Like his hit musical "The Producers," Mel Brooks is an unlikely combination of innocent optimism, bawdy irreverence and unbridled chutzpah. And if, at age 75, Brooks is the bright new darling of the American theater, it's because he has spent a lifetime brazenly getting in our faces and shamelessly prodding us to laugh, and because, for all the alleged comedy in our must-see TV and Tom Green world, we're starved for real humor. We need Mel Brooks to make us laugh as much as he needs to make us laugh.

Melvin Kaminsky was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., in 1926, on, he has proudly noted, the 12th anniversary of the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand. His father died when he was 2. He was a poor, picked-on Jewish kid who, like so many great clowns, learned early to use comedy as a defense against bullies. By the time he was 14 he was already working his way up the comic ranks in the Catskills, pratfalling by the pools and lobbing barbs from the stage whenever a sympathetic hotel manager would let him.

He joined the Army at age 17 and became a combat engineer, fighting at the Battle of the Bulge. After the war, he went to work for his old Catskills buddy, Sid Caesar, and spent nine years writing for a string of his television series. It would prove a rich and ruthless training ground -- each week, Brooks was competing to get his gags on the air alongside those from youthful contenders like Neil Simon and Woody Allen. He couldn't just be funny, he had to be funnier than anybody else. It made him fearless to the point of frantic, and it solidified the "Bombard them with jokes till they cry 'Uncle'" style that would become his trademark.

It was during his apprenticeship with Caesar that he became friends with fellow comedic upstart Carl Reiner. When Reiner one day jokingly asked his pal if it was true he'd been present at the Crucifixion, Brooks took off with the bit and ran with it. Eventually Reiner's droll inquisitor and Brooks' aged observer made their way onto a series of comedy albums. To their surprise, the 2,000-Year-Old Man routine became a bestseller, and gave Brooks his first taste of fame.

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Brooks followed his albums by co-creating, with Buck Henry, the spoof series "Get Smart." A goofy blend of spy shtick and gimmickry, it lacked the brilliance of "Your Show of Shows," but it further established its creator's comedy pedigree. It genially mocked the notion of U.S. intelligence as intelligent, thumbing its nose at Cold War paranoia. But Brooks wanted more. He wanted, among other things, a real war to make fun of. And what better than the one he'd actually fought?

There was once a period when the name Hitler was not automatically associated with the word "springtime." The 1968 movie "The Producers" changed all that. The fractured tale followed two losers who conspire to make a million bucks by mounting Broadway's most spectacular flop. The production turns out to be "a gay romp with Adolf and Eva at Berchtesgaden" -- and an unlikely smash.

Today, it may be flying off the shelves at Blockbuster faster than "Gladiator," but in its initial release, "The Producers" was anything but a critical or box office success. Though the screenplay won an Oscar, critics scratched their heads, and moviegoers outside the Five Boroughs largely ignored it. Brooks' second film, "The Twelve Chairs," provoked even less reaction. His next career move, however, put him firmly at the forefront of American comedy.

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