How do you incorporate Adolf Hitler, a couple of flamboyantly gay men, a fat crook and a skinny accountant into a Broadway hit? Mel Brooks has answered that question in "The Producers" - the biggest Tony award-winning Broadway musical in history.

The story has an even more ridiculous plot than the silly characters it stars, and yet, it's still genius.

Max Bialystock, a forgotten producer, is trying to put on one last Broadway hit and make money while doing it. When he meets Leo Bloom, the two think up a plan to make more cash. In their crazy quest of searching for the worst play ever, they stumble across "Springtime for Hitler" - a musical that explores Hitler's more "sensitive" side. With neo-Nazi Franz Liebkind playing Hitler, and the worst director in Broadway hired to work the musical, Max and Leo are sure they're in for an all-time flop.

The characters are absurd. Max, played by understudy Michael McCormick, plays sex games, like "the weak milk-maid and her strong knight," with little old ladies who help fund his plays. Leo, played by Alan Ruck, goes psycho when anyone touches his "blue blankie," but Franz, played by Barry Pearl, takes the cake.

Franz adores Hitler and is determined to show the world Winston Churchill and Teddy Roosevelt were the true spineless enemies of World War II. Hitler, he says, was an artist.

In one scene of "Springtime for Hitler," the characters, dolled-up in Nazi uniforms with red arm patches, line up for a song and march in the shape of a swastika - the Nazi symbol. All the while, a blinking sign is in the air that spells out "Hitler."

A normal reaction to such scenes would probably be a stunned and wide-eyed expression, but it's too hard to laugh at the absurdity of it all with your jaw dropped open.