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140-490: Isaac Sidney Caesar (September 8, 1922 – February 12, 2014) was an American comic actor and comedian. With a career spanning 60 years, he was best known for two pioneering 1950s live television series: Your Show of Shows (1950–1954), which was a 90-minute weekly show watched by 60 million people, and its successor, Caesar's Hour (1954–1957), both of which influenced later generations of comedians. Your Show of Shows and its cast received seven Emmy nominations between

280-634: A deflationary spiral started in 1931. Farmers faced a worse outlook; declining crop prices and a Great Plains drought crippled their economic outlook. At its peak, the Great Depression saw nearly 10% of all Great Plains farms change hands despite federal assistance. At first, the decline in the U.S. economy was the factor that triggered economic downturns in most other countries due to a decline in trade, capital movement, and global business confidence. Then, internal weaknesses or strengths in each country made conditions worse or better. For example,

420-418: A silver standard , almost avoided the depression entirely. The connection between leaving the gold standard as a strong predictor of that country's severity of its depression and the length of time of its recovery has been shown to be consistent for dozens of countries, including developing countries . This partly explains why the experience and length of the depression differed between regions and states around

560-572: A "foreign dub" skit on the November 21, 2001, episode of Whose Line Is It Anyway? On September 7, 2001, Caesar, Carl Reiner and Nanette Fabray appeared on CNN 's live interview program Larry King Live along with actor, comedian and improvisationist Drew Carey . In 2003, he joined Edie Adams and Marvin Kaplan at a 40th anniversary celebration for It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World . In 2004, Caesar's second autobiography, Caesar's Hours ,

700-625: A Garden . In 1973, Caesar reunited with Imogene Coca for the stage play The Prisoner of Second Avenue , written in 1971 by Neil Simon . Their play opened in Chicago in August 1973. That same year, Caesar and Max Liebman mined their own personal kinescopes from Your Show of Shows (NBC had lost the studio copies) and they produced the feature film Ten From Your Show of Shows , a compilation of some of their best sketches. In 1974, Caesar said, "I'd like to be back every week" on TV and appeared in

840-451: A TV performance. Still in the military, Caesar was ordered to Palm Beach, Florida , where Vernon Duke and Howard Dietz were putting together a service revue called Tars and Spars . There he met the civilian director of the show, Max Liebman . When Caesar's comedy got bigger applause than the musical numbers, Liebman asked him to do stand-up bits between the songs. Tars and Spars toured nationally, and became Caesar's first major gig as

980-475: A box office success and earned six Academy Award nominations. Caesar was not a stand-up comedian but a "sketch comic, and actor," wrote one historian. "He conjured up ideas and enhanced scenes, but never wrote a word," and thereby depended on his writers for dialogue. Caesar was skilled at pantomime , dialects, monologs, foreign language double-talk and general comic acting. His sketches were often long, sometimes 10 or 15 minutes, with numerous close-ups showing

1120-628: A comedian. Liebman later produced Caesar's first television series. After finishing his military service in 1945, the Caesars moved to Hollywood. In 1946, Columbia Pictures produced a film version of Tars and Spars in which Caesar reprised his role. The next year, he acted in The Guilt of Janet Ames . He turned down the lead of The Jolson Story as he did not want to be known as an impersonator, and turned down several other offers to play sidekick roles. He soon returned to New York, where he became

1260-497: A featured dancer opposite Coca in parodies of classic ballets of his creation. As author Ted Sennett described, stars Caesar, Coca, Carl Reiner , and Howard 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

1400-548: A former privately run bank, bearing no relation to the U.S. government (not to be confused with the Federal Reserve ). Unable to pay out to all of its creditors, the bank failed. Among the 608 American banks that closed in November and December 1930, the Bank of United States accounted for a third of the total $ 550 million deposits lost and, with its closure, bank failures reached a critical mass. In an initial response to

1540-467: A greater reduction in credit. On 5 April 1933, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 6102 making the private ownership of gold certificates , coins and bullion illegal, reducing the pressure on Federal Reserve gold. British economist John Maynard Keynes argued in The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money that lower aggregate expenditures in the economy contributed to

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1680-505: A group of Poles to repeat his native-sounding patter in Polish, and so on with Russians, Hungarians, Frenchmen, Spaniards, Lithuanians, and Bulgarians. Sid Caesar's older brother, David, was his comic mentor and "one-man cheering section." They created their earliest family sketches from movies of the day like Test Pilot and the 1927 silent film Wings . As a boy, Caesar took saxophone lessons and played in small bands to make money during

1820-676: A half-hour syndicated series. The Paley Center for Media in Manhattan and Beverly 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 of The New York Times . A former employee of Liebman, Barry Jacobsen, told The New York Times he had left

1960-419: A language for 15 minutes, you know the rhythm and song." Having developed this mimicry skill, he could create entire monologs using gibberish in numerous languages, as he did in a skit in which he played a German general. Among his primary subjects were parodies and spoofs of various film genres, including gangster films, westerns, newspaper dramas, spy movies and other TV shows. Compared to other comedy shows at

2100-600: A modern industrial city handled shortages of money and resources. Often they updated strategies their mothers used when they were growing up in poor families. Cheap foods were used, such as soups, beans and noodles. They purchased the cheapest cuts of meat—sometimes even horse meat—and recycled the Sunday roast into sandwiches and soups. They sewed and patched clothing, traded with their neighbors for outgrown items, and made do with colder homes. New furniture and appliances were postponed until better days. Many women also worked outside

2240-402: A monetary contraction first-hand were forced to join the deflationary policy since higher interest rates in countries that performed a deflationary policy led to a gold outflow in countries with lower interest rates. Under the gold standard's price–specie flow mechanism , countries that lost gold but nevertheless wanted to maintain the gold standard had to permit their money supply to decrease and

2380-520: A negative one for Broadway. Caesar fans preferred to stay home on Saturday nights to watch his show instead of seeing live plays. "The Caesar show became such a Saturday-night must-see habit—the Saturday Night Live of its day," states Nachman, that "...Broadway producers begged NBC to switch the show to midweek." Comedy star Carol Burnett , who later had her own hit TV show, remembers winning tickets to see My Fair Lady on Broadway: "I gave

2520-527: A one-hour sketch/variety show with Morris, Reiner, Bea Arthur and other members of his former crew. Nanette Fabray replaced Coca, who had left to star in her own short-lived series. Ultimate creative and technical control was now in Caesar's hands, originating from the Center Theater and the weekly budget doubled to $ 125,000. The premiere on September 27, 1954, featured Gina Lollobrigida . Everything

