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
A Broadway Musical Gussow, in his review for "The New York Times", wrote that the idea was to write a spoof of Broadway intrigue and duplicity; "cynicism is rampant." There are jokes about blacks on Broadway, Jewish theater party women and lawyers with "steel clauses." The lyrics are not funny. Finally, Gussow wrote: "The cast performs with eagerness, even as the show sinks." Julius Novick of "The Village Voice" called it "the best Broadway musical since "Platinum"," a disaster that had opened the month before. Critic and theatre historian Ken Mandelbaum has described the show as "a genuine turkey... hopeless... [a] well-meaning but