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
John Morris (composer) to Independence, Kansas while he was young, and continued studying piano. By the late 1940s, he moved back to New York City, where he studied at both Juilliard School and at The New School for Social Research. From the 1950s through the 1970s, Morris helped to compose incidental music and dance numbers for a number of Broadway productions, including "Wildcat" (1960), "Hot Spot" (1963), "Baker Street" (1965), "Dear World" (1969), "Mack & Mabel" (1974), and "Hamlet" (1975). He had written and produced his own musical, "A Time for Singing", released in 1966. Morris worked with Mel Brooks, starting with Brooks'