2660-438: A parody of the popular TV show This Is Your Life . It was said to be "Caesar's personal favorite" sketch. In many cases, sketch dialogue was not even written down, but simply indicated by describing a scene, as in, "Sid does man coming home from business mad." Sometimes, said Larry Gelbart , it was "organized chaos," and when watching the writers create from offstage, felt, "...it was a religious experience." To Mel Brooks, "it

2800-488: 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. Coca recalled, There was a special chemistry to Your Show of Shows , I think, because [producer-director] Max [Liebman] wasn't afraid to throw out material at

2940-672: A piano, a rattlesnake and a bottle of seltzer. On the Dick Clark show in 1978, he played a chewing gum machine and a slot machine. He was also able to create imaginary characters. Alfred Hitchcock compared him to Charlie Chaplin , and critic John Crosby felt "he could wrench laughter out of you with the violence of his great eyes and the sheer immensity of his parody." In an article in The Saturday Evening Post in 1953, show business biographer Maurice Zolotow noted that "Caesar relies upon grunts and grimaces to express

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3080-471: A raucous, hilarious, and truthful brand of comedy that, 50 years later, is still funny and inspiring, and makes me think ... What kind of comedy would I be doing if I hadn't seen Sid Caesar? Would I be a comedian at all? Your Show of Shows 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. The 90-minute live series

3220-451: A real career or make any money. But we were married one year after we met, in July of 1943." She also pointed out, "You know, he's not funny all the time. He can be very serious." At the time of the interview, the couple had been married for 66 years. Florence Caesar died on March 3, 2010, aged 88. Caesar was married to Florence Levy for 67 years until her death in 2010. Caesar asserted that he

3360-567: A serious issue in the 1930s. Support for increasing welfare programs during the depression included a focus on women in the family. The Conseil Supérieur de la Natalité campaigned for provisions enacted in the Code de la Famille (1939) that increased state assistance to families with children and required employers to protect the jobs of fathers, even if they were immigrants. In rural and small-town areas, women expanded their operation of vegetable gardens to include as much food production as possible. In

3500-472: A sketch and giving it to Caesar, "Sid would make it ten times funnier than what we wrote. Sid acted everything out, so the sketches we did were like little plays." Simon also remembered the impact that working for Caesar had on him: "The first time I saw Caesar it was like seeing a new country. All other comics were basically doing situations with farcical characters. Caesar was doing life." Some of his writers, like Woody Allen , initially didn't like being among

3640-480: A small cadre of Labour, but the vast majority of Labour leaders denounced MacDonald as a traitor for leading the new government. Britain went off the gold standard , and suffered relatively less than other major countries in the Great Depression. In the 1931 British election, the Labour Party was virtually destroyed, leaving MacDonald as prime minister for a largely Conservative coalition. In most countries of

3780-538: A stand-up comedian. He also relied more on body language, accents, and facial contortions than simply dialogue. Unlike the slapstick comedy which was standard on TV, his style was considered "avant garde" in the 1950s. He conjured up ideas and scene and used writers to flesh out the concept and create the dialogue. Among the writers who wrote for Caesar early in their careers were Mel Brooks , Neil Simon , Larry Gelbart , Carl Reiner , Michael Stewart , Mel Tolkin , Lucille Kallen , Selma Diamond , and Woody Allen . "Sid's

3920-662: A standstill agreement froze Germany's foreign liabilities for six months. Germany received emergency funding from private banks in New York as well as the Bank of International Settlements and the Bank of England. The funding only slowed the process. Industrial failures began in Germany, a major bank closed in July and a two-day holiday for all German banks was declared. Business failures were more frequent in July, and spread to Romania and Hungary. The crisis continued to get worse in Germany, bringing political upheaval that finally led to

4060-622: A two-hour panel discussion featuring head writer Mel Tolkin , Caesar, Carl Reiner , Aaron Ruben , Larry Gelbart , Mel Brooks , Neil Simon , Danny Simon , Sheldon Keller , and Gary Belkin . The event was taped, broadcast on PBS in the United States and the BBC in the UK, and later released as a DVD titled Caesar's Writers . In 1997, he made a guest appearance in Vegas Vacation and,

4200-454: A vast range of emotions." Of his double-talk routines, Carl Reiner said, "His ability to doubletalk every language known to man was impeccable," and during one performance Caesar imitated four different languages but with almost no real words. Despite his apparent fluency in many languages, Caesar could actually speak only English and Yiddish . In 2008, Caesar told a USA Today reporter, "Every language has its own music ... If you listen to

4340-658: Is a consensus that the Federal Reserve System should have cut short the process of monetary deflation and banking collapse, by expanding the money supply and acting as lender of last resort . If they had done this, the economic downturn would have been far less severe and much shorter. Modern mainstream economists see the reasons in Insufficient spending, the money supply reduction, and debt on margin led to falling prices and further bankruptcies ( Irving Fisher 's debt deflation). The monetarist explanation

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4480-490: Is a live sketch with Nanette Fabray , where they both pantomime an argument choreographed to the music of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony . Writer Mel Tolkin stated that Caesar "didn't like one-line jokes in sketches because he felt that if the joke was a good one, anybody could do it. One-liners would take him away from what drove his personal approach to comedy." Larry Gelbart called Caesar's style theatrical, and called him "...a pure TV comedian." In describing his control during

4620-447: Is no known case of a name changed at Ellis Island. Max and Ida Caesar ran a restaurant, a 24-hour luncheonette . By waiting on tables, their son learned to mimic the patois , rhythm, and accents of the diverse clientele, a technique he termed double-talk , which he used throughout his career. He first tried double-talk with a group of Italians, his head barely reaching above the table. They enjoyed it so much that they sent him over to

4760-493: Is supported by the contrast in how the crisis progressed in, e.g., Britain, Argentina and Brazil, all of which devalued their currencies early and returned to normal patterns of growth relatively rapidly and countries which stuck to the gold standard , such as France or Belgium. Frantic attempts by individual countries to shore up their economies through protectionist policies – such as the 1930 U.S. Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act and retaliatory tariffs in other countries – exacerbated

4900-466: Is that Larry Gelbart wrote for Your Show of Shows ; in fact, he wrote for its successor program, Caesar's Hour , which was broadcast from 1954 to 1957. Likewise, Woody Allen did not write for Your Show of Shows , as he worked only on several Sid Caesar TV series and specials from 1956 forward. Carl Reiner has stated that the time he spent on Your Show of Shows was the inspiration for The Dick Van Dyke Show . Your Show of Shows also inspired

