LOS ANGELES – Mel Brooks would love to see a run on the new DVD collection of eight of his gleefully manic movie comedies, including “Blazing Saddles,” “Young Frankenstein” and “High Anxiety.”

“I think people should buy 20 of them. Buy 20 and save a lot of them for Christmas presents. Who knows how many of these they make? They might be gone,” Brooks said, and not entirely in jest.

It’s not that Brooks, 79, who turned his 1968 film “The Producers” into a Broadway money-making machine, could be financially strapped. Profit isn’t the issue for him, he said.

“I want these movies to be seen. Nobody has seen ‘The Twelve Chairs’ or ‘Silent Movie,'” he said, naming two of the hard-to-find titles in the boxed set out this week.

Brooks is especially fond of 1970’s “The Twelve Chairs,” which is based on an early 1900s novel by two writers in the new Soviet Union who “were like me – they were crazy. They were tongue-in-cheek comedy writers,” he said.

Brooks recognized back then that the film, which was made in Yugoslavia for less than $1 million, was “a great indulgence, because I didn’t think anybody would go for it.” Time has most certainly proved him wrong.

“Through the years, I keep getting letters: ‘My favorite movie of all the movies you’ve done is “The Twelve Chairs.” Not only is it funny but it’s moving, it has heart,'” Brooks said, reciting a typical mash note.

“You never know. You never know,” he mused.

He is certain, though, about what helped shape his approach to comedy. As a newcomer, he shared writing duties on Sid Caesar’s classic ’50s sketch series, “Your Show of Shows,” with other humorists destined for fame, among them Neil Simon, Larry Gelbart and Carl Reiner.

Brooks recalled that they were all heavily influenced by Max Liebman, the producer of “Your Show of Shows.”