WE COME TO PRAISE CAESAR.

Byline: David Kronke Television Writer

If you want the thumbnail sketch of Sid Caesar's career and a hint of his enduring influence on television, his office - a modest, cramped space, given the memories it's called upon to hold - is a good place to start. There are the handful of Emmys he hasn't already bequeathed to the Smithsonian, the TV Guide and Life magazine covers, the plaque naming him an honorary cast member of ``Saturday Night Live'' and the Israel Cultural Award.

But there are also some seeming incongruities - two framed portraits of Albert Einstein. Which, it turns out, are easily explained: When you're a genius, it stands to reason that your fans are geniuses, too.

``I was supposed to meet Einstein,'' recalls Caesar, now 78, in his home overlooking Beverly Hills; the awe of the idea still lingers in his voice. ``I got a call - it was (Michele Besso) - his companion for the last 30 years. She said, 'Dr. Einstein would like to talk with you.' I said, 'Is this a joke?' She said, 'No, no.' Well, I jumped up after that phone call and told my secretary, 'I want you to go out and get every book you can find on the theory of relativity, because I've got to bone up on it over the weekend.''

Alas, that meeting of the minds never took place - Einstein died in 1955 - but a couple of years later, Caesar ran into Robert Oppenheimer, an Einstein colleague better-known for developing the atom bomb. ``He told me, 'Albert always loved you.' When I heard that, I thought, 'Einstein? He even heard of me?' ''

There are few stories in the life of Sid Caesar that haven't been repeated ad infinitum, but that one comes close. Many have been credited with ``creating'' television as we know it today - Milton Berle was there at the very beginning, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz perfected the sitcom formula, Ernie Kovacs realized and explored its visual power, Steve Allen understood the importance of connecting with his audience.

But Caesar, who first appeared on the airwaves in 1949, a mere year behind Berle, helped advance the medium's sophistication as much as and in similar ways to those other legendary names.

He enjoyed a staggering 10-year run that began with ``Admiral Broadway Revue'' (the first show canceled because it was too successful - the advertiser couldn't afford to keep it going and build more TVs simultaneously) and concluded with ``Caesar's Hour.'' In between, of course, was the legendary ``Your Show of Shows,'' which ``The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows'' describes as ``surely one of the most ambitious undertakings on television, ever.''

Caesar, with producer Max Liebman, stars Imogene Coca, Carl Reiner and Howard Morris, and writers including Neil Simon, Mel Brooks and Larry Gelbart, created 90 minutes of comedy weekly (well, OK, only 80 once commercials were figured in) - live, in prime time - for 39 weeks a year. By contrast, ``Saturday Night Live'' does about 23 68-minute shows sans commercials a season.

Beyond its obvious influences on television, ``Your Show of Shows'' impacted upon pop culture in other ways - Carl Reiner drew on his experiences on the series when he created ``The Dick Van Dyke Show''; the film ``My Favorite Year'' was inspired by it. Even the current toast of Broadway - the Mel Brooks musical ``The Producers'' - features, as Caesar puts it, ``the same type of humor that we were doing.''

Asked if it's hard for him to keep track of everything on television he's influenced, Caesar laughs. ``I don't know what I've inspired,'' he says, adding with what has to be false modesty, ``I hope I've brought something to people.''

And, of course, there's ``Laughter on the 23rd Floor,'' Neil Simon's affectionate evocation of his years on Caesar's writing staff, which was a hit on Broadway and comes tonight to Showtime as a feature film. Caesar has, as they say, issues with the production.

``He turned it into a drama,'' grouses Caesar, contrasting the film to the stage production. ``He never told the real story - why did I drink? Because I couldn't sleep. It's a live show. It's an hour and a half. We do it every week. We did 39 shows (a season) - not 20, 39. Thirty-nine hour-and-a-half shows every year. He didn't say that. That's the purpose for the picture and he forgot it. If you had that, then you would've felt something, you would've understood the character.

``Instead, it's just a guy running around punching holes in walls and drinking,'' he continues, adding that he didn't drink during the work day, saving his bibulous impulses for after hours (he cleaned up in 1978). ``What the hell is this? Say why - then people will go with you. Otherwise, they're just looking at you, incredulous.''

Even Simon seems to concede Caesar's point. ``It was a bit of a loving family - we hated each other and we loved each other,'' Simon says. `` 'Hated' not in the real sense of it, but there's always conflict going on, everybody wants to get Big Daddy's approval. But Sid was the most generous person in the world, so I don't think there was any real conflict.

``Sid could get angry very easily at anybody, but it was always for the right reasons, so you never got angry with Sid. But there had to be anger because there was so much going on in his life that this pressure caught up with him, which I guess led him to taking the tranquilizers, not knowing that a drink with it is going to offset more things.''

