Plot summary

The movie opens with the opening night (which is also the closing night) of washed-up producer Max Bialystock's (Nathan Lane) latest Broadway endeavor, Funny Boy: A Musical Version of Hamlet. The crowd leaves the theater exclaiming about how awful the show was ("Opening Night").Later, Bialystock's new accountant, Leopold Bloom (Matthew Broderick), comes to check the books for Funny Boy. Leo's visit is interrupted when Hold-Me-Touch-Me (Eileen Essell), one of Max's elderly backers, stops by to drop off a "checkie" and play naughty games with Max. Leo confesses that he's always wanted to be a producer. However, he's extremely nervous -- he carries his blue baby blanket with him, rubs his face with it when he becomes anxious, and descends into full-blown hysterics when Max takes the blanket away. After calming down and looking at the show's books, Bloom gets an idea and muses that you could make more money with a flop than with a hit, though it would be illegal. Bialystock tries to convince the insecure Bloom to collaborate with him to put on the biggest flop in history, then take the money and go to Rio de Janeiro ("We Can Do It"), but Bloom refuses and goes back to his accounting firm.Leo finds himself unhappy with his job and fantasizes about being a Broadway producer ("I Wanna Be a Producer," a big production number with elaborate sets and chorus girls wearing costumes made of pearls -- a riff on the line "beautiful girls wearing nothing but pearls" from "We Can Do It"). He has an epiphany and quits, returning to Bialystock and agreeing to help him with his flop. They form a partnership, Bialystock & Bloom.Max and Leo search for the worst play ever written and settle on Springtime for Hitler, a "singing love-letter to Adolph Hitler"