Caesar's Hour
Live sketch comedy from Sid Caesar and his team.
via Wikipedia: Caesar's Hour · see source
Caesar's Hour was a live, hour-long American sketch-comedy series broadcast on NBC between 1954 and 1957. It is seen as a follow-up to Sid Caesar's earlier shows, the Admiral Broadway Revue and Your Show of Shows, and kept most of the same cast and writers. A key addition to the writing team was Larry Gelbart, who later co-created M*A*S*H. Nanette Fabray joined the cast, replacing Imogene Coca when she left to headline her own 1954 series, The Imogene Coca Show. The program built on the Your Show of Shows format, often featuring sketches that ran thirty minutes or longer. These included musical parodies like "There's No Business" and "Towers Trot," as well as genre spoofs such as "Bullets over Broadway," a gangster film parody, and "Aggravation Boulevard," where Caesar played a silent-film star unable to adapt to talkies. Most of the original kinescopes survive today. Complete episodes and partial segments are held at the UCLA Film and Television Archive in Los Angeles and the Paley Center for Media in Manhattan and Beverly Hills, California.
Quick Facts
- Genre
- Sketch comedy
- Director
- Clark Jones
- Starring
- Sid Caesar
- Janet Blair
- Nanette Fabray
- Milt Kamen
- Howard Morris
- Carl Reiner
- Composer
- Sid Caesar; Bernard Green
- Country
- United States
- Language
- English
- Seasons
- 3
- Camera
- Multicamera
Facts from the source article.
Background
The writing staff of Caesar's Hour was reunited in 1996 for an event at the Writers Guild Theater in Los Angeles called Caesar's Hour Revisited, excerpts of which were broadcast on PBS under the title Caesar's Writers. The full two-hour event was available on VHS as a pledge premium from PBS, and it was released on DVD for the first time on December 12, 2011. The reunion featured Caesar with Mel Tolkin (head writer), Neil Simon, Danny Simon, Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Larry Gelbart, Sheldon Keller, Aaron Ruben, and Gary Belkin. The moderator and researcher was Bob Claster. Many of the sketches are centered on a domineering star who flames out, prefiguring Caesar's post-series personal and career troubles. From July to September 1956, NBC ran The Ernie Kovacs Show as a summer replacement series for Caesar's Hour.
Did You Know?
- Larry Gelbart, who later co-created M*A*S*H with Gene Reynolds, joined the writing staff for Caesar's Hour.
- The 1996 reunion event Caesar's Hour Revisited was moderated and researched by Bob Claster.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who stars in Caesar's Hour?
Caesar's Hour stars Sid Caesar, Janet Blair, Nanette Fabray, Milt Kamen, Howard Morris and Carl Reiner.
When did Caesar's Hour first air?
Caesar's Hour first aired on 27 September 1954.
When did Caesar's Hour end?
Caesar's Hour last aired on 25 May 1957.
More in 1950s American Variety Television Series
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