Carl Reiner hopes to introduce new generation to Mark Twain

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. -- God, according to that noted expert on the deity, Carl Reiner, hates talking to anyone wearing a tongue ring.

Actually, it's Reiner who hates talking to anyone wearing a tongue ring. But that's the point. Since we are created in God's image, he must be a lot like us, Reiner reasons.

God, by the way, also hates it that comedies never win Oscars.

"That's from Mel," Reiner says, referring to his friend and sometime collaborator, Mel Brooks.

Reiner's musings on The Almighty, published in his 1999 book, "How Paul Robeson Saved My Life and Other Mostly Happy Stories," strike the same skeptical, irreverent tone often employed by his favorite author, Mark Twain.

Reiner has won 12 Emmys, mostly for his work writing "The Dick Van Dyke Show."

But only one award is on display in the living room of his Beverly Hills home -- the Kennedy Center's Mark Twain prize for American Humor, which he received in 2000.

"I want it out where I can see it," Reiner says. "I always felt a little bad about receiving it. There are many more great scholars of Mark Twain than me. I just love him."

Ambitious project

Reiner, who will turn 80 on Wednesday, is known as a television writer, actor, film director and author.

He is involved in an ambitious project: recording all Twain's writings.

He has done four books on tape so far. The latest, "Letters From the Earth," published by New Millennium Audio, was nominated for a Gramm this year. The second book, "The Prince and the Pauper," was nominated in 1996.

Reiner got hooked on Twain in 1950, when, as a 28-year-old writer on Sid Caesar's "Your Show of Shows," he first read "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court."

"I came to the office and I said, 'Did you guys ever read this?' They had all read it."

Then came Hal Holbrook's one-man show, which brought the cigar-smoking, mustachioed monologist to life. Reiner took his two children, then ages 8 and 10, to see Holbrook perform in New York.

"We went to that theater and I was transported back in time," Reiner says. "We were sitting in the second row when Holbrook came out. I sat there with my mouth open. It was mesmerizing."