Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #96004 in DVD
• Released on: 2000-08-31
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Black & White, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 72 minutes

Amazon.com
Live, from New York, on Saturday night, it's Your Show of Shows, the classic sketch-variety series from the golden age of live television. This is arguably the funniest volume in The Sid Caesar Collection. Try on The Fur Coat, a domestic sketch that is a perfect fit for Nannette Fabray as the wife who is star-crossed over an expensive fur coat, and Caesar, as her husband who tries to calculate how much her suspect passionate kiss is going to cost him. Caesar and Fabray conduct themselves brilliantly in the pantomimed Argument to Beethoven's 5th. From Here to Obscurity, a movie parody featured in the 1973 compilation film Ten from Your Show of Shows, is, to quote the siren hilariously embodied by Imogene Coca, "a funny one." The mock-Italian sketch The Cobbler's Daughter showcases Caesar and company's genius for dialects. Less successful, but still far out, is Caesar as jazzman Professor Hornsby. Linking these sketches are newly filmed interviews with the show's dream team of legendary writers and performers, including Neil Simon, Mel Brooks, Larry Gelbart, Woody Allen, Carl Reiner, Howard Morris, and Nanette Fabray, who share wonderful backstage stories and reminiscences of creating a live comedy show every week for 39 weeks a year. --Donald Liebenson

Customer Reviews

Why Caesar Ruled
"Creating The Comedy" from the Sid Caesar Collection is a must see video for fans of TV or comedy. It's an excellent introduction to the early days of TV for younger genertions. This video takes one through a week of creating a 1 1/2 hour live TV program. It's just not done like this anymore. For older generations, this video is a great reminder of how good TV could really be. Caesar's comedy and programs were literate, inventive, funny, and just great fun. In the "Fur Coat" sketch one had the opportunity to see a remarkable bit of live TV with a three minute closeup of Sid's face as he listens to his wife and furiously blinks his eyes in horror and cries. By the end of the bit real tears and sweat are coursing down his face. You'll not likely see that again. The "Beethoven" (sic) skit is awesomely clever and inventive. A classic you'll never see duplicated in today's dumbed-down world. And for movie fans, there is a great parody of "From Here To Eternity" with its romantic beach scene, except Sid is Burt Lancaster and Imogene Coca is Deborah Kerr, and instead of gentle Pacific waves, buckets of water are being tossed at the beached lovers. In addition to the wonderful comedy, the video contains priceless comments from the writers of this material. Neil Simon, Woody Allen, Carl Reiner and a host of other writers detail how a script was developed over the course of a week, and how specific bits were added to the final creation. This video is both a joy to watch and to listen.

The original Saturday Night Live . . .
The previous reviewer is on the money. This is a very entertaining, well-made account of the Sid Caesar comedy shows during the "Golden Age" of live TV. The sketches included and discussed are as funny as anyting on TV today, and given the writers, often clever and literate. The interviews (40-50 years later) describing the "typical" work week for the writers and performers of the show are entertaining and illuminating.

The DVD has a brief interview in which Woody Allen describes a work session in which he refused to "write comedy in the nude." There's an additional sketch with Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca that's a parody of an early silent movie short. You can also read the original script of the sketch for "Progress Hornsby" showing all the cuts and additions. Wonderful.