Print

Interviews

Articles

Books

Miscellaneous

Always...

Mel On-line

The Mel Brooks Webring

NPR All Things Considered May 14 2001

hosted by Robert Siegel
Recently transcribed by the Brookslyn webmaster!
Original audio available at NPR

Robert: This is All Things Considered from NPR news. I'm Robert Siegel. In Mel Brook's the Producers, a failing Broadway producer named Max Bialystock and his impressionable accountant Leo Bloom purposely over sell shares in a musical. It's a scam designed to net them millions provided the show bombs and the investors don't have to be paid. They set about finding the worst script, the worst director, the worst cast, a guaranteed flop, and they find a play certain to offend moral as well as asthetic sensibilities. A musical comedy by an unreconstructed Nazi, about Adolf Hitler.

[Plays Springtime for Hitler clip]

Robert: And of course the musical, Springtime for Hitler, succeeds, landing Bialystock and Bloom in prison. The Producers was a Mel Brooks movie in 1968. On Broadway today, it is a sold out blockbuster hit that has broken the record for Tony nominations, 15 of them, including one of which Mr. Brooks is especially proud of; He has been nominated for best original score, music and lyrics, written for the theatre.

Mel: The Producers begins with, uh, a little curtain raiser called "Opening Night." And we meet Max Bialystock with his latest venture, a show called "Funny Boy," a musical adaptation of Hamlet. So at least you get to meet, you get the texture, and uh the aura of Max Bialystock. And he launches himself into a song, a song of ya know, wild combination of hope and dispair. Ya know, it's a 12 line run which is not easy for anybody to [do]. Do you have the record there?

Robert: We do have it right here. I have... The King of Broadway.

Mel: It's the last phrase that Bialystock sings, against a kind of Russian-Jewish rub.

[Plays King of Broadway clip]

Mel: I haven't been this happy. This happy, since the uh the original shooting of the original Producers movie at Lincoln Center when the fountain went off and Gene Wilder said "I want, I want, I want everything I've ever seen in the movies." That was the happiest moment of my life.

Robert: That's 30 years ago, that's more than 30 years ago.

Mel: Yeah. And now here the circle's turned and come back. And here we are on Broadway and... here instead of Gene Wilder we have Matthew Broderick and instead of Zero Mostel we have Nathan Lane and those guys look like they were born to do it.

Robert: Now I just want to ask you one more thing.

Mel: Will you play the rest of it when I'm not talking? Promise me Siegel.

Robert: Yes (chuckling).

Mel: Watcha gotta do is, play some of these songs when I'm not here. I wanna win the Tony.

Robert: I understand.

Mel: And I can't win unless they hear the songs. Once they hear the songs, I think I will win.

Robert: Just so no one can say we broke our word to Mel Brooks, the Producers score includes, among other tunes, a very funny number in which director Roger DeBris, the worst director in New York, explains that a Broadway hit must be funny.

[Plays Keep it Gay clip]

Robert: And a love song that Brooks says is a inspired by all those old Rogers and Astaire numbers.

[Plays That Face clip]

Robert: And there's the song after Springtime for Hitler gets rave reviews as a satiric masterpiece as Bialystock and Bloom commiserate over their unintended success.

[Plays Where Did We Go Right? clip]

Robert: The Producers is one of four musicals nominated for its score. There's also "A Class Act", "The Full Monty" and "Jane Eyre." So Mel Brooks is doing some campaign outreach with the 710 Tony voters.

Mel: Don't you think Tony voters will probably be listening to All Things Considered? I mean we're not just Martini drunks. Ya know, they're up in the morning. They listen to, ya know, All Things Considered which is what, 4PM, they're up by four.

Robert: That's right they're probably up. And you think you might be able to influence their votes this way?

Mel: Yes, yes. They just finished throwing ice water over their heads to get over their Cosmopolitan rush they've done the night before.

Robert: Because as you've pointed out to me you're only one of several people nominated for the Tony.

Mel: I am only one. But I have a Grammy. Carl and I won that for the 2000 Year Old Man. I have two Oscars. I don't know if you know what their for. Do you know?

Robert: The Critic. Didn't you win an Oscar for The Critic?

Mel: Absolutely!

Robert: One of the greatest shorts ever made.

Mel: Yes, yes, that and the Fruit of the Loom are the best shorts I've ever made. And then I got an Oscar for the screenplay of the Producers.

Robert: So you want a Tony to complete a set, is what your saying.

Mel: And I've got three of four Emmys, Uncle Phil and the Sid Caesar Shows as a writer. So I mean it's the only major award I do not have. And do you know what I could get? Think about this? Siegel, Siegel, on eBay if I sold all 4 awards. All 4 Mel Brooks awards I could get over a hundred bucks, I mean easily, ya know. So, it would be, it would be nice to have. It would be nice.

Robert: Thank you very much for coming in to talk with us.

Mel: Anyway, it was a pleasure.

Robert: Mel Brooks, who wrote the music for the hit Broadway musical The Producers. Mr Brooks, we'll have to wait until June 3rd to see if this campaign for a Tony award has been successful. But there is no question of his success at the box office. Tomorrow on All Things Considered, the story of just how far one man went to get a fourth row orchestra seat for The Producers. Our program is directed by Marika Partridge. Edited by Mary Louise Kelly. Produced by Christopher Turpin. The technical director is Paris Morgan. And the production staff includes Art Silverman, Julia Redcaffe and Rhonda Ray. Our Executive Producer is Ellen Weise. I'm Robert Siegel and you're listening to All Things Considered from NPR news.

Please click here for corrections.