Today's Bonus Video Link

This is eighteen minutes from the stage version of the musical version of The Producers…and what's interesting about it is that, first of all, it's the "Springtime For Hitler" number and what led up to it. And secondly, it's in German. This is from the Berlin production which was from all reports a huge hit. It's one thing for us in this country to laugh at Hitler and the Nazis. It's another thing — and arguably a good thing — for them to be howling over there.

Also, this version includes a chunk of the number that was in the show when it tried-out in Chicago but cut once they got to New York. In this section, the guy playing Roger DeBris playing Hitler is strutting about on stage and a chorus lady — the actress playing Ulla playing a Nazi — announces, "Clear the way for the challenge dance." Then one by one, actors playing Stalin, Churchill and then F.D.R. come out and try to out-dance Hitler but the Führer defeats them all.

The sequence got a lot of laughs in Chicago but not enough. At one point, they tried changing Roosevelt — who of course had to do his part of the tap-dancing contest from a wheelchair — to Uncle Sam who was free to dance upright. The actor, Jeffrey Denman, was wearing a Nazi outfit in the first part of the number with most of the Uncle Sam costume on under it. So he would dance as a Nazi, then run offstage and strip his Kraut garb off to dance as Uncle Sam, then rush offstage to become a Nazi again.

Anyway, it didn't work so they went back to Roosevelt before cutting the whole challenge dance sequence. But if you watch this video, you'll see Stalin, Churchill and F.D.R. are back in. One wonders if it was funnier to a German audience than to an American one and if so, why. One also wonders how the music score for the excised portions were obtainable…