Mel Brooks was so brazen in its satire that major studios would not touch it, nor would many exhibitors. Brooks finally found an independent distributor who released it as an art film, a specialized attraction. In 1968, Brooks received an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for the film, beating such writers as Stanley Kubrick and John Cassavetes. "The Producers" became a smash underground hit, first on the nationwide college circuit, then in revivals and on home video. Brooks later turned it into a musical, which became hugely successful on Broadway, receiving an unprecedented twelve Tony awards. With the moderate financial success of
All American (musical) between the numbers. All American (musical) All American is a musical with a book by Mel Brooks, lyrics by Lee Adams, and music by Charles Strouse. Based on the Robert Lewis Taylor 1950 novel "Professor Fodorski", it is set on the campus of the fictional Southern Baptist Institute of Technology: the worlds of science and sports collide when the principles of engineering are applied to football strategies, and football strategies are used to teach the principles of engineering. The techniques of a Hungarian immigrant, Professor Fodorski, prove to be successful, resulting in a winning team, and he finds himself the