan of

Mel Brooks

since the release of The 2,000 Year Old Man this event was a really big deal for me. I don’t idolize celebrities but I’m as close to that as I ever have been when it comes to Mr. Brooks. When this job came I had yet to enter into the business of  tv commercial production and when not on camera or hanging with Mel I endlessly pestered technicians with questions for two days.
“Although I had retired from theatrical work I had stayed active in S. A. G. and my commercial agent, Lester Lewis, was still on the job. He sent me up for a Bic pen commercial that was going to be directed by Mel Brooks. I didn’t usually get excited about commercial auditions. I just showed up with no expectation, did my best and learned a day or two later whether I got it or didn’t. This was different. I had practically memorized The 2,000 Year Old Man album and thought that The Producers was the funniest movie ever made. I was very exhilarated about this audition and determined to get the job.

“When I arrived at the casting office there were four or five other actors there, all of them muscular and burly. I signed in and asked for a script and was told that the audition would be improvisational. That was cool, I could improvise. Most commercial auditions were for casting directors so when my turn came I was “trilled and delighted” to meet Mr. Brooks himself. He was friendly, funny and immediately put me at ease. He told me he was looking for a caveman and asked me to “do” one and work in the words Bic and banana. I bent over in my best chimpanzee impression, scratched myself, pounded my chest and grunted a few non-words and included bic and banana while glancing over my shoulders for approaching predators.

“Mel roared with laughter and asked if I was available the next day to shoot a test for the client. I said I was. He went to the door and called the casting director over and said, “Send everyone home. I have my third caveman”. I was beside myself with elation. I was going to actually work with Mel Brooks. To quote Slim Pickens’ character from Blazing Saddles, ‘Piss on you. I’m workin’ for Mel Brooks!’

“The other two cavemen were Richard Dimitri, who went on to star in Mel’s Robin Hood sit-com, When Things Were Rotten, and a well known Italian-American character actor whose name escapes me.

“The next day the three of us, wearing hairy schmattas and under Mel’s zany direction, taped an imitation of the Andrews Sisters for the client who approved the casting.

CavemanJPG

“We shot the spot the following week at the old Filmways stage in East Harlem. I had never had so much fun on a shoot. Saying that Mel was easy to work with would be a gross understatement on every level. He was kind, open to any idea from us actors, completely supportive and, of course, hilarious. We tried all sorts of silly stuff, no two takes were alike and it all worked. He had recorded the voice-over and it was sometimes played back as we did takes, many of which were blown because one or all of us cracked up. We went into overtime both days but nobody seemed to care because the crew, the agency and the clients were all having a great time. You can see the final cut here.

“… The bonus on this job was two days with several hours of overtime and it paid the bills for a couple of months.”

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