8 Fun Facts About ‘Your Show of Shows,’ the ’50s Comedy Variety Show That Gave Us Sid Caesar, Mel Brooks & More
When Your Show of Shows with Imogene Coca and Sid Caesar debuted on February 25, 1950, no one knew that a whole new genre of television show had been born. A family-friendly, viewer-pleasing mix of sketch comedy, stand-up routines, and musical and dance performances, the 90-minute program paved the way for generations of comedy-focused variety shows that flourished in TV’s Golden Age from the ’40s-’60s and continued on through The Carol Burnett Show, The Muppet Show, Saturday Night Live and a host of other laughers.
From the famous faces in its writers room to the, er, puppet mastery of Kukla, Fran and Ollie, here are 8 things you may not know about the comedy show.
1 The show’s creators started out producing musical revues for a luxury resort in the Poconos
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The show was created by Sylvester “Pat” Weaver and Max Liebman; Liebman spent years as the theater director of Tamiment, a resort in Pennsylvania’s Poconos Mountains. While there, Liebman worked with future Your Show of Show star Imogene Coca on the musical The Straw Hat Revue, which later transferred to Broadway. With Weaver, he developed the Coca and Sid Caesar-starring Admiral Broadway Revue, which ran for one year in 1949 and was then cancelled by its sponsor, electronics corporation Admiral, for being too popular; the show was so funny that too many people wanted to purchase the company’s TVs, and they couldn’t keep up with demand.
Don’t worry — the gang got back together the next year for Your Show of Shows and this time, no one got upset at them for being too good.
2 The writers room was an elite mix of burgeoning (and mostly Jewish) comic talent
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From Mel Brooks and brothers Neil and Danny Simon, to Broadway’s Lucille Kallen (the only woman in the room until The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet scribe Selma Diamond joined in) and Carl Reiner, who also appeared before the cameras, the writers room of Your Show of Shows yielded some of the most important comedic talents of the 20th century.
3 Woody Allen wasn’t one of them.
Though he’s frequently credited with contributing to Your Show of Show sketches, Allen actually joined the writers room for Caesar’s next variety project, Caesar’s Hour. Allen famously began writing jokes and sending them to TV comedians (inlcuding Caesar) when he was 15, in 1950, but he was never a writer for the series.
4 “The Three Haircuts” were so bad, they were great
Reiner, Caesar and Morris appeared semi-regularly as luxuriously coiffed, questionably talented musical brethren The Three Haircuts, who parodied the decade’s singing groups. Despite (or because of) their bad vocal chops and even worse dance moves, the group proved so popular that, in 1955, RCA rush recorded and released a pair of their songs from the show, “You Are So Rare” and “Goin’ Crazy.”
5 It catered to a wide array of tastes
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With comedy sketches and arts performances that ranged from slapstick comedy and musical numbers to popular guest stars such as Howard Morris (The Andy Griffith Show‘s beloved Howard T. Bass), the wildly popular puppet act Kukla, Fran and Ollie, and movie and Broadway star José Ferrer, Your Show of Shows was among the first shows to demonstrate how television could bring together a diverse range of entertainment and audiences, much like vaudeville shows had done decades before.
6 The show inspired some hilarious remembrances
Reiner said that his time on Your Show of Shows inspired him to create The Dick Van Dyke Show. Brooks credited Your Show of Shows for inspiring his critically hailed 1982 comedy, My Favorite Year, centered on a 1950s variety show. And Neil Simon‘s 1993 play Laughter on the 23rd Floor also focused on Simon’s early years writing for variety shows.
7 Its format was painstakingly planned
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Seamless transitions between segments — from a skit to a musical number to a comedy bit — kept the energy high and the audience engaged, an aspect of the show that both influenced the pacing of later variety programs and also catered to folks without a full hour-plus to spare who dropped in for a bit comedy, some music or just a few moments of escapist fun.
8 The show really, really, really wanted you to smoke Camel cigarettes
Though modern TV viewers are no strangers to being inundated by repeated commercials, these were doozies. Your Show of Show‘s opening credits barely rolled before viewers spent 90 seconds being encouraged to try the “30-Day Camel Test” — a test based on steady smoking!” Along the way, we also learned that “you college people” prefer Camels, while big guys might instead go for Camel’s King-Sized Cavaliers. Which cost no more than other cigarettes, even though they were king-sized.
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