The Producers

I doubt that there's another pseudo-financial blog that's actually mentioned Zero Mostel twice in the past month.

Strictly speaking, I wouldn't be included in that category, since its been nearly two months since I mentioned the legendary comic actor. But I really had no choice in my choice of words. It's not as if there's a reasonable alternative to "fortnight" when discussing monthly increments.

At the time, I'm not certain that I really paid appropriate homage to Mostel, since his reference was contained in a blog that was really about the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il and the market rally that his death spurred.

Sometimes getting lumped together takes away deserved focus.

For example, as focused as we were on the last days of a dying Farrah Fawcett, the fact that she ended up dying on the same day as Michael Jackson made her just a forgotten post-script to the story on that day and shortly thereafter..

Then, just as we were ready to pay her the attention and respect that she so deserved, we discovered that she died of "anal cancer." At that point we wanted to forget about her altogether.

Eeew.

Before it became a smash hit on Broadway, "The Producers" was a movie starring Zero Mostel.

In addition to being an hilarious movie, The Producers was able to make a mockery of an unrepentant New York Nazi at a time when World War II was still a reasonably fresh and painful memory.

In Gilbert Gottfried terms even the passage of a couple of minutes absolves someone from the  "it's too soon" complaint, but when it came to the Holocaust, 20 years was still too soon.

The fact that Mel Brooks, Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder were all Jewish probably helped to ease some of the discomfort with the concept, and besides, the late Kenneth Mars was a great wacky Nazi.

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