# "The Producers" -  I am so confused!

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-producers-i-am-so-confused/141443>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [December 9, 2002, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-producers-i-am-so-confused/141443 "2002-12-09T04:26:58Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 2

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jab1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ee7513/32.png) [@jab1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jab1)\
**Post date:** [December 10, 2002, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-producers-i-am-so-confused/141443/21 "2002-12-10T01:51:25Z")

</div>

Hitler appears in _Blazing Saddles_. In the studio commissary, an actor dressed as Hitler is talking to a friend, telling him his last day on the picture is when they shoot “the bunker scene.”

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\
**Post date:** [December 10, 2002, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-producers-i-am-so-confused/141443/22 "2002-12-10T02:01:20Z")

</div>

> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Ukulele Ike \*  
> \*\*So. No one cares to straighten me out on the Pickle Joke Question? \*\*

In the remake of TO BE OR NOT TO BE, it’s the same as the cheese joke, except Charles-Durning-as-Officer-Erhardt says “the Fuhrer is going to be a pickle… because he is such a sourpuss!” (Of course later Mel-Brooks-as-Josef-Bromski-as-Adolf-Hitler confronts Erhard as in the original “So, you’re the one who is making pickle jokes about me!”.)

Generally speaking, the Brooks/Bancroft TBONTB is funnier, but the Benny/Lombard is better.

(I’d love to see Bancroft and Brooks reunite on screen in the movie version of CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES as Ignatius’s mother and her boyfriend, but that’s another post.)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\
**Post date:** [December 10, 2002, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-producers-i-am-so-confused/141443/23 "2002-12-10T03:10:34Z")

</div>

> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Sampiro \*  
> **the Brooks/Bancroft TBONTB is funnier, but the Benny/Lombard is better.**

Thank you for your help with the pickle joke, but I can’t agree with you on the above.

The remake has too much damn MUGGING going on, especially from Brooks and Bancroft. The original is played straighter by the leads, which allows the comic performances by Sig Rumann (Colonel Ehrhardt) and others to sparkle. “Zo…they call me CONCENTRATION CAMP Ehrhardt, eh? Har har har!” “I THOUGHT you’d react like that.”

Also, Bancroft may have better looked the part of a not-so-great Polish actress, but Lombard just looked…well, you know. Hubba hubba. I’d drop three tons on dynamite on her anytime.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\
**Post date:** [December 10, 2002, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-producers-i-am-so-confused/141443/24 "2002-12-10T03:17:59Z")

</div>

Oh, what I mean by “can’t agree” is that I’d argue the original is better AND funnier. Not that the remake isn’t worth seeing, of course.

[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-producers-i-am-so-confused/141443.md?page=1)