The Ernie Kovacs Blog

Ernie Kovacs And Thelonious Monk

2011-11-01T14:01:00.001-04:00

This has been rattling around in my mind for some time now: what are the similarities between these two wholly original geniuses, both heroes of mine? Some fun, some serious. Feel free to add more in the comments section.

1. From this article by Jeff Fitzgerald on the "All About Jazz" website:

"Ultimately, the legacy of Thelonious Monk is one of a genius incongruent with his age. Like television pioneer Ernie Kovacs, who was 60 years ahead of his time 50 years ago, we may still not have fully come to appreciate the body of work Monk left behind."

Yes. No argument here; this is the main and most important similarity.

2. As shown in the photo, both men favored cool specs, caps and facial hair. EK, however, never sported a beard except for the fake ones he would occasionally wear in bits (eg, Ernie as King Menelaus satirizing a scene from "Helen of Troy" by Euripides).

3. One of Monk's most famous tunes is a blues called "Straight No Chaser." Ernie liked his drinks that way, especially "'Round Midnight."

4. Both men had wives who absolutely adored them, realized their genius, then encouraged and supported it. For Ernie it was Edie and for Monk it was Nellie. That's not always easy to find. And Edie was a major talent in her own right. Just think what the world might have missed if it hadn't been for both of these great women.

5. Monk's REAL middle name is Sphere. That is too cool. While Ernie's middle name is fairly average his initials spell "EEK." That, in my humble opinion, is also too cool.

6. Ernie was gregarious and and spoke a great deal. Monk was introverted and didn't speak very much. Both men, however, would cause all heads to turn when they entered a room, because both men had a giant presence. When either man spoke their words had meaning and people listened. And, both men were hilariously funny.

7. Both men produced art that on the surface seems abstract and a bit rough around the edges, but upon closer inspection you come to realize that it's very logical and incomparably beautiful. And then you realize that you've never heard or seen anything like it.

8. Ernie and Monk both pushed boundaries, were fearless, ignored critics, broke rules and did things that people said couldn't, or shouldn't, be done. As a result doors were opened for artists everywhere. Who says you can't have milk flowing laterally out of a thermos or a tune that sounds beautiful even though it's loaded with minor seconds?

9. Both men were art forms unto themselves, owing to their singular originality. I would like to think Ernie loved Monk's music and Monk loved Ernie's comedy for this reason.

10. In the final analysis, Ernest Edward Kovacs and Thelonious Sphere Monk were both kind, decent men who advanced their respective art forms to new heights.

I'm sorry I never got to meet either one but am very grateful for the legacy each left behind.

Until next time, Kovacsians, "It's Been Real!"

Ben Model Talks Kovacs On WNYC/NPR - Listen In

2011-08-22T14:52:00.010-04:00

I appeared on the "Leonard Lopate Show" on WNYC/NPR on Monday August 22. I had a blast, and even got to chat with Alice Cooper before I went on. Cooper was on the show in the segment before mine, and is a huge Ernie Kovacs fan.

You can listen to the segment with me and Mike Pesca (guest host for the show this week):

Until next time...it's been real.

Ben Model
New York, NY

"It's Been Real" - A View From The Stage At The Paley Event

2011-04-26T18:38:00.003-04:00

(Robert Smigel, George Schlatter, Jolene Brand Schlatter, Pat Mitchell, Ben Model and
Joel Hodgson between flashbulbs on the red carpet at the Paley Center for Media.)

Preparing for the Kovacs panel event on April 12 found me cramming like this was the Kovacs LSAT’s. Re-reviewing less-common content from the new set and boning up on facts in the Kovacs chronology from the three books on Ernie as well as notable facts I’d figured out in my own research. And then the question came up – what about Lollos?

My good friend, photographer Steve Friedman, had introduced me to John Lollos a couple of years back when I’d begun doing research for the Kovacs set. If you’re a credit-reader, you’ll know this name. John Lollos is the guy who conceived and produced “The Best of Ernie Kovacs” that aired on public television in 1977. He’s had a long and varied career in TV and theater as well, and graciously chatted with me at length about the back-story of making “Best Of” and getting it on the air.

So, when Steve posed this question to me, I had a “D’oh!” moment – John lives in the tri-state area and could certainly get to Paley. It was only fitting that the man responsible for the forty- and fifty-somethings’ having discovered Kovacs through the “Best Of” series – to say nothing of the next generation down who’d found the show on home video or in pieces on YouTube – should be in the house that night. I had bought a block of tickets the moment they went on sale, and had one for Mr. Lollos, and as it turned out he was able to attend the Paley event.

