Mel Brooks Talks Bringing 'THE PRODUCERS' to Berlin

The Associated Press spoke to comedy legend Mel Brooks about bringing his hit musical "The Producers" to Berlin and the comic key to mining the Third Reich for laughs in the German capital.

Brooks, 82, was a U.S. army engineer in Germany for 3 1/2 months at the end of World War II, assigned tasks including tracing land mines and building bridges over streams.

"It was very dangerous," he recalled in a telephone interview to the AP. "Every once in a while we'd be so close to the Germans that they would sing something in German and I would pick up a megaphone loudspeaker and I would sing 'Toot Toot Tootsie Goodbye,' the Al Jolson song, and at the end of it I could actually hear applause. They liked my impression of it."

To read the entire AP interview with Mel Brooks click here.

"The Producers" will open at Berlin's Admiralspalast Theater on Friday, May 15th, 2009.

Mel Brooks' The Producers is based on the 1968 comedy classic of the same name. Down-and-out producer Max Bialystock and his nebbish accountant, Leo Bloom concoct a seemingly fool-proof plan to get rich quick by putting on the biggest flop Broadway has ever seen! It seems like such a simple plan...but you know what they say about the best laid plans. When their sure-to-fail musical turns out to be a sure-fire hit, all hell breaks loose!

The Producers original Broadway run garnered a record 12 Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best Book, Orchestrations and Original Score.

Photo Credit: Peter James Zielinski