Review of Laughter on the 23rd Floor

If you aren't old enough to cherish the memory of Sid's Caesar's Show of Shows in its heyday, if you don't think Mel Brooks, Woody Allen, Neil Simon, Larry Gelbart and the rest of his writers' room was the greatest collection of comic talent ever, and if you didn't watch most of the Army-McCarthy hearings, well, maybe this movie isn't for you. But you're just the one who should see if for its educational value. It tells us a whole lot about the golden age of television, of the country's torpor in the 50's, of the days when people who cared more for those dependent upon them than they did for themselves got run over by the corporate machine, and of the contrived and deliberate dumbing down of our national intellect. See this movie, and then rent some of the classic skits by Caesar, Reiner, Coca, Morris and company on DVD. You'll know why those of us who were there still die laughing the hundredth time we hear, "You have gespritzen on un general."