Immediately following ``Laughter'' tonight on Showtime is a documentary, ``Hail Sid Caesar! The Golden Age of Comedy,'' which provides more context for his career and includes clips from Caesar's original series. Fans hungry for more can visit www.sidvid.com to order a set of three videos including classic sketches, or vote for favorite routines to be included on the next series of tapes.

Today, at age 78, Caesar remains married to Florence, his wife of nearly 60 years, but does have a couple of new hip joints. ``It's kind of rough when you have so much pain you don't know which one to pay attention to,'' he says, half jokingly.

He also admits that today, ``I don't watch too many sitcoms. I start analyzing them too much. I can't enjoy it. Humor today is in your face. I made fun of myself. I never put it on others. It's a softer way of doing comedy.''

As an example, he points to his character Progress Hornsby, the spacey jazz cat. He was originally named Cool C's and wore Coke-bottle glasses, but when Caesar got a letter from a woman who tended children who wore similar glasses and explained how the character hurt her, he renamed the jazzer and axed the eyewear. ``Comedy is not to hurt,'' he insists. ``Comedy is to make you laugh.''

Due to staging deadlines, Saturday evening's ``Your Show of Shows,'' as Caesar recalls, had to be written by Wednesday after a Monday start (a host of early script drafts were discovered in the late producer Max Liebman's apartment this past December). Work began when Caesar lit a cigar after small talk about the previous Saturday's show and the writers' weekends - ``That was the signal,'' Caesar remembers.

Caesar was a multitalented comic - he handled urbane humor and physical humor (a classic bit involves the staccato movements of figures atop a Bavarian clock) with equal ease. His mimicry was likewise celebrated: Marlon Brando once called to compliment him on his takeoff of ``On the Waterfront.'' He also had a gift for creating convincing gibberish from a host of languages, which he employed in parodies of foreign-language films.

Though he spoke nothing but English, he learned to approximate French, German and Italian from the days when he worked at his father's New York restaurant, passing from table to table among immigrants.

``That's how I picked up the languages,'' he recalls. ``To me, every language has a different song. If you know the song, you can speak the language.''

He never analyzed his ability, offering an anecdote about a violin prodigy who was undone by analysis of his playing style. ``So I never ask why, I never go into it,'' he says. ``Because once you disclose it to yourself, then you don't know how to do it anymore.

``A couple of people told me, 'I heard you speaking Italian - you don't know what you're talking about,' '' he adds with a laugh. ``They didn't know what I was doing.'' He remembers a staff member ``translating'' the sketches for bar patrons adjacent to the show's studio, and recalls that NBC executives complained to him that the sketches - which were simply comic gibberish - were too high-brow for mainstream audiences.

Network executives would show him minute-by-minute ratings reports for the show: ``They'd say, 'See that? There was a dip there.' Jesus. I'd look at these guys - 'And now there's another dip! See that?' Their job was to find dips. I'd say, 'There's a whole bunch of dips down here - that's when the show was over and the people left!' ''

In one memorable sketch, available on his video series, Caesar played a harried suburban husband who broke into tears - on live TV - when his wife decided she needed a pricey fur coat. ``This is live, and what's happening is, your wife has announced she wants a fur,'' he recalls. ``You've just got a couple of bucks in the bank, you're feeling pretty secure, and this is going to wipe you out. The best thing I could do - the most powerful thing I could do - is to sit there and cry. (To do that,) I thought of things - a dog and they had these things called camphor straws and they stood this far away (he gestures - it's not far, given that it was a close-up shot) and blew in my eyes.''

Caesar's comment on dogs is revealing, but so are the hints around his home. Look through the window next to his front door, and there are several images of dogs, including, next to a sign reading ``Warning: Premises protected by a killer dog,'' a tiny stuffed dachshund. Photos of a favorite sheltie abound, and a ``Pet Lovers Directory'' is here as well. And Caesar expresses dire concern for his current dog, a Rottweiler suffering from cancer.

``Such a good boy, only 7 years old,'' Caesar laments. ``Animals - they're so wonderful. They hear you coming, they know the sound of your car. They stay with you, you come in, and 'Ohhh, boy! I've been waiting all day!' They live just for you to give 'em a treat, just to pet 'em. And they love you for that. That's ...''

He stops. And for once, Sid Caesar is not laughing.

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``I don't watch too many sitcoms _ I start analyzing them too much. I can't enjoy it. Humor today is in your face. I made fun of myself. I never put it on others. It's a softer way of doing comedy,'' says Sid Caesar, relaxing at home.