Free It's Good to Be the King: The Seriously Funny Life of Mel Brooks by James Robert Parish

would throw up bridges in advance of the infantry but mainly we would just throw up.”) En route to victory, Kaminsky and his fellow soldiers experienced several skirmishes with the Germans, who, by now, were largely in flight. “I mean, we were fired on by a lot of kids and old men who were left in the villages. They were called werewolves, snipers.”
    Sooner or later—even in the midst of the chaos of war—it was inevitable that Melvin’s zany personality would erupt in full force. At one juncture, when he and the others were playing cat-and-mouse with the German forces, the Nazis began blasting propaganda messages over powerful bullhorns, exhorting the Allied soldiers to surrender because they could not possibly win the war. The impulsive Kaminsky decided such nonsense deserved an appropriate retort. He scurried around and located a bullhorn of his own to offer the enemy a rendition of “Toot, Toot, Tootsie,” in Al Jolson “Mammy” style. One can only imagine what the bewildered Germans thought of this foreign-language assault on their ears. This was not would-be crooner Kaminsky’s only musical outing during World War II. One time back at base when he was assigned to odious latrine duty, he used the occasion to create a “melodious” diversion. He took Cole Porter’s popular tune “Begin the Beguine” and converted it into the satirical number “When We Clean the Latrine.”
    Melvin’s battlefield habit of making up and singing funny songs made perfect sense to him. It was his antidote to the terror of the wartime situation. “Some guy would say, ‘We’re gonna be killed; we’ll never get out of this war,’ and I’d say, ‘Nobody dies—it’s all made up.’ Because otherwise we’d all get hysterical, and that kind of hysteria—it’s not like sinking, it’s like slowly taking on water, and that’s the panic. Death is the enemy of everyone, and even though you hate Nazis, death is more of an enemy than a German soldier.”
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    When the war concluded, Melvin found himself with an offer he could not refuse. It was based on his reputation for being his barracks’ goofiest character, an unusual man who could find humor even in deadly chaos and who used his offbeat perceptions to amuse his fellow soldiers and keep up their morale. Kaminsky’s major suggested, “Melvin, why not stay with us and travel around providing the boys with entertainment?” It did not take the soldier long to accept the appealing gig.
    Not only was Melvin promoted to the rank of corporal, but he was issued a classic old Mercedes-Benz for his transportation. Rising to his elevated sense of self-importance, Kaminsky asked his commanding officer to assign him a soldier to be his chauffeur. While that request was vetoed, the major agreed to a compromise. Kaminsky was given a small allowance to hire a German civilian driver. Melvin detailed about his new job: “So I found a German fiddle player named Helga, who became my ‘chauffeuse.’ My official title was Noncom in Charge of Special Services, and I did shows for enlisted men and officers’ clubs. Sometimes for a whole division, with tens of thousands of people out front. I told big, lousy jokes. Every time Bob Hope came by, I would write down all his jokes and use them. Nothing frightened me. I sang like Al Jolson. Everybody could do the low Jolson, but I did the high Jolson that nobody else could do—things like ‘I love you as I loved you when you were sweet sixteen.’ People said they appreciated that. My chauffeuse played the fiddle for them, and together we fiddled in the back seat of the Mercedes.”
    Melvin had a wonderful time in his new capacity. “I used to go to Frankfurt with my special pass and obtain certain rare cognacs and stick them in my car. There wasn’t a nineteen-year-old soldier who got drunker than I did. Helga played Brahms’ ‘Lullaby’ beautifully. I’d say, ‘Pull over to the curb and play Brahms’