The “green room” for us panelists was upstairs in the executive offices where there was a large antique card table and bookcases whose shelves also hosted many radio mike frames with call letters of stations long gone. When I entered I found Mr. Olbermann chatting with the Schlatters, exchanging stories of classic broadcasting comedy…Bob & Ray, Laugh-In etc. Paley Chief Curator Ron Simon invited me to sit at the table and, after being introduced, I basically nodded and smiled while stories were told. Smigel and Hodgson arrived soon after, and I chatted with them a little. I'd been in touch with Joel in the late 90s when he was doing an online ant farm website. After that I hovered in the background, being a little more comfortable hanging out with curator folk.

Photos were taken, and then we were escorted downstairs where we were miked just outside the Paley’s video control room. (Mr. Schlatter disappeared inside for a few minutes...I'm sure it was hard to resist.) We then entered the auditorium to applause, and the evening began.

The clip reel, assembled by Paley curator Barry Monush, ran 17 minutes (impressive, considering how much material there is) to a great response. It won’t really be necessary to go into details on what was discussed during the panel here. I noticed when I took my seat onstage that there were two young-ish people in the back row typing on laptops. Turns out the event was being tweeted live on the Paley’s Twitter feed. Rather than make you go there and try to find April 12 on it, I got screen grabs of the evening’s feed, and have posted them here (scroll way down to the bottom).

Ron Simon and I had coordinated running a pair of Dutch Master spots during the panel, but the discussion and Q&A went on without an opportunity to run these. I managed to point out John Lollos, seated in the second row, during the evening and he got a real nice hand. During the Q&A John spoke and talked about the challenge of including the DM spots on the “Best Of” shows, as commercials were not shown on PBS in 1977. Olbermann picked up on this and made it a segue to the DM spots, which we then ran.

We each made a final statement to wrap up the evening, with Keith’s closing being a warm call to arms for all us fans to share Kovacs programs with people, now that we all have our hands on them.

In the end, many of the Kovacs facts I'd crammed my cranium with went unused, and I managed to hold up okay alongside everyone else on the panel who had way more credibility, fame, etc than I did. Part of what helped was the way Olbermann addressed me and asked questions. My agenda was to make sure we all acknowledged Edie Adams and the work she did with Ernie and later, saving his shows. I managed to work that in, and Keith pointed out Josh Mills in the audience. The evening was a spectacular success and I think we were all floating for a bit for a few hours after it all ended.

With all the pre-ordered DVD sets arriving in fans' mailboxes this week, my hope is that the euphoria over Kovacs will expand and ripple outward...once you've all come up for air after what will probably be a number of marathon viewings of the 15+ hours of Kovacs shows (not 13 hours – you did order from Shout, didn't you?).

It's really been real.

Ben Model
Kovacsland Online

"Kovacs Hates TV" - Vintage Article From 1953

2011-04-21T14:16:00.015-04:00

Here's a vintage article from May 1953, published during the run of "Kovacs Unlimited" on CBS, in a magazine called Focus, whose focus wasn't on TV. I'm not sure what it focused on, as its articles cover a range of topics possibly of interest to the supermarket shopper or newsstand browser. The mini-magazine itself measures 4" x 6". Still, it's an interesting early look at the early Ernie. I picked this up on eBay a bunch of years ago and have been meaning to post it.

Here you go.

Ben Model
curator, The Ernie Kovacs Collection DVD set
webmaster, Kovacsland Online

Springtime For Ernie Kovacs And Edie Adams: Paley Center And DVD Set

2011-04-11T14:54:00.028-04:00

Spring is here and there is a great deal going on in Kovacsland. I haven't posted anything in a while and in light of all that is happening I figured it was about time that I did (my thanks to Ben Model for posting and keeping the blog fresh with some great news).

1. If you're going to be in New York City (Manhattan) tomorrow, I strongly suggest that you buy tickets to It’s Been Real: The Life and Legacy of Ernie Kovacs at the Paley Center For Media. This event features a stellar panel, including our own Ben Model, and starts Tuesday, April 12th, 2011, at 6:30pm.

2. The Paley Center festivities are a week prior to the official release of Shout Factory's "The Ernie Kovacs Collection" 6 DVD set , which is Tuesday, April 19th, 2011. If you pre-order the set, you'll get a bonus 7th DVD for free; you can do so by clicking on the link or on the banner in the upper left corner of this blog. To get the bonus disc you must order the set directly from Shout Factory and clicking one of the aforementioned links takes you directly to the set's page on their site; do not order from Barnes And Noble, Amazon, etc., if you want the bonus disc. Ben Model was the curator for this fantastic new release, the first of Ernie's work in years and much of it not seen since it originally aired. I've discussed it with Ben and you have my word that this is the definitive collection and one that Kovacs fans everywhere should own. The two emails that I get most frequently ask whether it's possible to see the live color version of "Eugene" ("The Silent Show") or footage of Ernie hosting "Tonight". They are included on this new set, "Eugene" on one of the main discs and the "Tonight" clips on the bonus disc. You can read a full summary of what's on the discs here.

