Sid Caesar and "Your Show of Shows"

[jackinnj]

Wouldn't have been old enough to watch it -- the very nascent period of TV -- one of the greatest comics of all time:


http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/13/a...-comic-who-blazed-tv-trail-dies-at-91.html?hp

I didn't know that Cid Casesar dangled Mel Brooks from an18th floor window!

 

[tvrgeek]

We need to remember, in those days, they just went out there and did it. No tape, no "cut" None of them were sane, which helped all of the rest of us stay so, sort of. Maybe. A lot of contemporary comics could learn a lot from the masters.

RIP.

 

[kevinahcc20]

The early days (pre-1960) of TV were indeed wild and unstructured and in many ways more entertaining than much of the drivel that passes for TV today. Of course, when there were only two or three channels to fill and 8 hours of the daily programming was covered by the "Indian Head" test pattern, the talent per hour of programming was very high. Look at Sid's writers for Your Show of Shows...Carl Reiner, Mel Brooks & Neil Simon among others. Pretty deep bench there!