Sid Caesar

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

NY Times, November 15, 2000

Great Caesar's Toast

By BERNARD WEINRAUB

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 14 - Sid Caesar rarely watches comedy shows on television
anymore. "I just can't sit and watch because as soon as I do, I start
analyzing," he said. "I say to myself, `They could have done this scene
better,' or `That was a mistake,' or `Why didn't they have this character
do that?' I can't enjoy it. So I watch the History Channel."

At 78, Mr. Caesar's obsession with comedy - with getting it perfect - is
undiminished. One of television's pioneers whose comedy techniques have had
an enduring influence on comedians like Woody Allen, Robin Williams and
Carol Burnett, Mr. Caesar is virtually unknown to younger audiences. In
contrast to "I Love Lucy" and "The Honeymooners," which play frequently on
television, Mr. Caesar's "Your Show of Shows" and "Caesar's Hour" have not
been seen on television recently or made available on video until now.

But new attention has been placed on these classic shows with the discovery
of 137 working scripts for "Your Show of Shows" in a long-sealed closet at
the City Center theater complex in Manhattan. The scripts have been donated
to the Library of Congress.

In addition, a three-part video and DVD compilation of Mr. Caesar's work,
called "The Sid Caesar Collection," has just been released, with many of
the classic sketches available for the first time since they were broadcast
live nearly 50 years ago. (A 1973 feature film, "Ten From `Your Show of
Shows," also had highlights from the broadcasts.) What is revealed in the
tapes, which were assembled from 450 hours of original kinescopes owned by
Mr. Caesar, is, of course, the dazzling comedy skill of a breakthrough
comedic artist and his team, Imogene Coca, Nanette Fabray, Carl Reiner and
Howard Morris.

Their sketches poked fun at the mundanities of domestic life and the
pretensions of Hollywood movies, foreign films and bebop. Mr. Caesar moved
comfortably from playing an Italian opera star spouting double talk in
"Galapacci" to a jungle boy raised by apes to a supercool jazz musician
named Progress Hornsby to Alan Ladd's character in a takeoff on the classic
western "Shane."

The "Shane" satire, in which the lead character underwent a name change,
was typical. Howard Morris plays a farmer who watches a mysterious
Shane-like stranger swallow one gallon of water after another.

"You seem mighty thirsty, stranger," the farmer says. "Have a long dry ride?"

Mr. Caesar replies, "No, had a herring for breakfast."

"What's your name?"

"Folks call me . . . Strange."

"Strange? What's you're first name?"

"Very. But you can call me Strange."

Mr. Caesar, laughing at the recollection, said there were several reasons
the sketches had not been repackaged in videos. "I showed it to Warner
Brothers, I showed it to Universal, and they said it was old humor, old
stuff, and it's black and white, and they couldn't understand it," he said.
"And a central reason that the shows have not been seen as reruns on
television was not only because they were made in black and white but
because they were sketches as opposed to sitcoms like `I Love Lucy.' "

(clip)

Mr. Caesar was a 27-year-old rising star when "Your Show of Shows" had its
premiered on Feb. 25, 1950. Born in Yonkers of immigrant parents who owned
a restaurant in New York City, Mr. Caesar yearned initially to be a
musician, but he parlayed a show he wrote while in the Coast Guard in World
War II into a growing career that included starring roles in the Hollywood
film "Tars and Spars" and the Broadway show `Make Mine Manhattan."  Mel
Brooks said that Mr. Caesar had a seminal impact on comedy. "When I was a
kid, comedy meant one guy standing in front of a curtain with a microphone,
like Bob Hope, and rattling off a lot of jokes," Mr. Brooks said. "Sid, on
the other hand, opened a whole new world of comedy in which he portrayed
people in every walk of life that you could recognize."

Mr. Brooks said Mr. Caesar, a longtime friend, was "an extremely
complicated man who never really knew himself - his whole life was a search
for himself."

Whatever his considerable success, Mr. Caesar was in some ways probably too
intellectual for television, which was just starting to expand around the
nation in the late 1950's.

David Marc, professor of radio, television and film at the Newhouse School
of Public Communications at Syracuse University, who is completing an oral
history of television pioneers, noted that television in the early 50's was
generally an urban phenomenon, but a change in government policy that led
to more station licenses saw a rapid proliferation of the audience by the
end of the decade.

"The early shows were comedy-variety like Sid Caesar and sitcoms," Mr. Marc
said. "But then the balance was broken, and sitcoms proved to be the most
durable form, easier to produce, easier to make money off of."

Mr. Marc, the author of "Comic Visions: Television Comedy and American
Culture" (Blackwell, 1989), said that "comedians owe more to Sid Caesar
than almost anyone else." But he added, his effect on contemporary
audiences is another matter.

"If I put Jackie Gleason, Milton Berle and Sid Caesar in front of a
classroom, which I often do, the only one they'll know is Jackie Gleason
because Gleason did that one year on television of `The Honeymooners' as a
regular sitcom. That's in reruns. Caesar's shows aren't."

The Caesar videos, produced by Creative Light Entertainment and including
interviews with Mr. Caesar's writers and cast, are available at some video
stores. Information about the three-volume collection is available at (888)
292-9400 and at the Web site www.sidvid.com.

Viewers will no doubt find that the improvised nature of the show led to
some its most classic moments. In the takeoff on the film "From Here to
Eternity," Mr. Caesar and Ms. Coca played the Burt Lancaster and Deborah
Kerr scene in which the two made love on the beach as the waves enveloped
them.

The Caesar and Coca scene was accomplished on a stage with some sand.
Stagehands were told to pour water on them between each line. But some of
the stagehands may have gotten carried away, partly to get even with the
irascible Mr. Caesar.

"I told them to keep the water coming, but every time I opened my mouth I
got a big clump of water in the face," Mr. Caesar said, laughing. "I said
to Imogene, `Getting kind of rough tonight, isn't it?'"

Full article at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/15/arts/15CAES.html?pagewanted=1


Louis Proyect
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