It’s safe to say that most Cracked readers were not around before televisions became a ubiquitous household fixture. Well, it didn’t happen overnight. In fact, the majority of homes in the US did not have a television set until 1955, one year after Your Show Of Shows concluded. Up until that point, the only in-home entertainment that didn’t require talking to your family was the radio, so naturally, it was radio stations that influenced the earliest broadcast television programs.
The TV shows that took their cues from radio were … pretty much just the same radio shows they had been doing for decades, but with– you know— cameras. Most notable among the bunch was Milton Berle’s Texaco Star Theater, a vaudeville-style variety show where music and comedy acts took turns in the spotlight and regaled the new TV-owning audiences through their magical 12-inch screens.
That's where Sid Caesar made his small screen debut, not as a comic, not as a musician, but as an entirely new kind of performer: a sketch comedian. He acted out entire scenes switching between characters and weaving a narrative into his act that wasn’t typical for a vaudeville radio performer.
His unique performances caught the eye of Pat Weaver, vice president of television for NBC, who introduced him to the two people who would become his closest partners: Max Liebman and Imogene Coca.
Imogene became his onscreen counterpart while Max Liebman played the role of a proto-Lorne Michaels, directing and influencing behind the scenes as Caesar and Coca built their popularity.