5040-539: The 1932 election , Hoover was defeated by Franklin D. Roosevelt , who from 1933 pursued a series of " New Deal " policies and programs to provide relief and create jobs, including the Civilian Conservation Corps , Federal Emergency Relief Administration , Tennessee Valley Authority , and Works Progress Administration . Historians disagree on the effects of the New Deal, with some claiming that

5180-656: The Capitol Theater there. He was ineligible to join the musicians' union in New York City until he established residency, but he found work as a saxophonist at the Vacationland Hotel, a resort located in the Catskill Mountains of Sullivan County, New York . Mentored by Don Appel, the resort's social director, Caesar played in the dance band and learned to perform comedy, doing three shows a week. He audited classes in clarinet and saxophone at

5320-483: The DuMont network, and it was an immediate success. However, its sponsor, Admiral , an appliance company, could not keep up with the demand for its new television sets, so the show was canceled after 26 weeks—ironically, on account of its runaway success. On February 25, 1950, Caesar appeared in the first episode of Your Show of Shows , initially the second half of the two-hour umbrella show Saturday Night Review ; at

5460-591: The Great Depression . When he was 14, Caesar went to the Catskill Mountains as a tenor saxophonist in the Swingtime Six band with Mike Cifichello and Andrew Galos and occasionally performed in sketches in the Borscht Belt . After graduating from Yonkers High School in 1940, Caesar left home, intent on a musical career. He arrived in Manhattan and worked as an usher and then a doorman at

5600-657: The Juilliard School of Music . In 1940, he enlisted in the United States Coast Guard , and was stationed in Brooklyn , New York, where he played in military revues and shows. Caesar was discharged from the service in 1945. Vernon Duke , the composer of Autumn in New York , April in Paris , and Taking a Chance on Love , was at the same base and collaborated with Caesar on musical revues. During

5740-582: The New York Bank of United States – which produced panic and widespread runs on local banks, and the Federal Reserve sat idly by while banks collapsed. Friedman and Schwartz argued that, if the Fed had provided emergency lending to these key banks, or simply bought government bonds on the open market to provide liquidity and increase the quantity of money after the key banks fell, all the rest of

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5880-539: The coming to power of Hitler's Nazi regime in January 1933. The world financial crisis now began to overwhelm Britain; investors around the world started withdrawing their gold from London at the rate of £2.5 million per day. Credits of £25 million each from the Bank of France and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and an issue of £15 million fiduciary note slowed, but did not reverse,

6020-474: The stock market , which resulted in growing wealth inequality . Banks were subject to minimal regulation under laissez-faire economic policies, resulting in loose lending and widespread debt. By 1929, declining spending had led to reductions in manufacturing output and rising unemployment . Share values continued to rise until the Wall Street crash, after which the slide continued for three years, which

6160-438: The "comedian of comedians from TV's early days." Honored in numerous ways over 60 years, he was nominated for 11 Emmy Awards , winning twice. He was also an accomplished saxophonist , having played the saxophone since he was eleven years old, and was the author of several books, including two autobiographies in which he described his career and later struggle to overcome years of alcoholism and addiction to barbiturates. Caesar

6300-447: The 1937 recession that interrupted it). The common view among most economists is that Roosevelt's New Deal policies either caused or accelerated the recovery, although his policies were never aggressive enough to bring the economy completely out of recession. Some economists have also called attention to the positive effects from expectations of reflation and rising nominal interest rates that Roosevelt's words and actions portended. It

6440-582: The 1970s and 1980s, Caesar continued to make occasional television and theatrical appearances and starred in several movies including Silent Movie and History of the World, Part I (both reuniting him with Mel Brooks), Airport 1975 , and as Coach Calhoun in Grease and its sequel Grease 2 in 1982. In 1971, he starred opposite Carol Channing and a young Tommy Lee Jones in the Broadway show Four on

6580-533: The 1976 syndicated "best of" series were aired on Comedy Central during the early 1990s. Skits from the series which are from Sid Caesar's personal collection are available on The Sid Caesar Collection DVD set. In 2002, Your Show of Shows was ranked #30 on TV Guide ' s 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time . In 2013, it was ranked #37 on TV Guide ' s 60 Best Series of All Time. In 2007, Time placed Your Show of Shows on its unranked list of "100 Best TV Shows of All-TIME." In 2013, Your Show of Shows

6720-399: The 1982 movie My Favorite Year , produced by Mel Brooks, and the 1993 play Laughter on the 23rd Floor written by Neil Simon. The series was noted for its array of glamorous dancers, including Joy Langstaff, 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

6860-760: The British crisis. The financial crisis now caused a major political crisis in Britain in August 1931. With deficits mounting, the bankers demanded a balanced budget; the divided cabinet of Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald's Labour government agreed; it proposed to raise taxes, cut spending, and most controversially, to cut unemployment benefits 20%. The attack on welfare was unacceptable to the Labour movement. MacDonald wanted to resign, but King George V insisted he remain and form an all-party coalition " National Government ". The Conservative and Liberals parties signed on, along with

7000-488: The Broadway musical Little Me , with book by Simon, choreography by Bob Fosse , and music by Cy Coleman . Playing eight parts with 32 costume changes, he was nominated in 1963 for a Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Musical. On film, Caesar and Adams played a husband and wife drawn into a mad race to find buried loot in Stanley Kramer 's comedy ensemble It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) which became

7140-530: The Depression. Businessmen ignored the mounting national debt and heavy new taxes, redoubling their efforts for greater output to take advantage of generous government contracts. During World War I many countries suspended their gold standard in varying ways. There was high inflation from WWI, and in the 1920s in the Weimar Republic , Austria , and throughout Europe. In the late 1920s there

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7280-521: The Dow returning to 294 (pre-depression levels) in April 1930, before steadily declining for years, to a low of 41 in 1932. At the beginning, governments and businesses spent more in the first half of 1930 than in the corresponding period of the previous year. On the other hand, consumers, many of whom suffered severe losses in the stock market the previous year, cut expenditures by 10%. In addition, beginning in

7420-489: The Federal Reserve did not act to limit the decline of the money supply was the gold standard . At that time, the amount of credit the Federal Reserve could issue was limited by the Federal Reserve Act , which required 40% gold backing of Federal Reserve Notes issued. By the late 1920s, the Federal Reserve had almost hit the limit of allowable credit that could be backed by the gold in its possession. This credit

7560-442: The Great Depression is right, or the traditional Keynesian explanation that a fall in autonomous spending, particularly investment, is the primary explanation for the onset of the Great Depression. Today there is also significant academic support for the debt deflation theory and the expectations hypothesis that – building on the monetary explanation of Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz – add non-monetary explanations. There

