I Guess I Can't Get Enough of Sid Caesar

[post 459]
I recently came across two more Sid Caesar pieces that I liked so much that I had to share them here. And that's even though I've already written about Caesar several times over the years:

Sid Caesar Was My Father
And Imogene Coca my mother. But only for a day or two, and not as publicly as I might have liked. The year was probably 1958.....

Sid Caesar's "Gallipacci" or the Fine Art of Gibberish
Sid Caesar (1922–2014).... was one of the truly great American comedians. He was also the King of Gibberish, fluent in faking many a foreign language....

Gibberish (Say What?
Perhaps the best gibberish comedian was "my father" Sid Caesar. His one-sided duel with Drew Carey on Whose Line Is It, Anyway? has been yanked from YouTube, but...

But, nothing! I was inspired to track down a copy of this, and added it as a bonus here, as well as restoring it to that older post.

Sid Caesar (1922–2014)
The king is dead. You can read the whole NY Times obituary here and...

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So... let's go straight to that Caesar appearance at the age of 79 on Whose Line Is It Anyway?, a funny-enough improv game show that ran for eight seasons a decade ago. Our hero talked circles around Drew Carey, no slouch himself, but what I really enjoyed was Caesar's use of gesture and facial expressions, as he acted out every nationality. And as I wrote in that earlier post, in real life Caesar spoke only two languages, English and Yiddish!

Beethoven's 5th
I love this 1954 pantomime marital battle between Caesar and Nanette Fabray, choreographed to the opening music of Beethoven's Fifth, which I just learned is known as the fate motif. That seems quite fitting here! Fabray (1920–2018)  grew up as a singing and dancing child vaudevillian who performed as Baby Nanette, and later studied opera at Juilliard.

A Streetcar Named ????
Elia Kazan's movie of Tennessee Willliams' play A Streetcar Named Desire was a big hit when it opened in September, 1951, with Marlon Brando sensational as the tough, blunt-spoken Stanley Kowalski fighting for his wife's allegiance against the intrusion of his demure, Southern belle sister-in-law, Blanche DuBois, played by Vivien Leigh.

In this parody from April, 1952, it's Caesar doing battle royale with Imogene Coca, with Betty Furness caught in between.

If you like Sid Caesar as much as I do, you'll be happy to know that this probably is not my last such post, because I just ordered what is purported to be the most complete collection of Caesar material. I doubt it's definitive, but I'm sure I'll find us some goodies. Note to researchers: not everything is on the internet. Sometimes you still have to buy DVDs