What I watched: The tenth episode of Admiral Broadway Review, a short-lived early variety series. The series was directed and written by Max Liebman, with a handful of other co-writers, including a young Mel Brooks. It starred Sid Ceasar, Imogene Coca, Mary McCarty and the husband-and-wife duo of Marge and Gower Champion. This episode was broadcast on 8:00 PM on April 1 simultaneously on NBC and DuMont.
What happened: The episode opens with a surprisingly catchy opening number about a girl wondering who to ask to college prom. The problem is just that she has too many suitors. Sporadic dancing continues even after the curtain falls, allowing them to set up the next scene. Here we get one of the rare Ceasar/Coca scenes. Coca tries to find a book with a vague description, but has to deal with a blind-as-a-bat librarian, played by an initially-subdued Ceasar. After every time the librarian onerously takes down a book, she realizes that it isn’t the one she wants. The librarian catches on to the pattern of joke very quickly, and becomes exasperated. The manic Sid Ceasar demeanor begins to come out through his British gentleman persona, and he eventually begins tearing up the book. There’s also a joke about The Portrait of Jenny, which I guess was just a universal cultural reference in 1949.
This sketch is followed by a performance by the “world famous” Salesi puppets, apparently another tie-in with Radio City Music Hall. A puppet smokes! A puppet plays piano! Fabulous puppets do fabulous puppets things. (To be honest, it’s all a bit downhill after the smoking, which must have involved quite some engineering work.) Next, Coca plays an arrogant opera diva. A lot of this is just more goofy singing, but there’s also an off-colour joke about making a soprano, and a parody of the simplicity of Wagner’s plots. Maybe The School House wasn’t that obscuritan after all…
The next sketch is set in Mexico, and features authentically dancing natives interrupted by American tourists (Caesar, McCarty and Coca), who present a cliched image of Mexicanness. They wear sombreros and do terrible Hispanic accents. Caesar keeps repeating his long American address as a joke that doesn’t really work. Coca has a better one about how “the rainy season only lasts 51 weeks every year.” The Champions’ dance number is next. Gower talks about the process of “dreaming up new dances”, and reaching back to another era for inspiration. This is signified by the ridiculous striped suit he’s wearing. Gower and Marge sing about “wanting an old-fashioned tune”, where the words rhyme predictably This segues into some goofy rhyming.
Mary McCarty sings a song from the perspective of a hypochondriac — she recites a long list of ailments followed by “but I never complain, not me”. The sketch takes a turn where she gossips with a sick friend on the phone, and subtly insults her. McCarty’s character returns to the “sick act” for delivery boy, who has oversized cold tablets that McCarty makes a sandwich out of. We see that she uses image of sickness to manipulate men such as her “daddy”. However, she gets her comeuppance when a burglar enters her apartment instead of a doctor. Wearing a headwrap, McCarty has a whole dialogue with him riffing off the two professions’ similar terminology, while he makes off with all her stuff. This was really long!
Ceasar gives a monologue about “romance through the ages”, which allows him to do his caveman voice again. Through imitation of various historical archetypes, he suggests that men haven’t really changed throughout the era. Finally, the Champions and company do a silent routine with hobo clowns, including the wooing of (angrogynous) lady hobo clown, and something of a wedding. It’s very weird.
What I thought: This was the best episode of Admiral Broadway Revue yet, particularly first half. The opening is probably the best musical number they’ve done so far, and could be slotted into something like Glee with some alterations. (Then again, I hated Glee.) Caesar and Coca play off each other wonderfully in the bookstore sketch, even with Caesar playing somewhat against type, and the sketch is refreshingly willing to go beyond a single joke and keep adding new wrinkles. The ending joke, where Ceasar overhears Coca’s phone conversation and mistakenly thinks he’s done all this work for nothing, is set up by a very patient, repeated establishing detail — that Coca is going to the butcher after this. It’s not the most gut-busting sketch ever written, but there’s a nice craft to it. The next couple of sketches are also enjoyable, which is due in large part to the heavy presence of Imogene Coca. Have I mentioned that I think she’s the best part of the show? The second half drags a bit, particularly the McCarty sketch, but the viewer has enough good feelings to forgive it. Liebman has realized who the stars are and is starting to tighten up the show.
This episode also has some more self-reflective versions of sketch types that had been played straight in previous episodes. The sketch that contrasts the behavior of American tourists with actual Mexicans could be a parody of “World Tour”, with white stars presenting a stereotyped version of the outside world. (Then again, all of the “actual Mexicans” were played by a white chorus, so who knows.) Similarly, the Champions’ middle-of-the-episode song is incredibly meta, and takes jabs at the kind of simplistic and nostalgic song writing that could be seen in other episodes of this very show. I’m fairly certain that the writers of Admiral Broadway Review didn’t conceive of these sketches as primarily self-parody — they probably thought they were parodying other people doing the bad things — but it’s a nice check on the corniness the show sometimes indulges in.
Relations between sexes also continue to be a source of humour and play. The opening musical number is a surprising celebration of female libido — while there’s nothing insinuated beyond going to the school dance, admitting to a desire that goes beyond monogamous mooning (”I’ll go with the whole fraternity”) is startling for the era. Similarly, the sketch with McCarty as a hypochondriac is a humorous play on the idea of women using the perception of their weakness to manipulate men, although one in a somewhat misogynist register. However, her pretenses ultimately leave herself vulnerable. Even the bookstore sketch riffs off misogynist stereotypes of demanding women and henpecked men. The Revue seems somewhat agnostic when it comes to gender relations, at times celebrating the idea of the empowered woman (as in the opening sketch) and at other times mocking it (as in the McCarty scene). Perhaps the multitude of voices and influences stopped it from having a really consistent authorial voice at this time, or maybe Liebman just didn’t care about the issues and was willing to do anything to get laughs. In that, this time around, he was largely successful.
I’m still not sure what to do about those damn hobo clowns though.
Coming up next: Another savage night at the opera.
The Eternal Couch Potato 