On this day in 1968, AVCO EMBASSY released THE PRODUCERS. Written and directed by MEL BROOKS, this shocking exercise in bad taste turned out to be just what the audience ordered…once word of mouth got around. ZERO MOSTEL and GENE WILDER star as a down-on-his-heels Broadway producer and his timid accountant who concoct a plan to mount a theatrical flop for profit. Looked at with reverence for decades, BROOKS went on to reinvent it as a mega-successful Broadway musical and then another film. Comic genius of the first order.