One of the greatest variety shows of all time — some would say the greatest — was Your Show of Shows starring Sid Caesar, Imogene Coca, Carl Reiner and Howard Morris. And a lot of them would tell you that one of the funniest sketches on Your Show of Shows was the one about the German general…and they'd be wrong.
Not that it wasn't funny. It was hilarious. It just wasn't on Your Show of Shows, despite its inclusion on that "best of" film they released in 1973, Ten From Your Show of Shows. That series was replaced in 1954 by a new series called Caesar's Hour and the German general sketch was performed on that show. In fact, it was on the first episode of Caesar's Hour in September of 1954. Here it is as performed there by Sid Caesar and Howard Morris…
Funny, right? Well, any student of comedy might learn something from watching this next version of the sketch, performed December 3, 1961 on The Ed Sullivan Show by Mr. Caesar and an actor I can't identify. The gent, as you'll see, does a decent job but he's not Howie Morris…
I knew Howie pretty well and I remember him being pretty angry that Sid had done this but I never saw the Sullivan performance until recently. I don't recall if he was asked or not. This was about the time Howie moved out to Hollywood and made the movie Boys' Night Out with Kim Novak and began directing TV shows and doing cartoon voices. So he may not have been in New York when Sid wanted to do the sketch on Ed's show.
Nevertheless, decades later he was still angry that Sid did a sketch that, Howie claimed, the two of them largely wrote together…and which was obviously staged by having the new actor carefully study a kinescope of the original. It sure looked like they also showed it to the set designer for the Sullivan program and probably the wardrobe person and the director…and they even use the same music. Howie said he never was paid for it and was pretty sure the official writers of Caesar's Hour weren't paid either.
The second version is funny too but there's just something missing in it…and it's not just Howie Morris, though that's a large part of it. And does anyone have any idea who his replacement was? The guy looks familiar.