7700-642: The Great Depression. According to the U.S. Senate website, the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act is among the most catastrophic acts in congressional history. Many economists have argued that the sharp decline in international trade after 1930 helped to worsen the depression, especially for countries significantly dependent on foreign trade. Most historians and economists blame the Act for worsening the depression by seriously reducing international trade and causing retaliatory tariffs in other countries. While foreign trade

7840-814: The Jailer in Die Fledermaus at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. In 1987, Caesar starred in the David Irving film The Emperor's New Clothes with Robert Morse as the Tailor. Caesar remained active by appearing in movies, television and award shows, including the movie The Great Mom Swap in 1995. In 1996, the Writers Guild of America, West reunited Caesar with nine of his writers from Your Show of Shows and Caesar's Hour for

7980-641: The NBC skit-based comedy television pilot called Hamburgers . In 1980, he appeared as a double-talking Japanese father for Mei and Kei's Pink Lady and opposite Jeff Altman in the Pink Lady and Jeff show. In 1983, Caesar hosted an episode of Saturday Night Live , where he received a standing ovation at the start of the show and was awarded a plaque at the conclusion of the show declaring him an honorary cast member. He released an exercise video, Sid Caesar's Shape Up! , in 1985. In 1987–89, Caesar appeared as Frosch

8120-481: The New Deal prolonged the Great Depression, as they argue that National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 and National Labor Relations Act of 1935 restricted competition and established price fixing. John Maynard Keynes did not think that the New Deal under Roosevelt single-handedly ended the Great Depression: "It is, it seems, politically impossible for a capitalistic democracy to organize expenditure on

8260-544: The U.K. economy, which experienced an economic downturn throughout most of the late 1920s, was less severely impacted by the shock of the depression than the U.S. By contrast, the German economy saw a similar decline in industrial output as that observed in the U.S. Some economic historians attribute the differences in the rates of recovery and relative severity of the economic decline to whether particular countries had been able to effectively devaluate their currencies or not. This

8400-490: The U.S. unemployment rate down below 10%. World War II had a dramatic effect on many parts of the American economy. Government-financed capital spending accounted for only 5% of the annual U.S. investment in industrial capital in 1940; by 1943, the government accounted for 67% of U.S. capital investment. The massive war spending doubled economic growth rates, either masking the effects of the Depression or essentially ending

8540-622: The United States, agricultural organizations sponsored programs to teach housewives how to optimize their gardens and to raise poultry for meat and eggs. Rural women made feed sack dresses and other items for themselves and their families and homes from feed sacks. In American cities, African American women quiltmakers enlarged their activities, promoted collaboration, and trained neophytes. Quilts were created for practical use from various inexpensive materials and increased social interaction for women and promoted camaraderie and personal fulfillment. Oral history provides evidence for how housewives in

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8680-543: The United States, remained on the gold standard into 1932 or 1933, while a few countries in the so-called "gold bloc", led by France and including Poland, Belgium and Switzerland, stayed on the standard until 1935–36. According to later analysis, the earliness with which a country left the gold standard reliably predicted its economic recovery. For example, The UK and Scandinavia, which left the gold standard in 1931, recovered much earlier than France and Belgium, which remained on gold much longer. Countries such as China, which had

8820-481: The age of 91, after a short illness. On Caesar's death, Carl Reiner said, "He was the ultimate, he was the very best sketch artist and comedian that ever existed." Mel Brooks commented, "Sid Caesar was a giant, maybe the best comedian who ever practiced the trade. And I was privileged to be one of his writers and one of his friends." Woody Allen stated, "He was one of the truly great comedians of my time". Jon Stewart and The Daily Show paid tribute to Caesar at

8960-460: The banks would not have fallen after the large ones did, and the money supply would not have fallen as far and as fast as it did. With significantly less money to go around, businesses could not get new loans and could not even get their old loans renewed, forcing many to stop investing. This interpretation blames the Federal Reserve for inaction, especially the New York branch . One reason why

9100-465: The behavior of housewives. The common view among economic historians is that the Great Depression ended with the advent of World War II . Many economists believe that government spending on the war caused or at least accelerated recovery from the Great Depression, though some consider that it did not play a very large role in the recovery, though it did help in reducing unemployment. The rearmament policies leading up to World War II helped stimulate

9240-462: The collapse in global trade, contributing to the depression. By 1933, the economic decline pushed world trade to one third of its level compared to four years earlier. While the precise causes for the occurrence of the Great depression are disputed and can be traced to both global and national phenomena, its immediate origins are most conveniently examined in the context of the U.S. economy, from which

9380-567: The couple's meeting, Florence said, "Well, I thought he was nice for the summer ... I thought he would be just a nice boyfriend for the summer. He was cute-looking and tall, over six feet.... I was in my last year at Hunter College; we were still dating when Sid went into the service, the Coast Guard. Luckily he was stationed in New York so we were able to continue seeing each other, even though my parents weren't too happy about it. They never thought he would amount to anything, that he'd never have

9520-475: The crash was a mere symptom of more general economic trends of the time, which had already been underway in the late 1920s. A contrasting set of views, which rose to prominence in the later part of the 20th century, ascribes a more prominent role to failures of monetary policy . According to those authors, while general economic trends can explain the emergence of the downturn, they fail to account for its severity and longevity; they argue that these were caused by

9660-625: The crisis, the U.S. Congress passed the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act on 17 June 1930. The Act was ostensibly aimed at protecting the American economy from foreign competition by imposing high tariffs on foreign imports. The consensus view among economists and economic historians (including Keynesians , Monetarists and Austrian economists ) is that the passage of the Smoot–Hawley Tariff had, in fact, achieved an opposite effect to what

9800-633: The decade. The Depression had devastating economic effects on both wealthy and poor countries: all experienced drops in personal income , prices ( deflation ), tax revenues, and profits. International trade fell by more than 50%, and unemployment in some countries rose as high as 33%. Cities around the world , especially those dependent on heavy industry , were heavily affected. Construction virtually halted in many countries, and farming communities and rural areas suffered as crop prices fell by up to 60%. Faced with plummeting demand and few job alternatives, areas dependent on primary sector industries suffered

9940-408: The depression. Not all governments enforced the same measures of protectionism. Some countries raised tariffs drastically and enforced severe restrictions on foreign exchange transactions, while other countries reduced "trade and exchange restrictions only marginally": The gold standard was the primary transmission mechanism of the Great Depression. Even countries that did not face bank failures and

