The good thing about Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein is that it is exactly what everyone should have expected it to be, simply amusing and fun, faithful to its now classic source, and incredibly spectacular- - - a $15 million eyeful of grand special effects and a gorgeous line-up of long-limbed babes. It's the kind of show that no one except Brooks would have the nerve to put on any more, a gussied up vaudeville entertainment with elements of bawdy burlesque. Everything and everyone is a put-on. Even Brooks' audaciously derivative score deliberately, but winningly spoofs the entire musical theater canon from Sondheim to Friml.

There is no attempt by Brooks to apologize for his exuberantly brash style, joke-driven perspective or lovably low class brand of humor. His is exactly the kind of humor that was favored in countless Saturday nights shows in the Borscht Belt of yore. It served its audiences then as it will now. The bad thing (and it's not so bad), is that Young Frankenstein is comprised almost solely up of hoary shtick and is definitely not in the same inimitable league with The Producers, despite the input of choreographer-director Susan Stroman.

Although Roger Bart has elected to play the young scientist with a decidedly more restrained inclination toward sheer lunacy than did Gene Wilder in the film and seems to exist for the most part in his own orbit, the rest of the cast swirls deliriously about and with unbridled delight within Brook's universe. There are plenty of laugh-out-loud scenes. A bumpy hayride to the castle allows the effervescent Sutton Foster, as Inga, a chance to not only show off her yodel ("Roll in The Hay,") but gorgeous gams. Just the mere mention of Frau Blucher's name is enough to make the horses whinny, but it is her portrayer Andrea Martin who comes close to stopping the show singing the Brecht-Weil styled "He Vas My Boyfriend. ," Megan Mullay, as the spoiled society dame Elizabeth, also pulls off a crowd-pleaser with the purposely insinuating "Deep Love. ,"

There are laughs aplenty in the scene in which the blind hermit, as wonderfully played by Fred Applegate, disastrously attempts to be hospitable to the monster (Shuler Hensley), but he is only successful in scalding him and setting his finger afire. As expected, "Puttin' on the Ritz," is the show's piece de resistance allowing Hensely and the entire company to tap in monster footwear and top hat and tails through a 1930s styled production number. Just know that a Brooks show is not going to be either intellectually stimulating or artistically ground-breaking. With that in mind, you should find this excursion to Transylvania well worth the price of admission— well maybe just the non-premium price, or better still a discount.