Your Show Of Shows
As television was coming of age in the 1950s, it was important
for the networks to produce shows that entertained as many people
as possible so they could build a loyal audience.
The easiest way
to do this was with variety shows - easily produced programs
presenting a variety of entertainment acts, offering a little
something for everyone.
These shows often focused on comedy, but few did it as well as
NBC's Your Show of Shows. This influential classic
introduced the world to the talents of Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca
and paved the way for future live-comedy shows like Saturday
Night Live.
Your Show of Shows was produced by Max Leibman, a
veteran stage producer who adapted the format he used for
theatrical revues in Florida and the Catskills to the television
medium.
The finished program used a celebrity guest host and also
worked in elements of ballet, opera, and popular music, but its
real focus was on the comedic talents of its gifted cast. First
and foremost was Sid Caesar, a rubber-faced comic with a
chameleon-like talent to transform himself into many different
versions of the 'everyman'.
He was paired up with an able comic
foil in Imogene Coca, a multitalented performer who had musical
and ballet training in addition to her formidable acting and
comedic skills.
The cast was rounded out with gifted comedians like Howard
Morris and Carl Reiner. Morris usually portrayed a nebbish whose
nerdy exterior hid a burning desire to prove himself, while the
urbane Reiner usually portrayed fast-talking slicksters.
The two men joined Caesar and Coca in many skits, acting as a
sort of four-person repertory company for any idea the show's
writers could dish out. Comedy fans will note that Reiner
continued to appear in ground-breaking comedy programs like The
Dick Van Dyke Show and later became the director of films like
Oh, God! and The Jerk.
A typical episode of Your Show of Shows began with
Caesar introducing the week's guest host, then performing a skit
with Coca. After that, the show blended comic skits with
production numbers, usually including a parody of popular film of
the day (From Here To Eternity, for example, was
transformed into From Here To Obscurity).
This was usually followed by Caesar performing a pantomime and
a lavish production-number finale featuring the whole cast. This
busy schedule of elements was made all the more amazing by the
fact that it was all performed live.
Many of the comedic skits featured recurring characters. Two of
the most popular were George and Doris Hickenlooper, a hopelessly
mismatched couple whose endless petty disputes perfectly captured
the anxiety of newlyweds. Coca also played a Little Tramp-style
character in an homage to the legacy of Charlie Chaplin.
Caesar's
multiple characters included super-cool jazz performer Progress
Hornsby, Italian film expert Giuseppe Marinara, and any number of
professional experts in topics like archaeology and art history.
Your Show of Shows offered such an impressive array of
entertainment and talent that it was simply destined to succeed.
And succeed it did: the show became an instant favourite when it
debuted in 1950, playing every Saturday night through the spring
of 1954. It continued to air every 3 or 4 weeks after that until
it ended its run in the summer of 1954.
The cast went on to lengthy careers in television and films, as
did the writing staff, which featured such influential talents as
Larry Gelbart (later the head writer on M*A*S*H), future
playwright Neil Simon, and filmmakers-to-be Mel Brooks and Woody
Allen.
Although it is not frequently seen on television, Your Show
of Shows has also continued to live on in other forms, thanks
to producer Max Leibman. He packaged ten of the show's most
memorable comedy skits into the classic 1973 compilation film Ten
From Your Show of Shows and also edited the show's highlights
into a series of 90-minute specials in 1976.
These pop up on television from time to time, and when they do,
they provide a poignant reminder of just how much influence this
classic show had on future sketch-comedy programs like Saturday
Night Live and The Kids in the Hall. The skits also
remain fresh and memorably funny, proving that Your Show of
Shows was a program that truly lived up to its name.
Your Show Of Shows was sponsored and produced by Admiral
Refrigerators.
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