10080-435: The domestic price level to decline ( deflation ). There is also consensus that protectionist policies, and primarily the passage of the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act , helped to exacerbate, or even cause the Great Depression. Some economic studies have indicated that the rigidities of the gold standard not only spread the downturn worldwide, but also suspended gold convertibility (devaluing the currency in gold terms) that did

10220-402: The drop in demand. Monetarists believe that the Great Depression started as an ordinary recession, but the shrinking of the money supply greatly exacerbated the economic situation, causing a recession to descend into the Great Depression. Economists and economic historians are almost evenly split as to whether the traditional monetary explanation that monetary forces were the primary cause of

10360-427: The economies of Europe in 1937–1939. By 1937, unemployment in Britain had fallen to 1.5 million. The mobilization of manpower following the outbreak of war in 1939 ended unemployment. The American mobilization for World War II at the end of 1941 moved approximately ten million people out of the civilian labor force and into the war. This finally eliminated the last effects from the Great Depression and brought

10500-818: The end of the 1950–51 season, Your Show of Shows became its own, 90-minute program from the International Theatre at 5 Columbus Circle and later The Center Theatre at Sixth Avenue and 49th Street. Burgess Meredith hosted the first two shows, and the premiere featured musical guests Gertrude Lawrence , Lily Pons and Robert Merrill . The show was a mix of sketch comedy , movie and television satires, Caesar's monologs, musical guests, and large production numbers. Guests included: Jackie Cooper , Robert Preston , Rex Harrison , Eddie Albert , Michael Redgrave , Basil Rathbone , Charlton Heston , Geraldine Page , Douglas Fairbanks Jr. , Pearl Bailey , Fred Allen , Benny Goodman , Lena Horne and many other stars of

10640-576: The end of the month. A large sell-off of stocks began in mid-October. Finally, on 24 October, Black Thursday , the American stock market crashed 11% at the opening bell. Actions to stabilize the market failed, and on 28 October, Black Monday, the market crashed another 12%. The panic peaked the next day on Black Tuesday, when the market saw another 11% drop. Thousands of investors were ruined, and billions of dollars had been lost; many stocks could not be sold at any price. The market recovered 12% on Wednesday but by then significant damage had been done. Though

10780-500: The explanations of the Keynesians and monetarists. The consensus among demand-driven theories is that a large-scale loss of confidence led to a sudden reduction in consumption and investment spending. Once panic and deflation set in, many people believed they could avoid further losses by keeping clear of the markets. Holding money became profitable as prices dropped lower and a given amount of money bought ever more goods, exacerbating

10920-435: The expressions on the faces of Caesar and other actors. Caesar relied more on body language, accents, and facial contortions than simply spoken dialogue. Unlike slapstick comedy, which was standard on TV, his style was considered avant garde . Caesar "...was born with the ability to write physical poetry," notes comedian Steve Allen , a technique like that used for a silent film comedian. An example of this "silent film" style

11060-503: The few women in the labor force, layoffs were less common in the white-collar jobs and they were typically found in light manufacturing work. However, there was a widespread demand to limit families to one paid job, so that wives might lose employment if their husband was employed. Across Britain, there was a tendency for married women to join the labor force, competing for part-time jobs especially. In France, very slow population growth, especially in comparison to Germany continued to be

11200-505: The first week of June, 540 million in the second, and 150 million in two days, 19–20 June. Collapse was at hand. U.S. President Herbert Hoover called for a moratorium on payment of war reparations . This angered Paris, which depended on a steady flow of German payments, but it slowed the crisis down, and the moratorium was agreed to in July 1931. An International conference in London later in July produced no agreements but on 19 August

11340-691: The following year, in The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit based on a Ray Bradbury novel. Also that year, Caesar joined fellow television icons Bob Hope and Milton Berle at the 50th anniversary of the Primetime Emmy Awards . Billy Crystal also paid tribute to Caesar that night when he won an Emmy for hosting that year's Oscar telecast, recalling seeing Caesar doing a parody of Yul Brynner in The King & I on Your Show of Shows . Caesar performed his double-talk in

11480-606: The government tried to reshape private household consumption under the Four-Year Plan of 1936 to achieve German economic self-sufficiency. The Nazi women's organizations, other propaganda agencies and the authorities all attempted to shape such consumption as economic self-sufficiency was needed to prepare for and to sustain the coming war. The organizations, propaganda agencies and authorities employed slogans that called up traditional values of thrift and healthy living. However, these efforts were only partly successful in changing

11620-519: The home, or took boarders, did laundry for trade or cash, and did sewing for neighbors in exchange for something they could offer. Extended families used mutual aid—extra food, spare rooms, repair-work, cash loans—to help cousins and in-laws. In Japan, official government policy was deflationary and the opposite of Keynesian spending. Consequently, the government launched a campaign across the country to induce households to reduce their consumption, focusing attention on spending by housewives. In Germany,

11760-527: The initial crisis spread to the rest of the world. In the aftermath of World War I , the Roaring Twenties brought considerable wealth to the United States and Western Europe. Initially, the year 1929 dawned with good economic prospects: despite a minor crash on 25 March 1929, the market seemed to gradually improve through September. Stock prices began to slump in September, and were volatile at

11900-563: The lack of an adequate response to the crises of liquidity that followed the initial economic shock of 1929 and the subsequent bank failures accompanied by a general collapse of the financial markets. After the Wall Street Crash of 1929 , when the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped from 381 to 198 over the course of two months, optimism persisted for some time. The stock market rose in early 1930, with

12040-436: The large team of writers coming up with routines for Caesar, feeling it was too competitive and contributed to hostility among writers. An Allen biographer wrote that Allen "...chafed under the atmosphere of inspired spontaneity", although Allen did say that, "Writing for Caesar was the highest thing you could aspire to—at least as a TV comedy writer. Only the presidency was above that." Neil Simon noted that "we were competitive

12180-399: The last minute. And I think when you do live television — well, we stopped for nothing. We had no cue cards, no TelePrompTers , and no ad-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. A common misconception

12320-411: The live performances, actress Nanette Fabray recalled that unlike most comedians, such as Red Skelton , Bob Hope or Milton Berle , Caesar always stayed in character: "He was so totally into the scene he never lost it." Caesar was able to pantomime a wide variety of things: a tire, a gumball machine, a lion, a dog, a punching bag, a telephone, an infant, an elevator, a railroad train, a herd of horses,

12460-521: The market entered a period of recovery from 14 November until 17 April 1930, the general situation had been a prolonged slump. From 17 April 1930 until 8 July 1932, the market continued to lose 89% of its value. Despite the crash, the worst of the crisis did not reverberate around the world until after 1929. The crisis hit panic levels again in December 1930, with a bank run on the Bank of United States ,

