Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Ernie Kovacs Cameraman Bob Kemp

Hello fellow Kovacsians.

The Ernie Kovacs My Space Fan Page is still at 495 friends this week; while we actually did add some new friends some others deleted their profiles so it all evened out. We also had to delete a couple of spam type requests. When friend requests are sent to us they are all checked to make sure that they are not porn or spam sites. If you send us a private profile we will add you but we immediately check it once we do to make sure it does not fit into either of those two categories. All that type of stuff is deleted and reported to MySpace.

For this week's post I'd like to direct you to an interview I did several years ago on my main website, http://www.erniekovacs.net/. It was with one of Ernie's most respected cameramen and friends, Bob Kemp. Bob not only served as a cameraman but also as sort of an unofficial photographer on the set. Ernie encouraged this and purchased many of Bob's photos. When you read what Bob has to say you get great insight into what it was like to work for television's original genius.

I'm still hoping to get some trivia questions from fans so that I can put up a user generated trivia quiz. Check out last week's post to find out how to submit your questions.

I didn't find any new blog posts or news about Ernie this week so until we meet again, "Its Been Real!"

Monday, August 20, 2007

Miklos Molnar The Soccer Playing Danish-Hungarian Chef

Hello my fellow Kovacsians. I'm putting up the weekly post on Monday instead of the usual Wednesday because I have to go out of town.

Last week's trivia question was once again successfully answered by Ernie Kovacs My Space Fan Page friend and Kovacs trivia queen Barbara. We're not sure what's happened to trivia "King Brian" as we haven't heard from him in while.

I put a link to a Wikipedia entry for a European sports star and asked the following question:

In what way does this former Danish soccer player relate to Ernie Kovacs?

Here's the answer in pictorial form:
As usual, nice going Barbara! Go figure that a famous soccer star would be given the same name as a beloved sketch comedy chef. Perhaps his parents were Ernie fans, although the Wiki article doesn't mention this.

I'm hoping to have some new trivia in the next post, some of which may even be contributed by fans as I'm receiving a lot of messages from people saying they'd like to come up with questions. So we shall see! Can you stump the mighty Kovacs Trivia Queen Barbara or that potentate of Kovacs Trivia, King Brian? Actually Queen Barbara wants to contribute some questions. Who shall she stump? I'm sure those questions will be really tough! I'll probably have to come up with new titles for people, but what's higher than King and Queen? Why do you people have to make my life so difficult?!

But I digress. If you'd like to submit some trivia questions for a future quiz you can do it in the the following way:

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.

Be sure to let me know who you are. Credit will be given next to each question whereby you will achieve immortal blog fame. Management (namely me) reserves the right to delete any question that management has already asked. And we've asked a lot of them so think hard! Remember Kovacsians, to make Ernie proud!

The Ernie Kovacs My Space Fan Page is up to 495 friends this week, an increase of 4 from since last Wednesday's post. As always we thank everyone who requested an add or accepted a request from us.

One of our new friends is Jeff of the "Vegas Film Critic" MySpace Page. You may recall that back in June I wrote a post with a trivia question about an episode of the "Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour" called "Lucy Meets The Moustache" in which both Ernie and Edie guest starred. In that post I mentioned the episode is hard to find and that supposedly a new DVD with all 13 episodes (the Ernie episode is # 13) would be coming out. Jeff let me know that it is out. Here's a link to it on Amazon. Its referred to as "I Love Lucy - The Complete Seasons 7-9" which is the reason I think I had trouble finding it for you in the past. Thank you Jeff and to you we say "Welcome fellow Kovacsian!"

That's it for this week folks. I didn't find any new Ernie news items or great blog posts so that feature will have to wait until next time.

We shall return on Wednesday, August 29 2007. Until then, "Its Been Real!!"

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Ernie Wants A Danish!

Good afternoon my fellow Kovacsians.

Some quick trivia. And this one, Kovacsians, is quite abstract. Click this link, study the page, and then answer the following:

In what way does this former Danish soccer player relate to Ernie Kovacs?

