Studio 360 Kurt Anderson on Mel Brooks

   On today’s Studio 360 radio program 4/18/15 Spring Special Kurt Andersen started a question of Mel Brooks with the phrase,
“So you’re in the writer’s room of Your Show of Shows and…” then he asked how The 2000 Year Old Man comic routine got started. An excellent question at the start of an excellent interview.
   But… He missed a trick when he did not ask how Brooks got to be a writer on Your Show of Shows.
   Sid Caesar’s “Show” was the most popular program on TV (at a time when TV was just getting started).   

The 2000 Year Old Man was a groundbreaking moment in mid-century comedy, but the aim of that part of the Andersen's interview was to discover how Brooks got started. What were things like in the salad days?
The atomic moment, the big break, was not The 2000 Year Old Man but it was getting the start with Sid Caesar. The first question should have been, “How did you get to be a writer on Your Show of Shows? How did you get into the writers room?