12600-414: The mid-1930s, a severe drought ravaged the agricultural heartland of the U.S. Interest rates dropped to low levels by mid-1930, but expected deflation and the continuing reluctance of people to borrow meant that consumer spending and investment remained low. By May 1930, automobile sales declined to below the levels of 1928. Prices, in general, began to decline, although wages held steady in 1930. Then

12740-423: The monetary base and by not injecting liquidity into the banking system to prevent it from crumbling, the Federal Reserve passively watched the transformation of a normal recession into the Great Depression. Friedman and Schwartz argued that the downward turn in the economy, starting with the stock market crash, would merely have been an ordinary recession if the Federal Reserve had taken aggressive action. This view

12880-502: The most to make recovery possible. Every major currency left the gold standard during the Great Depression. The UK was the first to do so. Facing speculative attacks on the pound and depleting gold reserves , in September 1931 the Bank of England ceased exchanging pound notes for gold and the pound was floated on foreign exchange markets. Japan and the Scandinavian countries followed in 1931. Other countries, such as Italy and

13020-427: The most. The outbreak of World War II in 1939 ended the Depression, as it stimulated factory production, providing jobs for women as militaries absorbed large numbers of young, unemployed men. The precise causes for the Great Depression are disputed. One set of historians, for example, focuses on non-monetary economic causes. Among these, some regard the Wall Street crash itself as the main cause; others consider that

13160-435: The music. He won a 1948 Donaldson Award for his contributions to the musical. Caesar's television career began with an appearance on Milton Berle 's Texaco Star Theater in the fall of 1948. In early 1949, Caesar and Liebman met with Pat Weaver , vice president of television at NBC, which led to Caesar's first series, Admiral Broadway Revue with Imogene Coca . The Friday show was simultaneously broadcast on NBC and

13300-582: The need to balance the national budget and was unwilling to implement expensive welfare spending . In 1930, Hoover signed the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act , which taxed imports with the intention of encouraging buyers to purchase American products, which worsened the Depression because foreign governments retaliated with tariffs on American exports. In 1932, Hoover established the Reconstruction Finance Corporation , which offered loans to businesses and support to local governments. In

13440-554: The opening act for Joe E. Lewis at the Copacabana nightclub . He reunited with Liebman, who guided his stage material and presentation. That job led to a contract with the William Morris Agency and a nationwide tour. Caesar also performed in a Broadway revue, Make Mine Manhattan , which featured The Five Dollar Date —one of his first original pieces, in which he sang, acted, double-talked, pantomimed, and wrote

13580-483: The physical volume of exports fall, but also the prices fell by about 1 ⁄ 3 as written. Hardest hit were farm commodities such as wheat, cotton, tobacco, and lumber. Governments around the world took various steps into spending less money on foreign goods such as: "imposing tariffs, import quotas, and exchange controls". These restrictions triggered much tension among countries that had large amounts of bilateral trade, causing major export-import reductions during

13720-480: The policies prolonged the Depression instead of shortening it. Between 1929 and 1932, worldwide gross domestic product (GDP) fell by an estimated 15%; in the U.S., the Depression resulted in a 30% contraction in GDP. Recovery varied greatly around the world. Some economies, such as the U.S., Germany and Japan started to recover by the mid-1930s; others, like France, did not return to pre-shock growth rates until later in

13860-459: The political situation in Europe. In their book, A Monetary History of the United States , Milton Friedman and Anna J. Schwartz also attributed the recovery to monetary factors, and contended that it was much slowed by poor management of money by the Federal Reserve System . Chairman of the Federal Reserve (2006–2014) Ben Bernanke agreed that monetary factors played important roles both in

14000-634: The remainder telecast from the since-demolished International Theatre (also known as the Park Theatre) at 5 Columbus Circle and the Center Theatre in Manhattan , New York City . The Chicago portion was dropped at the end of the 1950–51 season, and the series became the 90-minute Your Show of Shows . Writers for the series included Mel Brooks , Neil Simon , Danny Simon , Mel Tolkin , Lucille Kallen , Selma Diamond , Joseph Stein , Michael Stewart , Tony Webster (the only Gentile among

14140-434: The scale necessary to make the grand experiments which would prove my case—except in war conditions." According to Christina Romer , the money supply growth caused by huge international gold inflows was a crucial source of the recovery of the United States economy, and that the economy showed little sign of self-correction. The gold inflows were partly due to devaluation of the U.S. dollar and partly due to deterioration of

14280-615: The scripts in the closet and was holding onto the key until he could come back to decide how to dispose of them. After the program ended the Caesar-Coca team was effectively split into two successor programs the following season: Imogene Coca starred in The Imogene Coca Show (which lasted one season), and Sid Caesar starred in Caesar's Hour , which retained much of the cast and staff of Your Show of Shows . Reruns of

14420-528: The show to which all comedy writers aspired. It was the place to be." While Caesar did not write his dialogue, he made all final decisions. His writers, such as Mel Brooks , felt they "had a great instrument in Caesar that we could all play, and we played it very well." As for Caesar, Nachman describes him basically as an "inspired idea man who allowed the writers to take more risks" than other TV shows. Woody Allen remembers that "...you wrote situations," instead of jokes, as in "This Is Your Story" with Carl Reiner,

14560-582: The show was "The Commuters", which featured Caesar, Reiner, and Morris involved with everyday working and suburban life situations. Years later, the sketch "Sneaking through the Sound Barrier", a parody of the British film The Sound Barrier , ran continuously as part of a display on supersonic flight at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. Steve Allen claimed, "Sid's was

14700-475: The show's close on February 12, 2014. Vanity Fair republished a brief tribute written by Billy Crystal in August 2005, in which he said of Caesar and his contemporaries: I get nervous when I am with these giants. I always feel like I want to say, Thank you. I am blessed to have grown up in their time of perfection, to have witnessed the utter force of Sid. Live, uncut, daring but not risqué. Never stooping beneath themselves, Sid and this team of icons put forth

14840-425: The show's writers), and Carl 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. James Starbuck was the resident choreographer for the show, and often appeared as

14980-505: The sketches boosted the box office of the original productions. Some notable sketches included: "From Here to Obscurity" ( From Here to Eternity ), "Aggravation Boulevard" ( Sunset Boulevard ), "Hat Basterson" ( Bat Masterson ), and "No West for the Wicked" ( Stagecoach ). They also performed some recurring sketches. "The Hickenloopers", television's first bickering-couple sketch, predated The Honeymooners . As "The Professor", Caesar

