In the Carol Burnett Show – Sid Caesar and Liza Minelli, comedy legend Sid Caesar guests as a nervous, expectant father. Also, “V.I.P.” interviews Lucy Brains, and “Carol & Sis” finds Chris’ college interview complicated by sleeping pills.
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“When we worked together,”reminisces Sid Caesar, “it was magic, and you don’t question magic.” So just enjoy this essential three-disc collection of vintage sketches from Your Show of Shows and Caesar’s Hour. To work on these programs was to attend “the Harvard of Comedy,” and this “great amalgamation of talents,” which included Carl Reiner, Imogene Coca, Howard Morris, Nanette Fabray, Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, Larry Gelbart, and Neil and Danny Simon, were at the head of their class. “We did everything,” Caesar notes at one point, and the proof is on these discs: domestic sketches (“Life Begins at 7:45″ ), game show parodies (“Break Your Brains” ), spoofs of foreign films (“U-Bet-U” ), opera (“Gallipacci” ), and classical music (and a pantomime of “the 1812 Overture” ). It is a testament to the knowledge, technique, and taste of those who created the show that these 50-year-old sketches hold up as well as they do. This was the golden age of live television, when anything could happen, and the cast would have to go with it. In “Gallipacci,” Caesar’s make-up pencil breaks when his character, a heartbroken clown, is applying make-up to his face. Without missing a beat, Caesar rises to the potentially disastrous occasion with one of the most inspired ad-libs in television history.
The Emperor’s New Clothes, starring Sid Caesar, Robert Morse, Jason Carter, Lysette AnthonyDVD review of The Emperor’s New Clothes starring Sid Caesar, Clive Revill, Robert Morse. A very good children’s film that plays on two levels – one for the children, and another for the adults, with the perpetually funny Sid Caesar cracking me up every time he appears as the self-absorbed emperor
Sid Caesar is one of those clowns who can take a minor part and make it laugh out loud hilarious — which he does in this version of the classic children’s tale, The Emperor’s New Clothes. Read More »The Emperor’s New Clothes
It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World is a manic, hilarious, slapstick movie. It starred some of the greatest movie clowns of their time …. And more cameos than you can shake a stick at.
The basic plot involves a dying thief (Jimmy Durante) who tells a small group of bystanders where to find the hidden money from his last bank job. These individuals then embark on a treasure hunt of sorts, and the madcap fun begins! The initially small group grows. Until nearly a dozen people are looking for the treasure. The movie quickly turns into a slapstick farce. The various people compete to be the first to the location. And those people the funniest comedians and film clowns of their time. In addition, virtually every other major comedian or clown puts in a cameo appearance in the film.
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