Silent film parodies were an important part of Your Show of Shows, the 90 minute weekly live TV show pioneered by Sid Caesar in the early 1950s. These parodies were also tributes to the acting skills needed to convey plot and emotion in the absence of spoken words.
Sid Caesar, Imogene Coca, Carl Reiner, and Howard Morris all had a special talent to bring these early films to life in hilarious takeoffs. This video, The Sewing Machine Girl has the classic elements of this genre: The mean shop owner, the poor overworked, underpaid girl, and her beleaguered co-worker who emerges as her hero.
This is a rare sketch just made available to a mass audience as one of the "Ten from Your Show of Shows" now available as part of the five DVD set Sid Caesar: The Works.
Enjoy!
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#Throwback Thursday #TBT
Fantastic show of shows.
ReplyDeleteSomehow (???)I have very vague memories of this stuff from age 3-4, when my parents watched it!
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