| Your Show of Shows | |
|---|---|
 Imogene Coca andSid Caesar in 1952 | |
| Genre | Variety show |
| Created by | Sylvester L. Weaver Jr. |
| Directed by | Bill Hobin Max Liebman |
| Creative director | Charles Sanford (music) |
| Starring | Sid Caesar Imogene Coca Howard Morris Carl Reiner James Starbuck |
| Narrated by | Ed Herlihy (announcer) |
| Theme music composer | Mel Tolkin Clay Warnick Max Liebman |
| Opening theme | "Stars Over Broadway" |
| Composers | Bernard Green Irwin Kostal Johnny Mandel Alex North |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language | English |
| No. of seasons | 4 |
| No. of episodes | 160 |
| Production | |
| Producer | Max Liebman |
| Camera setup | Multi-camera |
| Running time | 90 minutes |
| Production company | Max Liebman Productions |
| Original release | |
| Network | NBC |
| Release | February 25, 1950 (1950-02-25) – June 5, 1954 (1954-06-05) |
Your Show of Shows is alive 90-minutevariety show that was broadcast weekly in the United States onNBC from February 25, 1950, through June 5, 1954, featuringSid Caesar andImogene Coca. Other featured performers wereCarl Reiner,Howard Morris,Bill Hayes, baritone singer Jack Russell,Judy Johnson, the Hamilton Trio and the sopranoMarguerite Piazza.José Ferrer made several guest appearances on the series.
The show has been featured in several lists of the greatest television series. Most of the series has been preserved to some extent, but only some sketches have been released on home video.
After the program ended, Imogene Coca starred inThe Imogene Coca Show (which lasted one season), and Sid Caesar starred inCaesar's Hour, which retained much of the cast and staff ofYour Show of Shows.
The 90-minutelive series was produced bySylvester "Pat" Weaver and directed byMax Liebman, who had been producing musical revues at theTamiment resort in thePocono Mountains for many years prior. Caesar, Coca, and Liebman had worked onAdmiral Broadway Revue from January to June 1949.[1] The series originated as the second half of a two-hour umbrella show,Saturday Night Review,[2] with the first portion hosted by comedianJack Carter inChicago, Illinois,[3] and the remainder telecast from the since-demolished International Theatre (also known as the Park Theatre) at 5 Columbus Circle and theCenter Theatre inManhattan,New York City.[4] The Chicago portion was dropped at the end of the 1950–51 season, and the series became the 90-minuteYour Show of Shows.[2]
Writers for the series includedMel Brooks,Neil Simon,Danny Simon,Mel Tolkin,Lucille Kallen,Selma Diamond,Joseph Stein,Michael Stewart,Tony Webster (the onlyGentile among the show's writers), andCarl Reiner who, though a cast member, also worked with the writers. The series is historically significant for the evolution of the variety genre by incorporating situation comedies (sitcoms) such as the running sketch "The Hickenloopers"; this added a narrative element to the traditional multi-act structure.[5]James Starbuck was the resident choreographer for the show, and often appeared as a featured dancer opposite Coca in parodies of classic ballets of his creation.[6]
As author Ted Sennett described, stars Caesar, Coca,Carl Reiner, andHoward Morris
appeared in a series of superbly written sketches that poked fun at human foibles and pretensions. Alone onstage, Caesar would depict a befuddled Everyman trying to cope with life, or a blustering Germanic 'professor' being interviewed at an airport and vainly trying to conceal his abysmal stupidity. Alone onstage (or with a partner), Imogene Coca would make us laugh at a passion-ridden torch singer, or a daffy ballerina, or a sweet, wistful tramp. Together, Caesar and Coca would take us through the hilarious marital tribulations of Doris and Charlie Hickenlooper, or show us two strangers exchanging cliches when they meet for the first time.[7]
Coca recalled,
There was a special chemistry toYour Show of Shows, I think, because [producer-director] Max [Liebman] wasn't afraid to throw out material at the last minute. And I think when you do live television — well, we stopped for nothing. We had no cue cards, noTelePrompTers, and noad-libbing on the air, because Max would have died if anybody had ad-libbed. It would have been utter disgrace, and you would have been drummed right out of the corps. ... Nobody ever forgot a line, and that was the amazing part of it.[8]
A common misconception is thatLarry Gelbart wrote forYour Show of Shows; in fact, he wrote for its successor program,Caesar's Hour, which was broadcast from 1954 to 1957.[9] Likewise,Woody Allen did not write forYour Show of Shows, as he worked only on several Sid Caesar TV series and specials from 1956 forward.[10]
Carl Reiner has stated that the time he spent onYour Show of Shows was the inspiration forThe Dick Van Dyke Show.[11]Your Show of Shows also inspired the 1982 movieMy Favorite Year, produced by Mel Brooks, and the 1993 playLaughter on the 23rd Floor written by Neil Simon.
The series was noted for its array of glamorous dancers, including Joy Langstaff,[12] Pauline Goddard, and Virginia Curtis.
By the 1953–1954 season, although the ratings had slipped a little,Your Show of Shows remained extremely popular with viewers. However, in the spring of 1954, it was decided to break up the comedy team of Caesar and Coca and, beginning in the fall of 1954, sign them to star in their own individual variety series on NBC. As a result,Your Show Of Shows ended its network run on June 5, 1954. At the end of that episode, NBC president "Pat" Weaver came out at the curtain call to congratulate the cast on their four-year-four-month run and personally to wish Caesar and Coca great success in their future endeavors.
The summer replacement forYour Show of Shows in 1953 and 1954 wasSaturday Night Review.[13]
The show featured several regular musical sketches, such as the mock rock group The Three Haircuts (Caesar, Reiner, and Morris), a vocal trio who always sang in unison and usually bellowed the lyrics. In 1955RCA Victor recorded and rush-released two songs from the show, "You Are So Rare to Me" and "Goin' Crazy", accompanied byJoe Reisman and his orchestra.[14][15][16][17][18]
Thekinescopes of the series were retained byMax Liebman; from those shows, a 1973 theatrical film titledTen from Your Show of Shows was compiled which featured ten sketches. In 1976, this was followed by a half-hour syndicated series.
The Paley Center for Media inManhattan andBeverly Hills, California, holds an almost complete set of the series, and a set of master tapes of the 1976 syndicated series.
In 2000, a cache of original scripts from the show were found in a closet of producer Max Liebman, in the City Center building in New York City. The find made the front page ofThe New York Times. A former employee of Liebman, Barry Jacobsen, toldThe New York Times he had left the scripts in the closet and was holding onto the key until he could come back to decide how to dispose of them.[19]
Reruns of the 1976 syndicated "best of" series were aired onComedy Central during the early 1990s. Skits from the series which are from Sid Caesar's personal collection are available onThe Sid Caesar Collection DVD set.
In 2002,Your Show of Shows was ranked #30 onTV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time.[20] In 2013, it was ranked #37 onTV Guide's 60 Best Series of All Time.[21] In 2007,Time placedYour Show of Shows on its unranked list of "100 Best TV Shows of All-TIME." In 2013,Your Show of Shows was ranked #10 onEntertainment Weekly’s Top 100 Greatest TV Shows of All Time. In 2013, theWriters Guild of America rankedYourShow of Shows #41 on its list of the "101 Best Written TV Series of All Time."[citation needed]
So popular was 'The Admiral Broadway Revue' that consumers were lining up to buy 10,000 Admiral sets a week instead of the 500 per week of months earlier. Since Admiral needed its cash to retool its factories, the corporation's Catch-22 logic went, it made sense to kill the goose that laid the golden egg.