GERMANY: Don't mention the war, or indeed the satirical film about Nazi Germany that went down like a lead zeppelin on German television this week.
Goebbels und Geduldig was billed as "an explosive comedy of errors" and a "groundbreaking film" that would finally allow Germans to laugh at Hitler and the country's Nazi past. But instead of the anticipated accusations of tastelessness, the film was savaged for not going far enough.
The film tells the story of Harry Geduldig, a Jewish doppelgänger of Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, who is kept in jail in case Goebbels is ever killed. He switches places and escapes when Goebbels visits the prison, then goes on to address a rally in Nuremberg and is even summoned to meet Hitler at his home.
"All the time, while we were shooting and even while we were editing, we had these discussions over where the limits lie, where the humour runs out," said the director, Mr Kai Wessel.
The humour ran out early on, by all accounts.
Just two million Germans tuned in, while nearly 12 million watched a football match.
German television critics savaged the film for its lack of humour and its depiction of silly, harmless Nazis. Most agreed it was a cowardly copy of Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator and its satirical tale of a Jewish barber who is the double of an Adolf Hitler-type dictator.
Chaplin used his film to mock the Nazi leader, still very much alive at the time, while the creators of Goebbels were accused of bottling out.
"Did the authors have to be so cowardly? They should have gone for extreme kitsch and farce," wrote the Berliner Zeitung newspaper.
By attempting to break Germany's last taboo - home-grown Nazi satire - the creators have been accused of being too soft.
That could complicate things for Mel Brooks, the creator of The Producers, the musical that features a female chorus line of Nazi storm troopers and a singing, dancing Führer. The original film was adapted for the stage last year and still plays to packed houses on Broadway.
Mr Brooks wants to stage the show in Berlin and Vienna. However, judging by the reaction to the latest Nazi satire, it could be some time before Berlin audiences hear the immortal line: "Not many people know it, but the Führer was a terrific dancer".