The Ernie Kovacs My Space Fan Page is up to 491 friends this week, an increase of 11 from last week. As always we thank everyone who requested an add or accepted a request from us. I'm hoping we'll hit 500 by next week!

I found no particularly interesting Ernie posts on the web or in the blogosphere this week.

Until next week, "Its Been Real!!"

Wednesday, August 8, 2007

Bill Wendell


Good day, fellow Kovacsians. Last week I asked a trivia question based on a photo in a previous trivia question. I asked the following questions which were answered by Ernie Kovacs My Space Fan Page friend and Kovacs trivia queen Barbara:

1. Who is the gentleman seated next to Ernie?
Answer: Bill Wendell

2. What functions did he perform on the shows where Ernie used him? Answer: Announcer and sketch man (assisted in a lot of sketches)

3. What other famous performer did this man spend years performing these services for? Answer: David Letterman

Good job Barbara! The late Bill Wendell was an NBC Television staff announcer for almost his entire career. He would play straight man to Ernie in certain sketches like "Mr. Question Man" and also act as announcer on Ernie's shows. Barbara, who once worked as an intern in TV news, had an opportunity to interview Bill. Here's her reminiscence of that experience:

To tell you the truth, when I was 20 I was all hellfire to write a book about him, but didn't have a clue how to do it. Still don't, actually!

I worked in TV news as an intern and I wrote him a letter to ask if he would talk to me. I was sitting at home one day and he called from the control room at the Letterman show! I wish to hell I'd have recorded it. I was too young to know better.

He told me a story about a skit they did where they used gallons and gallons of water and everyone was sliding all over the place while having a food fight. He said Ernie had hands "the size of canned hams" and that he could hold and throw three times what everyone else could. He said that as talented as Letterman is, no one will ever touch Ernie, and that he missed him every day.

Anyway, I was still toying with the idea when Rico came out with her book, and well, she did a fine job. Somewhere, I still have all the library research I did (now you can buy all those magazines on eBay)...copies of microfiche, etc. But Bill was the only person I talked to, and he was a really nice man, who really loved Ernie a lot

Thanks again, Barbara.

The Ernie Kovacs My Space Fan Page is up to 480 friends this week, an increase of 17 from last week. As always we thank everyone who requested an add or accepted a request from us. I'm hoping we'll hit 500 by next week!

One of our new fan page friends, "Paulie," asked me if I knew where to find the Percy Dovetonsils poem "Ode To Stanley's Pussycat." This can be found on page 135 of "The Ernie Kovacs Phile" by the late David G. Walley. This is a must have book for any true Kovacsian so pick up a copy if you don't already have one.

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

PBS is planning a special slated for 2009 about the history of television. Ernie and Edie are prominently mentioned in the article.

Filmmaking 101 compares some of the video techniques used in the HBO
series "Flight Of The Conchords" as being similar to those pioneered by Ernie.

Laura's Miscellaneous Musings talks about the 1959 movie
"It Happened To Jane" which had Ernie as one of its stars.

Here's a very creative and interesting take on the tilted room bit that Ernie used in "The Silent Show" ("Eugene"). Apparently its by an Australian comic named Shaun Micallef.

Until next week, "Its Been Real!!"

Wednesday, August 1, 2007

A Short Ernie Kovacs Post

Good afternoon fellow Kovacsians. I'm calling this "A Short Ernie Kovacs Post" for two reasons:

1. Its exactly that.

2. When someone searches for Kovacs posts by title it will come up and we can draw some more attention to the blog.

So here are the questions. Take a look at the picture in this post and then answer the questions below:

1. Who is the gentleman seated next to Ernie?
2. What functions did he perform on the shows where Ernie used him?
3. What other famous performer did this man spend years performing these services for?

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.

The Ernie Kovacs My Space Fan Page is up to 463 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.

I was unable to locate any interesting Kovacsian news stories or blog pieces this week so as I always I shall close by saying that until next week, "Its Been Real!!"