Name: Sid Caesar on Letterman, November 1, 1982
Uploaded: 2015-12-07T00:21:58.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Sid Caesar on Letterman, November 1, 1982' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2015-12-07. Transcript available. Not seen since first aired.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Sid Caesar on Letterman, November 1, 1982' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2015-12-07. Transcript available. Not seen since first aired.

Sid Caesar on Letterman, November 1, 1982

Welcome back to the program, ladies and gentlemen, my guest tonight, Jessica
Harper is here, also this gentleman who I'll introduce right now, plus a
stirring message later on from the League of Women's Voters Players.
It was my first guest who gave young performers and writers such as Carl Reiner,
Woody Allen, Neil Simon, and Mel Brooks their humble beginnings and also
inspired much of the comedy we've seen on television in the years to follow.
Your show of shows and Caesar's Hour are considered to be television classics.
The man behind these programs has now written a startling and very funny autobiography,
a copy of which I'm holding here in my left hand. It's entitled, Where Have I
Been? Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Sid Caesar.
I understand the book is doing quite well, and I must say I enjoyed it. Very
entertaining, interesting, informative piece of work. Congratulations on that,
sir.
Tell me about your show of shows. The first time you went on the air was 1949,
was it?
Right.
And what was the show then? That was not your show of shows.
That was the Admiral Broadway Review.
Yeah. What was that like? Did you have any idea at the time that you were
beginning something that years and years later would be...
No. In fact, when we went on, you know, we had to wait. We did our first show
at the International Theatre on 59th Street, which is not there anymore.
But we had to wait for the cameras to come in from Emmett's Field so we could
rehearse.
Because the NBC only had about maybe 15 cameras, so that we had to wait for
those to come in.
And we didn't know even where to put the footlights. I mean, where to put the
microphones, you know, put them in a footlight, put them in here, put them
there.
We really didn't know because there was no book. You know, I didn't say, when
you do television, do that.
And then when you do television, you do this. There was nothing. So we had to
actually improvise as we went along.
So you're making up your own rules and experimenting and...
That's right. And that was the fun of it because it was fun because you said,
hey, let's try this.
The most we can do is fail. And how many people are watching anyway?
In the book, you mentioned that particular show was canceled at the end of what,
a summer run?
No, we did... No, that was the regular run. It was supposed to be sort of like
30 weeks.
I mean, we canceled it for 19 shows.
19 shows. Why was it canceled?
Because, uh, they said, it was just canceled. And I found out later it was
canceled because they did too much business.
They used to sell, uh, it was Admiral.
And they were used to making 500 sets a week and selling 500 sets a week.
And about three, four weeks into the show, they started getting orders for 10,000.
10,000 sets. And they called us and said, we got to cancel.
So, uh, I walked up in Syracuse, who was the head at the time.
He said, we have to cancel because we have to put the money into either new
tooling or put it in the show.
I said, well, let's put it into new tooling. You'll have all the sets you want
to make, but you won't sell them.
Yeah.
But that's the way they work.
But that's amazing, though, because, of course, today it's just, nothing could
be farther from the truth.
A company dropping its sponsorship before...
Did that happen in a lot of cases or was this the only one?
No, that was just the one.
Yeah.
And from, so then it was not long after that, you came back on the air with
your show of shows.
Yes, we came right back after that with show of shows.
But we had learned so much from Admiral Porter Review because it truly was, you
know, primeval, practically,
because it was the primeval super where all the things were mixing.
And Imogene and I had met there and some of the writers and everybody had
gotten together.
So, we actually, that was the warm-up for the show of shows.
Yeah. Now, this list of people that is always associated with you and your
television projects,
what was it like being in a room with Carl Reiner and Neil Simon and Mel Brooks
and on and on and on in a writing session?
Well, when we'd sit down to write, we had nothing to, we would work on the show,
on the last week's show,
right up to the last, almost until curtain time.
And we had nothing prepared for the next week.
I mean, that was it.
We would come in and we'd sit down.
We'd come in about 10 o'clock in the morning, we'd sit down, and then we'd look
around, we'd look at each other.
And Mel Brooks was always late.
Always.
Would never be on time if he had anything.
But anyway, and the other writers, we used to get mad at them, you know.
And we used to sit there and we'd say, well, let's see, did you go anywhere?
Because we had no social life.
We used to work from 10 till 6 or sometimes 2 or 3 in the morning.
And nobody went anywhere.
So we used to say, did you go anywhere?
Do you know anybody who went anywhere?
Did anybody go any place anywhere?
Have you ever been anywhere?
Have you ever been?
So we'd find out, you know, like somebody would find out that two people had
tickets to a show that they said, you know.
And I said, hey, that's a great idea.
Two tickets to a show.
We used to get an idea.
We'd say, hey, supposing I'm sitting in the, I'm sitting at the desk.
And all of a sudden, say, my boss comes over and says, I got six tickets for
the opening night of Snap, You Gotta.
And, uh, here you are.
Well, I got to get four more people, you know, and I have to call up and we had,
we could split the screen in two.
That was a tremendous technological advance for us.
That was like going to the moon.
We split the scene in two, but we had to split in three.
So we had to build a piece across the set.
And then Howie had to stand like this on a ladder so he would look like he was
part of the screen.
Howie being?
Howie Morris.
Yeah.
But to go back to the, uh, to the, uh, to the writing in the room, there was
such energy, so much competition, topping each other.
