The Book of Mormon (musical) with tyrannical, charismatic men with way too many children, our heroes... must confront a one-eyed, genocidal warlord with an unprintable name... That's enough to test the faith of even the most optimistic gospel spreaders (not to mention songwriters). Yet in setting these dark elements to sunny melodies "The Book of Mormon" achieves something like a miracle. It both makes fun of and ardently embraces the all-American art form of the inspirational book musical. No Broadway show has so successfully had it both ways since Mel Brooks adapted his film "The Producers" for the stage a decade ago." Jon Stewart, host
Mel Brooks with most of the same cast and writers (including Brooks and adding Larry Gelbart). "Caesar's Hour" ran from 1954 until 1957. Brooks and co-writer Reiner had become fast friends and began to casually improvise comedy routines when they were not working. Reiner would play the straight man interviewer who would set Brooks up as anything from a Tibetan monk to an astronaut. As Reiner explained, "In the evening, we'd go to a party and I'd pick a character for him to play. I never told him what it was going to be." On one of these occasions, Reiner's suggestion was