Mel Brooks pretends to be Hitler, catches Fallon off-guard (Video)

Mel Brooks did an impromptu Hitler impression on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, making it the perfect tribute to Gene Wilder.

Jimmy Fallon may not have had the most millennial-centric guests on so far this week, but he hit it out of the park with his Tuesday guest. Mel Brooks was booked in the wake of Gene Wilder’s death, and it ended up being classic.

Brooks may not be a household name anymore — and hasn’t been a box office success in decades — but the man is a living legend. The mind behind such classics as Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein and The Producers honored his late friend in a way only Mel Brooks could.

While talking about his movies with Fallon, Brooks took out a black comb and started fixing his hair. He subsequently did the most Mel Brooks thing ever with the comb — made it a Hitler mustache and started doing the ‘Seig Hiel’ salute.

Just watch:

What better way to honor Gene Wilder than to get into throwback Mel Brooks mode? The act of combing his hair was a direct tribute to Wilder, and it’s touching that Brooks would use the moment to help pass along another inside joke to his late friend. You can just imagine Wilder smiling at this if he were able to see it. That was the comedic chemistry that those two had and it’s incredibly heartbreaking that we’ll never see it renewed.

Also, props to Brooks for still coming off the top rope with the Hitler trolls. The man has been dead for over 70 years and Brooks still knows that a Jewish comedian trolling Hitler is still a powerful image.

Wilder may be gone, but his comedy lives on with Brooks and with the movies that they left us with in the brief but bright time they linked up early in their careers.