Mel Tolkin, an award-winning television comedy writer who served as head writer for Sid Caesar's legendary "Your Show of Shows" and "Caesar's Hour" in the 1950s, died Monday. He was 94.
Tolkin died of natural causes at his home in Century City, said his son, writer Michael Tolkin.
In a nearly 50-year show-business career that began in Montreal in the 1930s when he wrote revues and played piano in jazz clubs, Tolkin wrote comedy for Danny Kaye, Danny Thomas, Bob Hope and Jerry Lewis and was a story editor for Norman Lear's landmark program "All in the Family."
But Tolkin was best known for his many years writing sketches for Caesar and his co-stars -- for "Admiral Broadway Revue" (1949), "Your Show of Shows" (1950-54) and "Caesar's Hour" (1954-57).
As head writer on the live, 90-minute "Your Show of Shows," Tolkin led a pack of writers that included Lucille Kallen, Mel Brooks, Tony Webster and Neil and Danny Simon, among others. The show's famous cast included Imogene Coca, Carl Reiner and Howard Morris.
Caesar said Monday that Tolkin "was a tremendous asset" to his TV shows and various specials.
"He was a very talented man, and he worked really hard," Caesar told The Times.
As head writer, Tolkin "had to keep them in line," Caesar said. "Of course, it got kind of crazy in the Writers' Room."
Indeed, Tolkin once described the writing process on "Your Show of Shows" as occurring "in a room full of raving madmen. And there I was at the center of it all, a Ukrainian Jew with a death wish."
There was, he said in a 1995 Los Angeles Times interview, "a creative anger in the room. We had an acoustic ceiling. People would throw their pencils at it in frustration. One time I counted 39 pencils hanging from the ceiling."
Neil Simon re-created the charged atmosphere of the show's Writers' Room in his play "Laughter on the 23rd Floor."
Reiner, a "writer without portfolio" in the Writers' Room, said Tolkin knew what producer Max Liebman "required of a show, and he was sort of his right-hand man."
Reiner said that because Tolkin was an immigrant -- he spoke with a thick Russian accent -- "he had a different kind of sense of humor. We all appreciated it; he made us laugh."
Reiner said Tolkin, who wrote the "Your Show of Shows" theme song, also "was very funny at the piano." That included writing the music for a song Caesar sang on one show in which he simply repeated the words "Going crazy" several dozen times, followed by the last line: "Over you."
