Mel Brooks to Donate His Expansive Career Archive to National Comedy Center in New York
Mel Brooks has donated his extensive career archive to the National Comedy Center in Jamestown, New York. The archive includes over 150,000 documents and 5,000 photographs, chronicling his journey from World War II to becoming a comedy icon. Brooks expressed pride in knowing his work will be preserved for future generations at a place meaningful to his late collaborator, Carl Reiner.
- ▪Mel Brooks donated over 150,000 documents and 5,000 photographs to the National Comedy Center.
- ▪The archive spans from his early notes during World War II to his iconic films in the 1960s and 70s.
- ▪Brooks emphasized the importance of preserving comedy's history, especially in honor of his friend Carl Reiner.
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| Original publisher | Variety |
| Canonical URL | https://variety.com/2026/biz/news/mel-brooks-archive-donate-national-comedy-center-jamestown-1236751304/ |
| Publication time | Sun, 17 May 2026 13:05:00 +0000 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-05-17T13:22:13.160Z |
| Last seen | 2026-05-17T13:22:13.160Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
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| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | v9K0sMafMKcm · 2 stories |
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| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
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| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
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Home Biz News May 17, 2026 6:05am PT Mel Brooks to Donate His Expansive Career Archive to National Comedy Center in New York Nonprofit based in Jamestown, N.Y. also houses the papers of Brooks' longtime collaborator Carl Reiner By Cynthia Littleton Plus Icon Cynthia Littleton Business Editor @Variety_Cynthia Latest How Stars Leverage Themselves as Investors: Serena Williams, Eva Longoria and Kevin Yorn on Venture Capital, Vision and Dealmaking 18 hours ago Before Cable Was Cool: Ted Turner Was a Visionary Maverick and Gift to Journalists 3 days ago LISTEN: Upfronts 2026: What We Learned From TV’s Biggest Platforms; Crafting the Music of ‘Heated Rivalry’ 3 days ago See All Getty Images Mel Brooks has donated his career archive of more than 150,000 documents and 5,000 photographs to the…
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