Mlle Pheonix Fox Presents...
A really long introduction! Trust me it'll be worth it. So I'm here with fictional ace reporter Warbara Balters who's here to ask me a few questions before we begin.
"Thank you Mademoiselle. Hello everyone in cyberspace, I'm Warbra Balters. Here with Mlle. Pheonix Fox, the fanfiction writer who's notorious for publishing multiple stories at once and then...leaving a slew of loyal fans hanging. So I suppose my first question Foxy is...what happened?" Warbara asked.
"Sigh...so many many things Warbra. First life happened. I graduated college and found myself working a full time job that left me little time to write. Then my computer died for a while and I had to use my parents computer to write. But they're really...protective of their computer so I couldn't stay on there long enough to write. Finally...I had a bad case of the plot bunnies." Fox replied.
"And for those new to fan fiction, that's when you get too many ideas for stories at once." Warbara explained.
"Right. Nasty evil critters. They give you great ideas...great beginnings...but that's it. You have to stop one story to start another...then another...Until finally it results in writers block." Fox added.
"So how did you get over it to write this story?" Warbara asked.
"Well it all began when I was watching 'The Producers' 2005 musical on dvd. I had the movie for a while, but I just decided to watch it. Then I wondered what kind of fan fiction was out there for this, but all I could find was under the original play section and then less than 200 stories...most of them slash stories." Mlle. Fox began.
"Now you don't like slash stories why?" Warbara asked.
"Well it's not because I'm a homophob...I wouldn't be able to write this story and Roger and Carmen if I was. It has more to do with the fact that I don't like it when writers feel the need to change a character's sexual perference for the sake of their own fantasy. I mean I get the whole fantasy aspect. I wouldn't write Jack Sparrow/OC fiction if I didn't. I guess it's just getting too far away from the canon for me. Plus no offense to those other writers out there, but the few slash stories I have dared to glance at, aren't written very well. They focus more on the sex. Maybe it's the fact that I feel if you're going to change a character's sexual perference, you should keep the character in character as much as possible." Mlle. Fox said.
"Alright...that pet peeve out of the way...now back to why you wrote this story." Warbara said.
"Well I felt this genre needed some love. And Max Bialystock is my favorite character so I felt that he needed some love too...I.E. a love interest of his own under the age of 85. So I began to play around with the idea of retelling the Producers with an OC. Which I'm still working on by the way. So I got the original cast recording of the Broadway show and listened to it on the way to work. Now Christmas was coming up at this time, and since I'm thinking about Max Bialystock's character for this other story, I began to dig deeper and ask myself questions about his past. I was heavily influenced by the bit of dialouge in 'the King of Broadway', and 'Betrayed' and Max's part in 'Till Him'. And then one day it occured to me, Max Bialystock would make a great Scrooge. He had a departed mentor who taught him the business, and since we know Max isn't that moral, the mentor Boris must have been just like him if not worst." Fox said.
"So he became the Jacob Marley to Max's Scrooge." Warbra nodded.
"Right. And soon I found myself just writing and writing and writing and soon the story was done." Mlle. Fox said with a smile.
"It helps that everyone knows the story of 'A Christmas Carol' already." Warbara said.
"Helped me." Mlle. Fox said with a laugh.
"So what's your version of 'A Christmas Carol' about?" Warbara Balters asked.
"It takes place in 1959, the Christmas after the events of the first movie. The cast and crew are getting ready for a special performance of 'A Christmas Carol' and Max is being a real Scrooge. So it's no surprise when the ghost of his mentor Boris Tomashevski shows up and tells him he'll be haunted by three spirits so he can change his ways." Mlle. Fox said.
"So it follows the traditional format of 'A Christmas Carol'. What makes this 'The Producers' version besides the characters themselves?" Warbara asked.
"Mel Brooks once said that 'The Producers' was his love letter to Broadway. Well this story is my love letter to Mel Brooks movies. I've always been a fan of his movies and their humor really influenced my writing. So I really made an effort to make it seem as if Mel Brooks was writing this story and not me. There are dirty jokes that aren't that dirty, cheap slapstick, breaking the fourth wall, yiddish...everything you think of when you think of a Mel Brooks movie." Mlle. Fox said.
