Sid Caesar demonstrates his famous foreign language double-talk routine. Outtake from "Let Me In, I Hear Laughter - A Salute To The Friars Club" by Dean Ward.
As a testament to Sid's genius in his mastery of double-talk, when people in the audience whose first language was French, Italian, German, or Japanese heard it, they burst out laughing.
@@rusalkin A hybrid of German and Hebrew, with idioms thrown in. What is the German equivalent of CHUTZPAH? I'm sure you have heard of Pidgin English. Is thee a point behind your comment? Nazis are STILL bad.
Every language has its own song. That's true. I remember when I was stationed on a little island with a bunch of Japanese sailors i could listen to them for about an hour and begin to feel like I was beginning to understand the language.
I've been married to a Japanese woman for 21 years, and I don't know much of the language at all. Naughty, as she's learnt all the Kiwi slang and idioms.
We were so glad we were able to catch Sid and Imogene when they performed their last tour to San Francisco. Back in the late 1970's. They did some of their old sketches and she did a couple of her vaudeville numbers that were really astounding. She must have been in her late 80's. We were both raised on Your Show of Shows and loved it dearly.
Sid is the Caesar of Comedy. I've watched a lot of his work as well as others of the genius of the Golden Age of Comedy. I wish there were channels on cable devoted exclusively to this talent. Each new discovery is a delight with hope for the present.
I recall meeting Sid Caesar in the early '90s. We talked a bit about comedy. I'll not forget what he said: "Comedy isn't something you say. It's something you do."
I remember when I was a little kid in the '70's I would often struggle to stay up super late, hoping to catch a Black and White comedy skit show of Sid Caesar's. He was awesome. Then I remember when he got in shape and it was very inspiring. He was awesome!
I met him one time at the Hamburger Hamlet restaurant in West Hollywood, on Sunset Boulevard, about 20 years ago. My neighbor I was eating with knew him, but I didn't really know who he was. Sid was very friendly and didn't rush at all. The "This is Your Story" clip is beyond hysterical.
I’ve been doing this since I was a kid. It convinces most who don’t speak the actual language. This is basically what animals do with human language. Birds, especially.
I thought double-talk/doublespeak was what politicians do when they speak? Where it sounds like they're answering a question but they're not actually answering it at all?
it's a friggin gift, and he graciously plays it down. it's infinitely harder than he makes it out. somehow you believe he's speaking the languages. unless of course you speak the language, then you're dying from laughter.
If you want to know what it’s like to hear someone double talk in American English, listen to the song “Prisencolinensinainciusol,” by the Italian singer Adriano Celentano. It’s absolute gibberish but sounds like American English.
Came up in the day. Grew up hearing languages, and nearly-so broken English, all around. He was brilliant . Today, George Carlin is the master other comics revere. He and Richard Pryor. Neither could do languages and sketch like Sid Caesar. Live forever, all of three of them.
My wife gets furious with me when I do my "Sid Caesar Chinese" because she thinks I'm ridiculing the Chinese. I grew up watching that generation and she grew up with The Brady Bunch, so it's impossible to explain. I would love to hear a comic from a different language do English as it would be just as much fun. It's not meant to hurt, but celebrate our beautiful differences in a close way.
Barney: Frank Delima, a comic in Hawaii, makes fun out of all the languages he grew up with in Honolulu. No one gets offended, everyone laughs because he makes fun of everybody. His take on Imelda Marcos and her closet full of shoes is wonderful. I'll bet he cut his teeth on Sid Caesar.
FASCINATING ANECDOTE ABOUT CAESAR: something witnessed by Mel Brooks and Woody Allen. The three of them went to lunch in Caesar's Cadillac, and they found the space in front of the restaurant was occupied by a Volkswagen. Caesar parks across the street, gets out, and goes and LIFTS the Volkswagen onto the sidewalk. He then parks his Cadillac in that spot.
The thing is though... this only works if you have no good concept of that language. The french sounded really good and realistic to me, but since I know a bit of german and japanese; those immitations sounded pretty bad.
It's often said, and it's a shame that it needs to be said, that they had to work hard back then to be both funny and original. Just imagine trying to write jokes and comedy sketches without profanity, or sexual situations. The people we call comedians today wouldn't have survived. One of my most memorable Sid Caesar recollections was a spoof of the program, "This Is Your Life." In reality, Nat King Cole had been seated, thinking he was to be part of the audience. When the host of the show approached him, the world famous singer who had performed for thousands suddenly became shy and tried to escape. Caesar and his crew took that real life event and put their own spin on it. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-BQBlEnsylI0.html
Isn’t it the same thing as double talk, but in foreign languages? It’s all meaningless nonsense masquerading as real speech, whether it’s in English or French or German, etc.
@@humanbeing2420 Yes, perhaps so, but I think the idea of "double-talk" is that the person is purportedly speaking a language you're familiar with (i.e., English, for English speakers) but using nonsense words so it _sounds_ like English (which you would normally understand) but you can't understand it, leaving you confused and amused.
@@Milesco I see the distinction - So Caesar isn’t actually saying any real words at all here, whereas with double talk it’s real words with some fake words thrown in there to confuse.
I thought double-talk/doublespeak was what politicians do when they speak? Where it sounds like they're answering a question but they're not actually answering it at all?
The best kind of comedy, which takes a lot of creativity. Maybe I'm old, but today's "comics" just aren't funny. I'll take guys like Sid and the old Borscht Belt comedians any day.
This is how, in D&D, you can pantomime a language you don't speak. I had a guy once role play as a grizzly bear with really high persuasion, pantomimed his way into a fancy dinner party. There's a bunch of high ranking nobles sitting down to dinner with a 10 foot grizzly bear, and one guy manages to find him out. Nobody believes him, and the one guy who can see what's going on is escorted from the room in a fit of fury. Absolute classic.
This is supposed to be a "double-talk" routine. But I don't think he did any double-talk. Double-talk is defined as deliberately unintelligible speech combining nonsense syllables and actual words. His speech is funny, though.