15120-545: 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 for Your Show of Shows in 1953 and 1954

15260-550: The summer of 1942, Caesar met his future wife, Florence Levy, at the Avon Lodge in the Catskills village of Woodridge, New York . They were married on July 17, 1943, and had three children: Michele, Rick and Karen. After joining the musicians' union, he briefly played with Shep Fields , Claude Thornhill , Charlie Spivak , Art Mooney and Benny Goodman . Later in his career, he performed "Sing, Sing, Sing" with Goodman for

15400-486: The tickets to my roommate because I said, Fair Lady's gonna be running for a hundred years, but Sid Caesar is live and I'll never see that again." After nearly 10 years as a prime-time star of television comedy with Your Show of Shows followed by Caesar's Hour , his stardom ended rapidly and he nearly disappeared from the spotlight. Nachman describes this period: Caesar slid into a personal and career abyss ... [he] had no interest in movies ... He would live and die by

15540-418: The time, the dialogue on his shows was considered sharper, funnier and more adult oriented. In his sketches for Your Show of Shows and Caesar's Hour , he would also typically "skewer the minutiae of domestic life" along with lampooning popular or classic movies. Contemporary movies, foreign movies, theater, television shows and opera were targets of satire by the writing team. Often the publicity generated by

15680-638: The time. It was also responsible for bringing together the comedy team of Caesar, Coca, Carl Reiner , and Howard Morris . Many writers also got their break creating the show's sketches, including Lucille Kallen , Mel Brooks , Neil Simon , Michael Stewart , Mel Tolkin and Sheldon Keller . Sid Caesar won his first Emmy in 1952. In 1951 and 1952, he was voted the United States' Best Comedian in Motion Picture Daily ' s TV poll. The show ended after almost 160 episodes on June 5, 1954. A few months later, Caesar returned with Caesar's Hour ,

15820-443: The tube. His career was short-circuited by alcohol and pills ... The pressures of sudden stardom, of headlining and co-producing a weekly hit show, crushed him. Caesar himself felt, "It had all come too fast, was too easy, and he didn't deserve the acclaim." Writer Mel Brooks , who also became his close friend, said, "I know of no other comedian, including Chaplin, who could have done nearly ten years of live television. Nobody's talent

15960-563: The way a family is competitive to get dad's attention. We all wanted to be Sid's favorite." As part of the competitive atmosphere in The Writer's Room , as it was called, friendship was also critical. Larry Gelbart explained: We were able to be urbane. Between us we read every book. Between us we saw every movie. Between us we saw every play on Broadway. You could make jokes about Kafka or Tennessee Williams. We also had dinner together. We went to movies together. We were all friends. And that

16100-476: The world, recovery from the Great Depression began in 1933. In the U.S., recovery began in early 1933, but the U.S. did not return to 1929 GNP for over a decade and still had an unemployment rate of about 15% in 1940, albeit down from the high of 25% in 1933. There is no consensus among economists regarding the motive force for the U.S. economic expansion that continued through most of the Roosevelt years (and

16240-673: The world. The financial crisis escalated out of control in mid-1931, starting with the collapse of the Credit Anstalt in Vienna in May. This put heavy pressure on Germany, which was already in political turmoil. With the rise in violence of National Socialist ('Nazi') and Communist movements, as well as investor nervousness at harsh government financial policies, investors withdrew their short-term money from Germany as confidence spiraled downward. The Reichsbank lost 150 million marks in

16380-493: The world. The economic contagion began in 1929 in the United States , the largest economy in the world, with the devastating Wall Street stock market crash of October 1929 often considered the beginning of the Depression. The Depression was preceded by a period of industrial growth and social development known as the " Roaring Twenties ". Much of the profit generated by the boom was invested in speculation , such as on

16520-778: The worldwide economic decline and eventual recovery. Bernanke also saw a strong role for institutional factors, particularly the rebuilding and restructuring of the financial system, and pointed out that the Depression should be examined in an international perspective. Women's primary role was as housewives; without a steady flow of family income, their work became much harder in dealing with food and clothing and medical care. Birthrates fell everywhere, as children were postponed until families could financially support them. The average birthrate for 14 major countries fell 12% from 19.3 births per thousand population in 1930, to 17.0 in 1935. In Canada, half of Roman Catholic women defied Church teachings and used contraception to postpone births. Among

16660-412: The years 1953 and 1954 and tallied two wins. He also acted in films; he played Coach Calhoun in Grease (1978) and its sequel Grease 2 (1982) and appeared in the films It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), Silent Movie (1976), History of the World, Part I (1981), Cannonball Run II (1984), and Vegas Vacation (1997). Caesar was considered a "sketch comic" and actor, as opposed to

16800-412: Was Saturday Night Review . The show featured several regular musical sketches, such as the mock rock group The Haircuts which achieved a surprise novelty hit with "Going Crazy" in 1955. The kinescopes of the series were retained by Max Liebman ; from those shows, a 1973 theatrical film titled Ten from Your Show of Shows was compiled which featured ten sketches. In 1976, this was followed by

16940-571: Was "proud to be Jewish" and that "Jews have a good sense of humor. Jews appreciate humor because in their life it's not too funny. We've been trodden down for a long time, thousands of years. So we've had to turn that around because if you take it all too seriously you're going to eat yourself. And we're very good at being self-deprecating. Either we do it or somebody's going to do it for us. We might as well do it first." Caesar died on February 12, 2014, at his home in Beverly Hills, California, at

17080-658: Was a scramble to deflate prices to get the gold standard's conversation rates back on track to pre-WWI levels, by causing deflation and high unemployment through monetary policy. In 1933 FDR signed Executive Order 6102 and in 1934 signed the Gold Reserve Act . The two classic competing economic theories of the Great Depression are the Keynesian (demand-driven) and the Monetarist explanation. There are also various heterodox theories that downplay or reject

17220-478: Was a small part of overall economic activity in the U.S. and was concentrated in a few businesses like farming, it was a much larger factor in many other countries. The average ad valorem (value based) rate of duties on dutiable imports for 1921–1925 was 25.9% but under the new tariff it jumped to 50% during 1931–1935. In dollar terms, American exports declined over the next four years from about $ 5.2 billion in 1929 to $ 1.7 billion in 1933; so, not only did

17360-424: Was a zoo. Everyone pitched lines at Sid. Jokes would be changed fifty times." Naturally there were some explosive episodes: "Mr. Caesar once dangled a terrified Mr. Brooks from an 18th-story window until colleagues restrained him. With one punch, he knocked out a horse that had thrown his wife off its back, a scene that Mr. Brooks replayed in his movie Blazing Saddles ." Neil Simon recalled that after writing out