"Now isn't it true that you wrote all the songs in this story?" Warbara asked.
"Yes! I'm proud of myself. This is a songfic with original songs. I did adapt the 'Goodbye song' at the end, to make it more Christmasey, but that's it. If they're good songs I don't know...I just tried to find words that rhymed. Ha ha ha!" laughed Mlle. Fox.
"Now you said this movie has everything a Mel Brooks movie has. Does it have heart?" Warbara asked.
"Of course. First of all 'A Christmas Carol' is about redemption and the true meaning of Christmas. It's so powerful that it shines through even in a parody." Mlle. Fox paused to fan her face and wipe the tears falling from her eyes. "I promised myself I wouldn't cry... And it's just something I've noticed about Mel Brooks work. Even though it is a parody, if he's making an adaptation of a well known story, he stays true to the plot and the heart of the orginal piece. Best example would be Young Frankenstien. One scene featured the Creature singing 'Puttin' on the Ritz', the next included the scary scene of the Creature murdering someone. And then the Creature finds his own humanity at the end. So I felt that if this was to be as if Mel Brooks was writing it, I should stay true to 'A Christmas Carol' and the warmth it brings." Fox said.
"Terrific. So who's starring in your version of 'A Christmas Carol'?" Warbara asked.
"The cast of the 2005 movie musical version. Because I never got the opportunity to see the show live. So in no particular order we have..."
Nathan Lane as Max Bialystock
Matthew Broderick as Leo Bloom
Uma Thurman as Ulla
Will Ferrell as Franz Liebkind
Gary Beach as Roger De Bris
Roger Bart as Carmen Ghia
Eileen Essell as Hold Me-Touch Me
Brent Barrett, Peter Bartlette, Jim Borstlemann, and Kathy Fitzgerald as Brian, Kevin, Scott and Shirley Markowitz, Roger De Bris' production crew
and also featuring
Mel Brooks as Boris Tomashevski ('cause who else ya gonna get to play an dead producer?)
Cloris Leachman as the Ghost of Christmas Past (Mel Brooks movie alumni and if you don't get the running gag I have with her character shame on you)
Gene Wilder as Uncle Gabe (Mel Brooks movie alumni and the original Leo Bloom, just for the novelty of the cameo)
Megan Mullally as the Ghost the Christmas Present (Mel Brooks Broadway alumni, caught you tube videos of her as Elizabeth in Young Frankenstein on Broadway, love her anyway and she looks good as a redhead)
Nicey Nash as the Ghost of Christmas Future (Not related to Mel Brooks in any way, but I could see her doing a Mel Brooks movie. She's funny and she can sing. So there you go.)
and because I love my OC's,
Idina Menzel as Isabelle, Max Bialystock's long lost love (Also not related to Mel Brooks, but she's a Broadway darling and she's forty so she's not too young to play opposite a young looking 55 year old Nathan Lane)
Jared Gilmore as Timmy (the kid from Once Upon a Time, he's cute but wise enough to be my Tiny Tim)
Catherine Zeta Jones does a cameo as Mrs. Bialystock, Max's mom
and Jude Law does a cameo as Rodolpho, Hold Me-Touch Me's butler.
Everyone else...use your imagination."
"Wonderful. Anything else you'd like to add?" Warbara asked.
"Yeah of course I don't own anything related to the Producers, just my OC's, I don't own 'A Christmas Carol' just my original songs. Mel Brooks and the people who give him money to make movies and Broadway shows owns the rest. Oh and it's rated T for teen for a reason folks." Mlle. Pheonix Fox said to give the disclaimer.
"So I suppose my second to last question is since you changed your profile name to include a pheonix, which means a rebirth, will we be seeing more stories in the coming year?" Warbara asked.
"YES! I will make an hard attempt to finish my in progress stories and then I'll bring you new stories. One at a time though." Mlle. Fox replied.
"So then my last question is...if you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?" Warbara Balters asked.
"A Christmas tree!" Mlle. Fox exclaimed.
"Terrific. So here is the world premier of Mlle. Pheonix Fox's new story, 'The Producers Christmas Carol'." Warbara Balters introduced.
"Flames and kisses!" said Mlle. Pheonix Fox waving goodbye.