Caesar's Hour

Caesar's Hour is a live, hour-long American sketch-comedy television program that aired on NBC from 1954 until 1957. The program starred, among others, Sid Caesar, Nanette Fabray, Carl Reiner, Howard Morris, Janet Blair, and Milt Kamen, and featured a number of cameo roles by famous entertainers such as Joan Crawford and Peggy Lee. Widely considered a continuation of Caesar's earlier programs, the Admiral Broadway Revue and Your Show of Shows, Caesar's Hour included most of the same writers and actors, with the notable addition of Larry Gelbart (who went on to co-create the M*A*S*H TV series with Gene Reynolds) in the latter show. Nanette Fabray replaced Imogene Coca, who opted to star in her own TV series in 1954, The Imogene Coca Show. Caesar's Hour expanded on the format of Your Show of Shows with many sketches running a half-hour or more, including musical parodies such as "There's No Business" and "Towers Trot", and genre parodies such as "Bullets over Broadway" (a gangster film takeoff) and "Aggravation Boulevard" (with Caesar as a Rudolph Valentino/John Gilbert character who fails to make the transition from silents to talkies). Many of the sketches are centered on a domineering star who flames out, prefiguring Caesar's post-series personal and career troubles. From July to September 1956, NBC ran The Ernie Kovacs Show as a summer replacement series for Caesar's Hour.