Mel Brooks climbs the conductor's podium in the huge recording studio at Burbank Studios in Los Angeles and faces the sixty-six-piece orchestra that will play the score to High Anxiety.
Brooks sits at the soundboard and stares intently out the window at the orchestra, now on the twenty-ninth take of a thirty second bit of suspense music titled "Walking to the Violent Ward" (for what it accompanies in the picture). Switching on the microphone to Morris on the podium, Brooks is still dissatisfied. "The trombone is a little funny," he says. "We're setting the audience up for too big a joke with the buh-buh-buh." Morris nods and motions the orchestra to try again with less trombone. "It's the bassoon!" Brooks shouts after the thirtieth take. "I want the bassoon out! It is an intruder from nowhere!" Morris takes the orchestra through for the thirty-first time. "Everything is fine except for the dopey sound at the end. No offense." Brooks switches off the microphone. "No offense. You say cruel things and no offense is supposed to make it okay."
April 5, 1978
Ms. Michelle Stein
7 Flag Hill Road
Chappaqua,
New York 10514
Dear Michelle:
I loved your wonderful, funny and talented poem, "The Buffooned Bassoon." I also enjoyed your terrific little drawings all the way through.
Thank you for taking the time and trouble to be so creative on my behalf.
All the best,
Mel Brooks