"You can make more money with a flop than with a hit!"

Therein lies the scheme at the heart of The Producers, Mel Brooks' famed movie-turned-Broadway show-turned-movie again.

Rest assured, the Broadway version was a verifiable hit, belying the plot's scheme of bilking little old ladies for a show guaranteed to fail. A local production, starring favorites Wayne Kennedy and Scott Beyette as Bialystock and Bloom, respectively, opened this weekend at Boulder's Dinner Theatre.

Now, we're not casting aspersions on the producers of these fine shows, but there's been no shortage of flops on Broadway. In fact, you're a lot more likely to go down in theater lore with a crashing failure than with a middling success. Here are a few titles that probably didn't want to get famous this way:

* Carrie: This 1988 show is a theater geek's favorite reference. How favorite? Ken Mandelbaum named his book Not Since Carrie: 40 Years of Broadway Musical Flops.

Who would have believed that the 1976 horror film best-remembered for copious amounts of pigs' blood and psychological terror wouldn't make a good musical? Betty Buckley starred as Carrie's puritanical mother, but not for long - the show played for only five performances.

* Moose Murders: The bad vibes started at the press preview, colored by a man reeking of vomit in the third row. It didn't bode well for Arthur Bicknell's mystery farce featuring characters such as Snooks, Nurse Dagmar and Stinky Holloway.

The leading lady, Eve Arden, dropped out of the first preview. Holland Taylor replaced her but got off easy - the 1983 show lasted only 14 performances.

* Bobbi Boland: A favorite of the schadenfreude set, the Nancy Hasty play starred Farrah Fawcett - or it would have, had it ever actually opened.

The 2003 play was closed after a week of previews. The producer said she closed it because the Cort Theatre was too big. People inspect apartments before renting them - you'd think one might consider a theater costing hundreds of thousands of dollars.

* One Night Stand: You have to feel bad for a show with this as its title, but with book and lyrics by Herb Gardner and music by Jule Styne, one would have thought it had at least a fighting chance.

It was, however, a 1980 catastrophe, about a songwriter who believes he's past his prime. It's better-remembered for the battle between Gardner and Styne. It closed before opening, after eight previews.

* Breakfast at Tiffany's: Another one that was good in theory. It had mad love built up from the Truman Capote novel and the 1961 Audrey Hepburn movie. The book was by Edward Albee, the music by Bob Merrill (Mambo Italiano), and the cast featured Mary Tyler Moore, Richard Chamberlain and Sally Kellerman.

Still, the show made it through only four previews in 1966 before producers pulled the plug. Producer David Merrick called his own show "an excruciating bore."

* Glory Days: Last spring, this musical about young men visiting their high school joined unhappy company. The Broadway debut of Coloradan Jesse Johnson, the production received negative but gentle reviews and closed just hours later. It lasted through opening night, but no longer.

The Producers

* When and where: Wednesdays through Sundays (and Tuesdays beginning in September), through March 7, Boulder's Dinner Theatre, 5500 Arapahoe Ave.

* Cost: $35 to $57

* Information: 303-449-6000