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The Archive of American Television's ultimate goal is to provide a comprehensive and interactive history of television. With each interview, historical links are formed from show-to-show and person-to-person &emdash; forming an encyclopedic oral history of the moments that shaped the 20th Century. Eventually, you'll be able to instantly access multiple video interviews on the subject of your choice. As a preliminary example of the capabilities of the Archive, for the hit show, "Your Show of Shows" (and its predecessor, "The Admiral Broadway Revue" and its successor, "Caesar's Hour"), the Archive interviewed, and will continue to interview, many professionals who contributed to those shows. Here are a few excerpts from the collection. Soundbites: The Caesar Years (1949-1957) Mel Tolkin, head writer on "Admiral Broadway Revue," "Your Show of Shows," and "Caesar's Hour" Somebody once asked: "How could you possibly think you could do an hour-and-a-half show ["Admiral Broadway Revue]?" And my answer was we were too stupid to know it was impossible. We just dived into it.
Imogene Coca, performer on "Admiral Broadway Revue" and "Your Show of Shows" We both [Coca and Caesar] really worked well together. And we seemed to be the last thing in the world [to be a team].
Lucille Kallen, head writer on "Admiral Broadway Revue" and "Your Show of Shows" The exaggeration of something that we take for granted, was one of his [Caesar's] works of genius. This is what he did with everything. Eventually, we knew if we gave him a certain kind of line, he would carry it to the next stage of insanity.
Carl Reiner, performer and writer on "Your Show of Shows" and "Caesar's Hour" Monday we'd come in, decide what to do that week. Tuesday, we'd break into groups...and write....And then we'd all come together on a Wednesday and see what everybody else did. Thursday we'd rehearse. And on Friday, we'd show it to the camera director. Saturday, we'd go in early, and do the show four times, once for blocking, the second time smoothly, hoping that we didn't have to stop too much. And the third time was a dress rehearsal. By the time nine o'clock rolled around, it was the fourth time we did the show. We were pretty tired.
Hugh Downs, announcer on "Caesar's Hour" They had a court scene where he [Sid] was a lawyer...and Howie Morris was the defendant. The jury foreman was supposed to say, "we find the defendant guilty." Between the dress and the show, I thought they'd changed something because on the air, the jury foreman, this bit part player, said: "Your honor we find the defendant not guilty." Howie jumps up and says: "You hear that ma? I'm not guilty." Now where do they go from here? Sid gets up as the defense attorney and says: "That's wrong your honor. I think he's guilty!" Now that gets a laugh and they ad lib a situation there. I don't believe the viewing audience ever knew anything was wrong. But immediately after that was over, Sid said to the director: "Find that actor and tell him he's hired for next week." He said: "I'm afraid he'll harm himself."
Larry Gelbart, writer "Caesar's Hour" Every show had about 10 stand-out minutes. Some had 60. Some had three....The wonderful thing about "Caesar's Hour" was that Sid allowed us and the show to be hip. We weren't afraid that "they," whoever "they" are, wouldn't get it. We knew we were primarily an urban show....But nobody ever said: "that's too smart, that's too sophisticated, that's too inside." It was a show that we were really proud of, because it let us be us. |