History Film / TheProducers

* DelayedOhCrap: Franz after noting "And zis IS ze quick fuse." -- ZE QUICK FUSE!?

-->'''Franz:''' Ha ha ha, ja ja, you see zis? You see zis here vat I have told you? Yeah, zis is an example of smartness here. I have said that zis is ze quick fuse. Huh? And zis IS ze quick fuse! ...[[DelayedOhCrap ZE QUICK FUSE!?]]

* BrickJoke: "Go to work." ''(Ulla plays go-go music, and dances.)''

--> '''Max:''' They are, huh? You ever ''eat'' with one?

* AsLongAsItSoundsForeign: The "Good Luck" song, where Max yells "guten lachen" in his string of good luck yells. [[BilingualBonus Guten lachen roughly translates to "good laughs."]]

* ObfuscatingStupidity: Considering how much Roger reveals himself to know throughout the movie, his various odd statements when they first meet seem far more like a test to see how Max and Leo will respond.

* ObfuscatingStupidity: Considering how much Roger reveals himself to know throughout the movie, his various odd statements when they first meet seem far more like a test to see how Max and Leo respond to such a ridiculous statement.

* TruthInTelevision: Because homophobia was so virulent in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, it was not uncommon for powerful gay men to "camp it up" and/or [[ObfuscatingStupidity "play dumb"]] around powerful straight men who wanted to work with them as a way to test who would be safe for them to work with and who would end becoming a potentially lethal problem for them. In this case, Max and Leo pass the test in proving that despite their obvious discomfort they will treat Roger and Carmen with respect (for the most part) and never prove to be a danger to them.

* LoadsAndLoadsOfRoles: Most productions of the musical call for a sparse cast for a cast of twenty, with each member of the ensemble playing at least four swing roles. This carried over to the 2005 movies, where Jim Borstelmann plays Scott the choreographer, Donald Dinsmore ("The Little Wooden Boy"), one of the little old ladies and a Bavarian peasant during the Springtime for Hitler number.

** [=DeBris=]' name [[BrickJoke is also Elizabeth]], but he doesn't seem too embarrassed by it. It's more there so Max and Leo can do a double take.

->''"The cast is great, the script is swell, but this we're tellin' you, sirs\\
It's just no go, you've got no show without The Producers!"''

* HereWeGoAgain: At the end of the movie, Leo and Max have been thrown in prison for fraud. Max is producing a new musical entitled "Prisoners of Love" with a cast selected entirely from the inmates...and Leo has already sold at least 150% of the proceeds to the prisoners and guards -- ''and the prison warden''.

* DitzySecretary: Ulla can't type, knows little English, and spends most of her time dancing. Max clearly hired her exclusively for her looks (and is also implied to be sleeping with her).

'''Carmen''': Oh, Roger, what alliteration!

* DenserAndWackier: While the original was pretty wacky when it wanted to be, it was fairly tame compared to what Mel Brooks would later direct. The 2005 version takes more of the larger-than-life aspects of the stage-musical; bombastic musical numbers, colorfully surreal set design, SurrealHumor, exaggerated characters and Creator/NathanLane and Creator/MatthewBroderick ham it up harder than Creator/ZeroMostel and Creator/GeneSiskel ever did.

* OverlyLongGag: Yesssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss...''sss?!''

* SubparSupremacist: Franz Liebkind is a devoted Nazi. But rather than living up to the Nazi ideal, he's a homeless nutcase who befriends pigeons and is a lousy playwright whose work can only be taken seriously if it is marketed as silly satire. He retracts his beliefs when he's seen in public.

* VillainProtagonist: Max and Leo may be funny, but they're both trying to defraud little old ladies.

* {{Camp}}: The production of "Springtime For Hitler" is over-the-top flamboyant, featuring ChorusGirls and tap dancers in Nazi uniforms, models in skimpy outfits inspired by German pretzels and beer, and pyrotechnics being shot from World War II tanks.
* CampGay: De Bris, and his assistant Carman Ghia. Picked by Bialystock as "the wrong director" that will utterly ruin the production.

* SexyWalk: Ulla, and she can't help it.

* RefugeInAudacity: The film itself. Creator/RogerEbert liked to tell a story of a time he overheard a woman confront Creator/MelBrooks in an elevator, saying, "Your film was nothing but vulgar!" Brooks responded, "Madam, my film rises below vulgarity."

* DorkAge: Max Bialystock appears to be going through an in-universe case of this at the time he meets Leo. By the end of the film he's implied to have come out of it.

* ShesGotLegs: Ulla definitely counts.