17500-500: Was accompanied by a loss of confidence in the financial system. By 1933, the U.S. unemployment rate had risen to 25 percent, about one-third of farmers had lost their land, and about half of the country's 25,000 banks had gone out of business. Many people, unable to pay mortgages or rent, became homeless and relied on begging or charities to feed themselves. The U.S. federal government initially did little to help. President Herbert Hoover , like many of his fellow Republicans , believed in

17640-474: Was endorsed in 2002 by Federal Reserve Governor Ben Bernanke in a speech honoring Friedman and Schwartz with this statement: Let me end my talk by abusing slightly my status as an official representative of the Federal Reserve. I would like to say to Milton and Anna: Regarding the Great Depression, you're right. We did it. We're very sorry. But thanks to you, we won't do it again. The Federal Reserve allowed some large public bank failures – particularly that of

17780-630: Was ever more used up than Sid's. He was one of the greatest artists ever born. But over a period of years, television ground him into sausages." In 1977, after blacking out during a stage performance of Neil Simon 's The Last of the Red Hot Lovers in Regina, Saskatchewan , Caesar gave up alcohol " cold turkey ". In his 1982 autobiography, Where Have I Been? , and his second book, Caesar's Hours , he chronicled his struggle to overcome his alcoholism and addiction to sleeping pills . Throughout

17920-426: Was given by American economists Milton Friedman and Anna J. Schwartz . They argued that the Great Depression was caused by the banking crisis that caused one-third of all banks to vanish, a reduction of bank shareholder wealth and more importantly monetary contraction of 35%, which they called "The Great Contraction ". This caused a price drop of 33% ( deflation ). By not lowering interest rates, by not increasing

18060-500: Was in the form of Federal Reserve demand notes. A "promise of gold" is not as good as "gold in the hand", particularly when they only had enough gold to cover 40% of the Federal Reserve Notes outstanding. During the bank panics, a portion of those demand notes was redeemed for Federal Reserve gold. Since the Federal Reserve had hit its limit on allowable credit, any reduction in gold in its vaults had to be accompanied by

18200-446: Was intended. It exacerbated the Great Depression by preventing economic recovery after domestic production recovered, hampering the volume of trade; still there is disagreement as to the precise extent of the Act's influence. In the popular view, the Smoot–Hawley Tariff was one of the leading causes of the depression. In a 1995 survey of American economic historians, two-thirds agreed that the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act at least worsened

18340-533: Was performed live, including the commercials. Caesar's Hour was followed by ABC's short-lived Sid Caesar Invites You from January 26 to May 25, 1958. It briefly reunited Caesar, Coca, and Reiner, with Simon and Brooks among the writers. In 1963, Caesar appeared on television, on stage, and in films. Several As Caesar Sees It specials evolved into the 1963–64 Sid Caesar Show (which alternated with Edie Adams in Here's Edie ). He starred with Virginia Martin in

18480-633: Was produced by Sylvester "Pat" Weaver and directed by Max Liebman , who had been producing musical revues at the Tamiment resort in the Pocono Mountains for many years prior. Caesar, Coca, and Liebman had worked on Admiral Broadway Revue from January to June 1949. The series originated as the second half of a two-hour umbrella show, Saturday Night Review , with the first portion hosted by comedian Jack Carter in Chicago , Illinois, and

18620-551: Was published, and in 2006, Billy Crystal presented Caesar with the TV Land Awards ' Pioneer Award. In what TV Land called "...a hilarious, heartfelt, multilingual, uncut acceptance speech," Caesar performed his double-talk for over five minutes. In a November 2009 article in the Toluca Lake , California , Tolucan Times , columnist Greg Crosby described a visit with Caesar and his wife Florence at their home. Of

18760-522: Was ranked #10 on Entertainment Weekly ’s Top 100 Greatest TV Shows of All Time. In 2013, the Writers Guild of America ranked Your Show of Shows #41 on its list of the "101 Best Written TV Series of All Time." Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty; drastic reductions in liquidity , industrial production, and trade; and widespread bank and business failures around

18900-415: Was the daffy expert who bluffed his way through his interviews with earnest roving reporter Carl Reiner . In its various incarnations, "The Professor" could be Gut von Fraidykat (mountain-climbing expert), Ludwig von Spacebrain (space expert), or Ludwig von Henpecked (marriage expert). Later, "The Professor" was inspiration for Mel Brooks' "The Two Thousand Year Old Man". The most prominent recurring sketch on

19040-469: Was the first original TV comedy creation." His early shows were the "...gold standard for TV sketch comedy." In 1951, Newsweek noted that according to "the opinion of lots of smart people, Caesar is the best that TV has to offer," while Zolotow, in his 1953 profile for The Saturday Evening Post , wrote that "in temperament, physique, and technique of operation, Caesar represents a new species of comedian." However, his positive impact on television became

19180-470: Was the rollback of those same reflationary policies that led to the interruption of a recession beginning in late 1937. One contributing policy that reversed reflation was the Banking Act of 1935 , which effectively raised reserve requirements, causing a monetary contraction that helped to thwart the recovery. GDP returned to its upward trend in 1938. A revisionist view among some economists holds that

19320-554: Was the show to which all comedy writers aspired. It was the place to be," said Steve Allen . His TV shows' subjects included satires of real life events and people, and parodies of popular film genres, theater, television shows, and opera. But unlike other comedy shows at the time, the dialogue was considered sharper, funnier, and more adult-oriented. He was "best known as one of the most intelligent and provocative innovators of television comedy," who some critics called "television's Charlie Chaplin " and The New York Times refers to as

19460-500: Was the youngest of three sons; his family was Jewish. He was born in Yonkers, New York . His father was Max Ziser (1874–1946) and his mother was Ida (née Raphael) (1887–1975). They likely were from Dąbrowa Tarnowska , Poland. Reports state that the surname "Caesar" was given to Max, as a child, by an immigration official at Ellis Island . According to Marian L. Smith, senior historian of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service, there

19600-490: Was very important. We appreciated each other a lot. Nachman concludes that "the Caesar shows were the crème de la crème of fifties television," as they were "studded with satire, and their sketches sharper, edgier, more sophisticated than the other variety shows." Likewise, historian Susan Murray notes that Caesar was "...best known as one of the most intelligent and provocative innovators of television comedy." According to actress Nanette Fabray , who acted alongside Caesar, "He

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