Flakfizer — with assistance from his two associates Rocco and Jacques — earns a spot as co-director by wooing the wealthy widow and by signing the company's leading ballerina and her dancer boyfriend Alan Grant.

Minor roles include Eddie Griffin as a messenger, Franklin Cover as a doctor, Thomas Mikal Ford and Matthew Sussman as cops, Katherine LaNasa as a dancer, Billy Beck as a janitor, Sam Krachmalnick as a conductor, and Max Alexander as a stage manager.

[13] Initially scheduled for release on July 26, 1991,[3] the film was pushed back without a reschedule date; multiple news reports noted the imminent departure of David and Jerry Zucker, whose contract with Paramount expired in August 1991, as a likely reason.

Positive reviewers included Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle, who thought that the film was "an audacious attempt actually to make them like they used to - with no apologies, no nostalgia.

"[14] In her review for The New York Times, Janet Maslin wrote, "Brain Donors will stop at very little to get its laughs, and Mr. Turturro has just the right silliness for the occasion.

Richard Harrington in his review for The Washington Post wrote, "It's all very busy, and in Zucker style there seem to be 10 jokes per minute, but most fly fast and fall flat.

"[19] Malcolm Johnson of the Hartford Courant called it a "sometimes clever but ultimately exhausting farce" and noted perplexedly that its title had nothing to do with its subject matter.

"[21] Entertainment Weekly called it "an almost total failure" and thought "the cheesy sets and breathless pacing give the film the feel of a made-for-TV movie on amphetamines.

"[22] A 2005 reevaluation of screenwriter Pat Proft's work wrote approvingly of Brain Donors, remarking, "as a throwback to the Marx/Ritz Brothers ideal of Hellzapoppin' humor, it tried to recapture the bygone days of slapstick and satire, and actually did a terrific job at both.