Paul Reiser: Thief or Genius?

I love Paul Reiser. I love him. He is delightfully Jewish and shockingly underrated. If you've ever watched Diner you know what I mean. I think his work on Mad About You was the perfect antidote to Helen Hunt's. Once, he was a co-host at a charity ball I played at, and he poked fun at Kenny G (major points gained there). He was a presenter, I believe, at the Emmys some years back. (1999, maybe?) Anyway, he introduced Heather Locklear (or maybe it was Sharon Stone?... It's ultimately unimportant). I only remember this because of something he said when he was introducing her. I believe it was: "There is more to her than a pair of legs that make you wanna jump up and sing Sweet Sue." He said it in his slightly sarcastic, boyish manner of speech that, incidentally, makes me want to jump up and sing Sweet Sue. I wasn't sure why that stood out in my mind as the only thing I remember from the 51st annual Prime Time Emmy Awards- until this morning.

I was lucky to be raised by a Near-Jew. My father, whose friends were all Jewish (he has collected, in his Library of Friends, such surnames as Kipper, Birnbaum, Horowitz, Kijner, and Ellenzweig. Not bad for a shaygitz!)surrounded me with books by Woody Allen, routines by comics such as Robert Klein, and the genius of Mel Brooks. This last thing in particular is important here. Young Frankenstein and History of the World, part I were entertainment staples when I was in middle school. On road trips, we listened, without fail, to The 2000 Year Old Man tapes. There were so many memorable lines from those tapes ("Let 'em all go to hell, except cave seventy-six!") that I was never without Brooks shtick in any social situation. But, as with any great comedic recording, there are always lines that you don't remember, and each time you listen to the record, you notice something for the first time.
This morning, I was listening to the "2000 and Six Months" track in the car on the way to work for the first time in maybe 7 or 8 years. Brooks got on the subject of early medical remedies. He was discussing the abilities of different trees and, to my surprise, offered this example: "There are certain trees that, you chew their bark, make you wanna jump up and sing 'Sweet Sue.'"

What?!

Paul Reiser had to have been listening to Brooks sometime before he made that speech, right? I mean, sure the actual subjects of each of those sentences are different, but the descriptions are identical!

Which leads me to my question. Is Paul Reiser a thief? I don't know. Maybe he stole it by accident- I do recall his delivery of the line being somewhat on the "stumbly" side of things. It could have just come out of his mouth in the heat of the moment. He hadn't planned to use Brooks' line, it just happened that way. Or, maybe he thought he could get away with it because America only remembers lines like "I have over forty-two thousand children. And not one of them ... comes to visit me." (Which is a brilliant line, by the way. I'm not actually sure if America has such good taste.) Heck, maybe he was just attempting to bring the line into colloquial English.

In any case, I can't blame him. It's a really good line. It's the kind of line that makes you wanna jump up and sing "Sweet Sue."