Anyone born early or mid-last century will remember when television was very new and there was “The Show of Shows.”

A television set, if you were lucky to have one, was with a small screen, a big profusion of stuff in the back and black and white. Three channels, no color and no remote. Neil Simon wrote a play called “Laughter on the 23rd Floor” when he was a staff writer for Sid Caesar and his gangs of talented and eccentric men. The Fountain Hills Theater opened March 20 with this play and will end April 5.

Roger Prenger plays a Sid Caesar-like Max Prince, the star of a weekly comedy-variety show in 1953. Ira Stone, played by Peter J. Hill, is the hypochondriac inspired by Mel Brooks. Witty, sane Kenny, played by Ryan Toro, was inspired by Larry Gelbart and Carl Reiner. English-challenged Russian émigré Val, played by Mike Romano, was inspired by Mel Tolkin. Neil Simon’s alter-ego, Lucas Brickman, tells the audience who these people are and what they are doing. Interesting he left out the great Imogene Coca.

If you want a lot of laughs and are not afraid of bad language, this is your show. Can it really be that many years ago when we all huddled around a small, black and white box and watched magic for the first time?

Oh, how far we have come, but this was the really, really good stuff…brilliant actors delivering lines from equally brilliant writers and once a week the family would gather. For the younger generation when Max is playing Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” as Marlon Brando…can you figure out when he yells “Stella” and I “Could’ve been a Contender” what it means?

Last chance to join us for Broadway in the Hills Sunday, March 29. How can you resist prohibition, flappers, gangsters and jazz clubs?