Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Trivia Winners And Choco Spinners

Good day my fellow Kovacsians. Remember our trivia quiz from last week? And remember how I told you that "the folks who answer the trivia questions I post here are really hard to stump?" And I was so proud of myself because I thought I had designed a quiz that would be really hard? Well, it was hard. But my two top trivia "answer-ers" were not only the first to respond but they did a bang-up job answering the questions. I've included a photo of them along with the requisite crowns and approval from Percy Dovetonsils. Barbara is in color and resembles Edie a bit. Brian is in black and white. I think Ernie would have approved of both!

Barbara was the winner; she got all 20 questions right and is awarded the honorary title of "A genius or someone with way too much time on their hands." Brian got 18 right and gets the title of "An Honorary Kovacsian Scholar." The two Brian missed, by the way, were the hardest on the quiz. Congrats to both. They always respond to our trivia questions and they both really know their Kovacsian Lore!

I'm not going to tell you the answers because I want others to be able to enjoy the quiz if they haven't had a chance yet. You can get the QUIZ by left clicking the link (it will then open in a separate browser window) or by right clicking the link and choosing "Save Target As," at which point you can save it to your hard drive and open it that way. You have my promise that more quizzes will be introduced in the future.

The Ernie Kovacs My Space Fan Page is up to 454 friends this week, an increase of 9 from last week. As always we thank everyone who requested an add or accepted a request from us. We're averaging about 10 adds a week and are really happy about it!

And now, some interesting Kovacsian articles from the news and posts from the blogosphere:

Artist Rob Smith Jr. was happy that we liked his drawing and reciprocated with a very nice post about the blog and website.

WFMU's blog has a great piece on the radio great Henry Morgan. Ernie's mentioned briefly. I'm putting a link here because Henry Morgan was also a genius and if you don't know about him, you ought to.


Until next week, "Its Been Real!!"

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Mr. Question Man & Dr. Stroehmann

Good day my fellow Kovacsians. I have a very special assignment for your this week.

The folks who answer the trivia questions I post here are really hard to stump. I mean REALLY hard to stump. And I've also found that the posts featuring trivia are the most popular ones on this blog.

So for this week, I've created a 20 question multiple choice quiz about Ernie Kovacs and some of the folks close to him. Its in PDF format which requires the Adobe Acrobat Reader. Almost every computer in the world has this but if you don't, you can get it for free by clicking the link above.

You can get the QUIZ by left clicking the link (it will then open in a separate browser window) or by right clicking the link and choosing "Save Target As," at which point you can save it to your hard drive and open it that way. My suggestion is that you then print it out to work on the questions; its a doozy and I don't want you to go blind staring at your screen!

There are three ways to send me the answers:

1. Post them here in the comments section
2. Send them to me through the Ernie Kovacs My Space Fan Page
3. Email them to me by clicking HERE.

Please put the question number with the letter answer next to it. In the next couple of weeks I will announce the answers and present the following awards of dubious distinction:

All 20 Correct: A genius or someone with way too much time on their hands.

17-19 Correct: An Honorary Kovacsian Scholar

13-16 Correct: A Senior Professor Of Kovacsian History

9-12 Correct: A Junior Observer Of Kovacsian Lore

5-8 Correct: Lay off the Harry Potter films and crack out those Kovacs books, tapes and DVDs!

1-4 Correct: Matzoh Hepplewhite gets to saw you in half as part of his next "trick."

Get to it folks!!

The Ernie Kovacs My Space Fan Page is up to 445 friends this week, an increase of 8 from last week. As always we thank everyone who requested an add or accepted a request from us.

Our My Space friend Rob sent me a note about his Granddad, who had a recurring part on Ernie's first morning show "3 To Get Ready:"

He was the actual Stroehmann's Bread delivery guy for the show. Ernie liked him and always invited him to watch the show. During one show he was live on camera and invited him onto camera and he addressed him as 'Dr Stroehmann'. Apparently his mother was watching the show and told Ernie that 'she liked that young man' and it became a recurring bit.

And now, some interesting Kovacsian articles from the news and posts from the blogosphere:

Artist Rob Smith Jr. has a great drawing of Ernie

"Smoldering Embers In A Mohawk Campfire" talks about Edie Adams for Muriel Cigars

An article on performance artist Dan Carbone who's work is influenced by Ernie

Until next week, "Its Been Real!!"

