Hey, guess what TV show is making a comeback for one night. Okay, you saw the picture above, you know: On April 18 in Hollywood, a new episode of The Dick Cavett Show is being taped for Turner Classic Movies in what I'm told is an updated version of Mr. Cavett's old set. In September, TCM is going to begin airing a package of eight of Cavett's old shows spotlighting great stars of the silver screen, and added to the mix will be the new episode they're taping with Mel Brooks as the guest. This is because apparently TCM plans to blanket its schedule with Mel Brooks movies that month. Boy, would I like to see this lead to a steadier diet of Dick Cavett programs, both old and new. People forget what a really good interviewer he was.
Cavett and Brooks actually have a prior relationship. Many years ago, Mel did a series of radio commercials as The Two Thousand Year Old Man and because Carl Reiner was unavailable or uninterested (or both, I suppose), Dick Cavett was the interrogator. As I recall, he did quite well in a demanding job.
In other Brooksian news, we are hearing again that a musical version of Young Frankenstein will be making its way to Broadway before long. A lot of people I know have said they think this is bad idea but most of them felt a stage version of The Producers was a bad idea, so let's wait and see.
Also, a boxed set of Brooks movies has just come out and some people I know are more than a little pissed. It includes Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, Silent Movie, Robin Hood: Men in Tights, To Be or Not to Be, History of the World, Part 1, The Twelve Chairs and High Anxiety, all for (at Amazon) a little under seventy bucks. That doesn't sound bad if you love them all and haven't already bought some…but how many people are in that situation? I mean, it seems to me that if you had the slightest interest in a couple of those films you'd have purchased them by now.
Of these, High Anxiety, To Be Or Not To Be, Silent Movie and Robin Hood: Men In Tights have not previously been released on DVD. So should you be a Mel Brooks completist, you have to either buy a boxed set and pay for movies you've already bought…or wait until Fox Home Video gets around to issuing those four titles in individual releases. So what we have is another attempt to get us to buy movies we've already purchased, which seems to be the ongoing goal of the home video business.
And don't you just know that a couple years from now, they'll bring out The Complete (No Kiddin') Mel Brooks DVD Collection containing the remaining movies (Life Stinks, Spaceballs, etc.) and they'll put in bonus features and commentary tracks and newly-found outtakes to render the current set obsolete? Plus, of course, that'll be Blu-ray or high-def DVD, which are both plots to get us to buy everything another time. It's enough to make you re-enact the campfire scene from Blazing Saddles, all by yourself.