Melvin James Kaminsky, known professionally as Mel Brooks, is an American actor, comedian, songwriter, director, and screenwriter, who is best known for creating broad film farces and comic parodies. He directed Young Frankenstein and Spaceballs, and was the writer of the early variety show Your Show of Shows. He also created, with Buck Henry, the NBC/CBS hit comedy series Get Smart (1965–1970). Additionally, he is well-known for voicing Bigweld in Blue Sky's 2005 animated film Robots, Albert Einstein in DreamWorks' 2014 film Mr. Peabody & Sherman, and Vlad Dracula in Sony Pictures' Hotel Transylvania franchise.
For Disney, he voiced Grandpa Mel in Special Agent Oso and Melephant Brooks in Disney/Pixar's 2019 film Toy Story 4 and the Disney+ short series Forky Asks a Question (both characters being parodies of himself). He also played the film director in Mickey's Audition, as well as appeared as himself in Mickey's 50. Additionally, he developed a cancelled horror-comedy attraction for Disney's Hollywood Studios entitled "Hotel Mel", which ended up becoming the inspiration for The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror.
His song "The French Mistake" was featured in the 2004 Disney animated feature film Home on the Range.
