February 25, 1950: Your Show of Shows premieres on NBC. It is a 90-minute variety show, specializing in sketch comedy, hosted by Sid Caesar. It may have been the funniest show that the young medium of television had yet seen.
It may still be the funniest TV show of all time.
Isaac Sidney Caesar was born on September 8, 1922 in Yonkers, just north of New York City. When his father immigrated from Poland, the family name was "Ziser." As a teenage waiter in his parents' luncheonette, Sid learned how to mimic the customers' various accents, and developed a flair for language.
He learned the saxophone and the clarinet, and played in dance bands at the resort hotels in the Catskill Mountains, which led New York Jews to "the country" in the Summer. He served in the Coast Guard during World War II. While serving, he married Florence Levy, and they had 3 children: Michele, Rick and Karen.
While playing in a military revue, the show's director, Max Liebman, noticed that Sid's comedy got bigger applause than anyone's music. Liebman got him movie roles, and a spot as the opening act for comedian Joe E. Lewis at New York's famed Copacabana nightclub.
In 1949, Caesar and Liebman met with Pat Weaver, vice president of television at NBC (and eventually the father of actress Sigourney Weaver). They put together Sid's 1st TV show, The Admiral Broadway Revenue, which also starred Imogene Coca. The show became a victim of its own success: Admiral, an appliance company that was one of the first manufacturers of TV sets, could not keep up with the demand for new sets, and the show was canceled after 1 season.
But Weaver knew he had a genius on his hands, and convinced NBC to try again. Your Show of Shows debuted in 1950, with Coca, Carl Reiner, Howard Morris and James Starbuck. The 90-minute show was a mix of sketch comedy, satires of movies and TV shows, Caesar's monologues, musical guests, and big production numbers.
And the writers. What writers the show had. Reiner, Mel Brooks, Neil Simon, his brother Danny Simon, Mel Tolkin, Lucille Kallen, Selma Diamond, Joseph Stein, Michael Stewart and Tony Webster. Webster was the only one who wasn't Jewish, and Jewish humor was vital for the show.
The show seemed to take special joy in parodying situation comedies, or "sitcoms," with Caesar and Coca playing "The Hickenloopers." Just the title was a funny-sounding name, and their arguments, predating I Love Lucy and The Honeymooners, were a big reason why the overall show was popular.
Caesar loved wearing various uniforms, and one of his best-known sketches involved him putting on what looked like a military uniform. When he was done, he looked in the mirror, and said, "Mirror, mirror, on der vall, who's der schlickest of dem all?" (Not "the fairest," but "the slickest.") And then, after all his preening and posturing, comes the twist: He's not a general, he's a hotel doorman.
One of his recurring characters was the Professor, a shabby, top-hatted, double-talking, German-accented (of course) expert on, well, everything. In my lifetime, he would reprise this character on the PBS kids' show Sesame Street and in commercials for Saran Wrap.
After 4 years, the show was cut back to 60 minutes, and was renamed Caesar's Hour. There were fewer sketches, but that allowed for longer ones. Larry Gelbart and Woody Allen joined the writing staff. Cast additions included Janet Blair, Milt Kamen and Nanette Fabray. The show lasted 3 more seasons, until May 25, 1957.
In 1961, Reiner created The Dick Van Dyke Show, and wrote for it, based on his own experience having written for Your Show of Shows. So, essentially, Alan Brady was (hopefully, a very exaggerated version of) Sid, Rob Petrie was Carl, Laura Petrie was Carl's wife Estelle Reiner, and Richie is their son, actor and now director Rob Reiner. Though I don't think anybody ever called Richie, or his portrayer, Larry Matthews, a "meathead."
Carl and Mel would combine for "The 2,000-Year-Old Man." Carl would play an interviewer, and Mel played a 2,000-year-old man, not in old-age makeup, but wearing a hat and a cape, telling of his long and funny life:
Carl: What did you do for a living?
Mel: What didn't I do? I was a ten-of-all-trades!
Mel: What didn't I do? I was a ten-of-all-trades!
Carl: A what?
Mel: A ten-of-all-trades!
Carl: You mean, a jack-of-all-trades?
Mel: I wasn't that good!
From there, Mel co-created the spy spoof series Get Smart with Buck Henry, and then became a film director, specializing in genre spoofs: Broadway shows with The Producers in 1968, Westerns with Blazing Saddles in 1974, horror films with Young Frankenstein in 1974, silent movies with Silent Movie in 1976, Alfred Hitchcock's films with High Anxiety in 1977, historical epics with History of the World Part I in 1981, and science fiction with Spaceballs in 1987.
In 1965, Neil Simon wrote the Broadway play The Odd Couple, basing the character of fussbudget Felix Ungar on his brother Danny. (The character's name would become "Felix Unger" for the 1970-75 TV show based on the play.)
In 2001, NBC aired its 75th Anniversary special. Sid Caesar, age 79, was brought on as a special guest, but he looked terribly old, was hunched over, with his mouth open, and walking on a cane. I thought this was terrible: Clearly, he wasn't well enough to do this. Then he started talking, and it was clear that his mind was still clear, as he went into his dialects, cracking the audience up as he had half a century earlier, and paid tribute to absent friends who were early NBC legends. He lived until February 12, 2014, at the age of 91.
Selma Diamond died in 1985, while she was playing court matron Selma Hacker on the NBC sitcom Night Court. Milt Kamen died in 1977, Tony Webster in 1987, James Starbuck in 1997, Lucille Kallen in 1999, Imogene Coca in 2001, Howard Morris and Danny Simon in 2005, Janet Blair and Mel Tolkin in 2007, Larry Gelbart in 2009, Joseph Stein in 2010, Nanette Fabray and Neil Simon in 2018, Carl Reiner in 2020. As of February 25, 2022, Mel Brooks and Woody Allen are still alive.
In 2002, with TV Guide preparing for its 50th Anniversary the next year, Your Show of Shows was ranked Number 30 on their list of the 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time. In 2013, for their 60th Anniversary, it was ranked Number 37 on their 60 Best Series of All Time. In 2007, Time magazine named it one of its 100 Best TV Shows of All-Time, although it didn't rank any. In 2013, Entertainment Weekly ranked it Number 10 on its Top 100 Greatest TV Shows of All Time. The same year, the Writers Guild of America ranked it Number 41 on its list of the 101 Best Written TV Series of All Time.
In 1989, celebrating the 50th Anniversary of television, People magazine named him #4 on their list of the Top 25 TV Personalities of All Time. The article asked 2 questions: "Is he still funny? Yes. As funny as he was? Nobody may ever be that funny again."
No comments:
Post a Comment