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Some Kovacsian Fun

Good morning my fellow Kovacsians. This week's post will be a quick one, sans pictures, because yours truly has a very busy day today.

The Ernie Kovacs My Space Fan Page is up to 437 friends this week, an increase of 15 from last week. We thank everyone who requested an add or accepted a request from us. We're quite grateful that almost every request we get is legitimate, which believe me, is a big deal on MySpace!!

Our good friend Ben Model, the webmaster of erniekovacs.info and a contributing writer to this blog, added a great post last Saturday which is a stream of the Ernie novelty tune (actually, all tunes Ernie recorded were novelties) "Hey Taxi!" Its goofy and a great deal of fun. For some reason this track was left off "The Ernie Kovacs Record Collection," but as Ben explains on his site its the B-Side of track 20 which is a remake of Ernie's Theme (also known as "The Oriental Blues") by "Leroy Holmes and his Tug Boat Eight." This track was taken from the original 45 rpm record; you can even hear the crackle of the phonograph player when you listen! Click the "Hey Taxi!" link above to do so. Thanks Ben!

And now, some interesting Kovacsian articles from the blogosphere:

Jett's 4–Wheel Drive Lounge Wrote A Nice Post About Ernie's Brilliance

Apocalypse Later: A Cinematic Travelogue Wrote This Post About "Our Man In Havana"

Until next week, "Its Been Real!!"

Wednesday, July 4, 2007

The Vision Of Ernie Kovacs

Let me start this post by wishing my fellow Kovacsians a happy 4th of July!

The Ernie Kovacs My Space Fan Page is up to 422 friends this week, an increase of 9 from last week. We thank everyone who requested an add or accepted a request from us.

Last week's trivia question was answered by Kovacs Trivia Masters Brian and Barbara, the two "B's," who are friends on My Space. To see the answers, scroll down to the comments section of the post. My profound thanks once again to the two B's.

The picture you see to the left is the cover of a book called "The Vision Of Ernie Kovacs" which you may not know about as its not one of the well known books either about or by Ernie. Its available from Amazon (click the link above) and can occasionally be found on Ebay. (ED NOTE: You can now buy this title directly through the parent site of this blog, Ernie Kovacs Dot Net. Click the link for more details.)

This 86 page paperback is actually a catalog of an Ernie Kovacs exhibition that took place at the Museum of TV and Radio (then known as the Museum of Broadcasting and now known as The Paley Center For Media) from May 30- September 4, 1986. Most of the copies of the book that I've seen available are used. The copy that I own was purchased at the Museum's New York City branch (there is another in Beverly Hills, CA) so they may still have copies in their store.

The publication of this book falls in between that of "The Ernie Kovacs Phile" by the late David Walley and "Kovacsland" by Diana Rico. Although Amazon credits the book to journalist Jeff Greenfield, who wrote the introduction, its actually a collection of essays written by a variety of authors. To site an example, one essay is by J. Hoberman and is entitled "Its Been Real: Ernie Kovacs Postmodernist." Edie Adams has a piece in a section called "Reflections" entitled "Strangely Believe It: Comedy Without Angst." There's an interview with Joe Behar who directed Ernie's shows for many years. Its really an intellectual analysis of Ernie's body of work rather than a straightforward bio: this puts it much more in line with the David Walley book than Diana Rico's tome. The book contains some wonderful photos which I've never seen anyplace else. Even though its only 86 pages in length there is a great deal of text in it as the type face is fairly small. The various essays contained within are the best analyses of Ernie's work that I've ever read. Its a wonderful addition to the collection of any Kovacsian so if you can find a copy I strongly suggest you pick one up.

I'm a frequent visitor to the museum and a former member (not because I don't want to be; I have to renew) and I can tell you that they do great retrospectives. Hopefully they'll do another on Ernie as its been a couple of decades since the last one (I'm such a fan that not only do I have the book but also the poster and t-shirt from the retrospective). Support the museum if you can. Its inexpensive to become a member and they do great work. You can click the link that says "member" to find out more.

And now for this weeks Kovacsian blog posts and news clips:

The Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, CA, is launching a stage production of Bell, Book And Candle. As most Kovacs fans probably know, the 1958 movie version starred Jack Lemmon, Kim Novak and Ernie. If you live out that way I hope you'll go see it and let us know how it is!

Once again, happy 4th of July! And, until we meet again, "Its Been Real!"