When you have Neil Simon topping Mel Brooks and Mel Brooks topping Neil Simon
and Larry Gelbott topping them both.
Were these people, do they have compatible personalities?
No, no, no.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Uh, fights?
Yeah, there would be arguments.
I mean, real fights because there was a tremendous pride taken in the show.
You know, we compared ourselves to, uh, to Broadway.
We tried to, you know, emulate that.
We didn't do it all the time, but we got pretty good.
And there was a tremendous pride in the show because it was instant.
It was right on, it was live, you know.
As you did it, you walked out the door, you knew, well, you knew right there if
the show
was going over, like here.
You can tell if you, they don't have to tell you the show was pretty good.
Yeah.
You know, you know.
Yeah.
And the people tell you because the people are the ones that you work for.
And they're the ones who give you that, the warmth that I'm going around now
and feeling.
Let me go, let me go back to the, in the writing room and talking about these
people and
their compatible personalities and stuff.
But I think we're going to have to pause here.
Sure.
We'll go back and continue discussing this and a whole lot of other things with
Sid Caesar.
But first, late night, we'd like to welcome ColecoVision, the arcade quality
video system
to our program.
We're back to the show.
Sid Caesar is here tonight.
And if you're just tuning in, people in the audience say about that avalanche
earlier,
they've never seen a more realistic effect anywhere.
We were talking, anyway, the writers in one room, you have Neil Simon, who, I've
never
met the man, but I get the impression he's perhaps a little more soft-spoken
than someone
like Mel Brooks.
Well, Neil used to talk to Carl.
It's called Carl, Carl Reiner used to sit next to him because Neil would never
say anything.
He would just lean over to Carl and Carl would say, I think we ought to do, I
said, wait
a minute, what has Neil got to say, Carl?
And that's how we know.
So, he, yeah, had to have a guy doing his talking for him.
Yeah, Neil wasn't very talkative, but he was very bright.
Yeah, yeah.
Tremendous himself.
We have some videotape or old film or kinescope or whatever this is, and I
think you know what
it is, right, Sid, that we're going to take a look at?
No, what is it?
Okay.
This is the, one of the late races at Hialeah on Sunday, and...
Who won?
Who won?
Who won?
Who won?
I think this is from a scene with you and Carl Reiner from, I believe, your
show of shows.
All right.
We'll take a look and talk about that a little later.
Watch the monitors here in the studio at home.
Use your own TV.
I understand that you've done a lot of research in the comparative speeds of
light and sound.
Could you explain exactly what the difference is?
Yes, you see, that's a very good question.
Thank you.
Just now.
Thank you.
Anyway, you see, light travels at a rate of 186,000 miles per second.
And sound is a slow pokey, you know, travels 750 miles per hour, you know?
So in other words, you will see something before you will hear it.
You know what I mean?
I don't quite understand how that works.
But light travels, look, I'll show you.
I will pass you with the speed of light, you understand?
Or then I will say something to you, and it won't hit you because sound is
slower.
You mean I will see you, and then I will hear you.
That's right.
Now watch.
I'll show you what it's going to be here.
See, I'm going to pass you now the speed of light, or then you're going to hear
me.
And I'll say something.
All right?
Here I come.
Where did your ideas from characters begin?
Well, actually, we just picked them up.
I would see them on the street, or see them anywhere.
I would take from people, because when we sat down, you know, when we first
started the
show, shows for an hour and a half, I said to Max Liebman, I said, you know, we've
got
an hour and a half to fill here.
You know, I know a few routines, but that's about all.
Where are we going to get the material?
And the main thing was to come from people.
And that's where I started.
It's just watching people.
I would sit and just watch people do things, and then just exaggerate a little
bit.
And that to me is where all the material should come from, from people, because
people relate
to people.
They don't relate to things.
And people are funny, not things.
You also developed these phony languages that would sound, and that came early
in your
life.
Well, that's when I was a kid.
I went to my father's restaurant, and we had a lot of ethnic groups.
We had German, Polish, French, Italian.
And I would talk with them, you know.
And then we would send me over to a table full of, let's pick a language.
Lithuanian.
Lithuanian.
You call me up, Joe.
I'll talk it over.
You call me up, Joe.
I'll talk it over.
What about, uh...
Do you mind trying one more here?
What about Chinese?
Yes.
What dialect?
Mandarin?
Mandarin.
Mandarin.
Mandarin.
Mandarin.
Mandarin.
What about Chinese?
What dialect?
What dialect?
Mandarin.
Mandarin.
What do you know from Hunan?
Hunan.
What do you know from Hunan?
Hunan and Wahoo.
How about a Wahoo Hunan?
How about a He-Han-Una-Wa-Chao?
That's easy.
You can do that.
Yeah.
You can do that.
Yeah.
That's a little closer to the Mandarin than the Hunan, but it's close enough.
What do you care about Hunan?
How about Chao-Main?
You know that one, too.
Uh, what, uh...
You know, you mentioned live versus videotape, and it was your decision in the
beginning to
do 90 minutes, wasn't it?
Yeah.
I mean, they came to you and said, "How much time do you want?"
They said, "You want a half an hour, an hour, an hour and a half."
Yeah.
I said, "You want a half an hour, an hour, an hour and a half."
Yeah.
I said, "Might as well go for broke an hour and a half."
Yeah.
Now, what happens in those days when, uh, you get 90 minutes to fill, and you
come down
to, say, 84 minutes, and you're done, and, uh, you're still on the network?
That happened many, many times.
Okay.
And let me interrupt you here again