Only Murders In The Building's Biggest Cameo Yet Is A Brilliant Meta Joke
"Only Murders in the Building" season 3 has a few songs in its heart. A musical theatre aficionado will have a ball with season 3 of "Only Murders in the Building," thanks to Oliver Putnam (Martin Short) converting his outlandish murder-mystery play "Death Rattle" into a musical.
While the trio are solving yet another murder, this season is brimming with musical references. In season 3, episode 2, a recuperating Putnam hallucinates his loved ones performing a pastiche of "There'll Be Some Changes Made" from the Bob Fosse-directed "All That Jazz." It's a cutting reference because said musical film, especially this particular number, metatextually tackles the director's heart attack. It deals with mortal self-flagellation, both for Fosse and in-universe for Fosse's fictional avatar.
In contrast, the show also applies a more lighthearted reference to "The Producers" that complements Oliver's pursuits. After a falling out with his friend Charles Haden-Savage (Steve Martin), Oliver needs a replacement for the Investigator. So who can pull off the patter-showstopper? Matthew Broderick, star of the 2001 "The Producers" Broadway musical and its 2005 film adaptation (both directed by Susan Stroman), sings his way into Putnam's audition space.
The Producers
Mel Brooks' 1967 film "The Producer" is a farce about greed and showbiz. Two men, washed-up producer Max Bialystock (Zero Mostel) and his accountant Leo Bloom (Gene Wilder), scheme to produce a one-night Broadway flop to bypass the IRS suspicions and pocket the rest of the budget. They endeavor to produce the most offensive play "Springtime for Hitler," penned as a love letter to Adolf Hitler. They got the wrong play, wrong director, and wrong actor. What could go right? One problem: the opening night audience loves it as satire.
Three decades later, Brooks and Thomas Meehan co-wrote the musical stage version in 2001, a Broadway smash. It scored then-record Tony Awards wins (12 out of 15 nominations) that was nearly matched by "Hamilton" in 2016 (11 wins out of 16 nominations).
It's hard not to link the silliness of "The Producers" musical to the artistic follies of Oliver. While Oliver wouldn't be as corrupt as Bialystock, something like "Splash!" (Oliver's failed water-logged production where his careless direction injured his stunt divers) and a musical "Death Rattle" (a murder-mystery where babies are suspects) does sound inspired by "The Producers" gags (like Bialystock producing a "Hamlet" musical called "Funny Boy").
Leo Bloom v. Leo Bloom
Broderick isn't the episode's last jaw-dropping guest star. When the "Ferris Bueller" star starts pestering Oliver with unworkable ideas, Oliver FaceTimes an old friend, an artist who has worked with Broderick. Gasp, it's none other than the real Mel Brooks! Much to his chagrin, Oliver discovers that being "open to ideas" with Broderick means creative differences. Brooks gives Oliver a warning: "Oh Oliver, you're f*****."
The legend also chastises Oliver for not catching "The Producers" on Broadway. Surely, its six-year longevity (2,502 performances) on the Great White Way could have given Oliver enough time. The funny part was that Brooks once tried to get Short to be his singing and dancing Leo Bloom, before the casting of Broderick. If Oliver missed out on "The Producers" on Broadway, so did Short, who is said to have been Brooks' first choice as Leo for the Broadway stage. This adds a meta-layer to the situational casting replacement.
Martin Short's Leo Bloom
However, the Los Angeles-based Short couldn't make the move to the Big Apple at the time. As he shared in his interview with the "Off Camera Show," a long-term musical commitment would isolate him from his children and he did not want to uproot them. On the casting of Broderick, he said, "Believe me, Mel did just fine. Matthew's brilliant." So Broderick played the role opposite of Nathan Lane's Bialystock on Broadway. Short did snag his chance to play Bloom, opposite Jason Alexander's Bialystock, in the 2003 Los Angeles and San Francisco engagements (one of the few commercials for Short's run can be watched here).
Other than Lane, who plays the smug Teddy Dimas, "Only Murders in the Building," also features other 2005 "The Producers" film alumni, including Andrea Martin (Charles' now ex-girlfriend) and Peter Bartlett (the rejected director living in the stage attic).
These major playing-themselves cameos of "Only Murders in the Building" beg the question: If a Mel Brooks, a Matthew Broderick, or a Sting exist in this fictional universe, does that mean a Martin Short, a Steve Martin, and a Selena Gomez exist as celebrities in the same world? That's a mystery.