“That was really f---ing terrible and hilarious,” the comedian says in the new documentary “Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man.”

Dave Chappelle made a Mrs. Robinson joke when he met Anne Bancroft — it didn’t go over well

"That was really f---ing terrible and hilarious," the comedian says in the new documentary "Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man."

By Wesley Stenzel

Wesley Stenzel is a news writer at **. He began writing for EW in 2022.

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January 19, 2026 6:00 p.m. ET

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Dave Chappelle in August 2025; Anne Bancroft in 'The Graduate'. Credit:

Arturo Holmes/Getty; Silver Screen Collection/Getty

- Dave Chappelle worked with Mel Brooks on *Robin Hood: Men in Tights*.

- Brooks once introduced Chappelle to his wife, Anne Bancroft.

- Chappelle made a joke in reference to *The Graduate*, which Bancroft and Brooks did not find funny.

And here's to you, Mrs. Robinson.

In HBO's documentary *Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man *(out Jan. 22), Dave Chappelle recalls spending time with Mel Brooks, who directed him in *Robin Hood: Men in Tights* — and though he's enjoyed a lovely relationship with the *Blazing Saddles* filmmaker, he didn't make a good first impression on his wife, Anne Bancroft.

"Sometimes he'd take me to lunch, and his old friend Carl Reiner was directing a movie on the next soundstage, and then at some point," Chappelle says, "the two of them started doing the '2000 Year Old Man,' the greatest comedy routine by two of the greatest comics, and me as the audience. I’ll never forget it.'"

Dave Chappelle in Pasadena in February 2025.

Leon Bennett/Getty

Chappelle doesn't treasure the memory of meeting Bancroft for the first time.

"Then I met his wife. She comes and says, ‘Oh, Mel says so many wonderful things about you,'" Chappelle remembers. She goes on and on and gushes about how much she likes me."

Chappelle then attempted to cleverly respond with a not-so-subtle reference to *The Graduate*, Bancroft's most iconic movie project. " I go, ‘Oh, you’re not trying to seduce me, are you, Mrs. Robinson?’" he remembers. "Not thinking that she’s heard that joke a million times. Nothing. Silence."

The comedian says that the only audible sound came from one of Chappelle's *Men in Tights* costars.

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"All you could hear was Dom DeLuise’s labored breath," he says. "That was really f---ing terrible and hilarious."

Bancroft was just 36 when she portrayed Mrs. Robinson, the older woman who has an affair with young college grad Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman), in 1967's *The Graduate*. She died at 73 in 2005 — which means she spent more than half of her life enduring *The Graduate* jokes.

Anne Bancroft and Mel Brooks in Los Angeles circa 2003.

Jon Kopaloff/FilmMagic

Brooks and Bancroft met in 1961 during a rehearsal for Perry Como's variety show *Kraft Music Hall.* They married in 1964, and welcomed their only child together, *World War Z *author Max Brooks, in 1972.

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Bancroft appeared in Brooks' films *Silent Movie*, *To Be or Not to Be*, *Blazing Saddles*, and *Dracula: Dead and Loving It*. She also acted in *The Elephant Man*, which he produced, and acted alongside her husband in episodes of *Curb Your Enthusiasm* and *The Simpsons*. **

*Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man* premieres on HBO Max on Thursday, Jan. 22.

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