3. A special thanks goes to Josh Mills, Edie Adams son who runs Ediad Productions Inc., for bringing all of this wonderful new material to the fans. Josh has started two websites, one for Edie and one for Ernie (screen captures of the sites are to the left). The information provided on them is great and I'm thrilled to have both join with my site and Ben's to continue promoting the legacy of these two wonderful video artists. If you need to acquire the rights to any video footage Josh is the person to contact and you can do so through either of the sites he runs; I'll often get emails asking about this.

Until next time Kovacsians, "It's Been Real!"

"Television's Original Genius" - Out Of Print, But Still Viewable

2011-02-11T20:16:00.011-05:00

While you're waiting for the release of "The Ernie Kovacs Collection" DVD set, here's something you can watch. While poking around for Kovacs pics, Google Images took me to a shot of Ernie on a website called "John Barbour's World". Yes, it's the John Barbour who made the documentary "Ernie Kovacs: Television's Original Genius" (1982), which aired on Showtime and was available on VHS a long time ago.

Mr. Barbour has posted the entire documentary on his website. Click here to go to his page for the show, where you can watch it, in eight somewhat lo-fi Quicktime file segments.

Ben Model

Wish Ernie Kovacs A Happy 92nd Birthday...Online!

2011-01-22T11:37:00.007-05:00

It's Ernie Kovacs' birthday tomorrow, January 23rd. Now that an official website, Facebook page, Twitter account and MySpace page have been set up for Ernie, here's your chance to give an online shout-out to Ernie on what would have been his 92nd birthday.

Kovacs fans are being asked to say Happy Birthday on all these social media and to sign off with "It's Been Real"...if you're on Twitter, be sure to use the catch-phrase as a hashtag (#itsbeenreal).

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/realerniekovacs
Twitter: @erniekovacs
Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/realerniekovacs
Official website: www.erniekovacs.com

And here's a quote from Terry Gilliam about Ernie that's just been posted:

"One of my strongest memories as a kid growing or not-growing up in the countryside of Minnesota was having to go to our neighbour's house to watch television. I had no idea that the Nameless God of Surreal Humour was hunting me down. I felt happy with the ......world as it was. But, one night that dark god coaxed the neighbours into switching the TV to The Ernie Kovacs Show. I was ambushed. Knocked sideways into a world where the bizarre and the daft and the preposterous all lived happily alongside wisdom, wit and perception. I had never experienced anything so visually absurd and inventive. It was sublime. It hurt. I was 11 years old. Was this some new form of child abuse? If it was, it was one of the most momentous things that ever happened to me. Ernie Kovacs scarred me for life. Thankfully, I've never recovered."

And...remember to brush with Koda-Dent, the toothpaste with the film in it!*

Ben Model
www.erniekovacs.info

*this was a spoof product Ernie did a mock commercial for on an episode of his DuMont late night show...a predecessor of the infamous Schnitzel-Dent spot from 1956.

"The Ernie Kovacs Collection" DVD Box Set Available For Pre-Order!

2011-01-10T11:42:00.017-05:00

Good morning, Kovacs fans!! Wonderful news: Shout!Factory is releasing a 6-disc DVD set entitled "The Ernie Kovacs Collection", and contains 13+ hours of Kovacs shows, sketches, and other rarities. I've been working on curating the set for Shout since May of last year, and had been asked to keep "hush-hush" about it until today, when Shout Factory's press release goes wide.

The set will be released on April 19, 2011 but is available for pre-order today on Shout's website. You'll want to order the set on Shout!Factory's website as it's the only way to qualify to receive a 7th bonus disc that includes an hour of sketches from the 1956 summer replacement show plus material from the two surviving "Tonight!" shows Ernie hosted (one of which includes the first-ever Eugene tilted-table sketch). Click here to go to Shout Factory's website and pre-order the set.

Click here to read the press release, which lists all the programming.

It's been real...

Ben Model
www.erniekovacs.info

Pass The Kapusta Please!

2010-12-09T13:39:00.000-05:00

As has been mentioned in previous posts, our friend Rick Spector runs a company called "Stairway To The Stars" which specializes in costumes, props, awards and historical artifacts from the golden age of film and television. One of the ways Rick obtains these items is through auction.

I became aware of Rick and his work last year when I posted this piece about Ernie's classic puppet bit, "The Kapusta Kid In Outer Space". At that time the puppets were up for auction but nobody was buying them. After getting to know Rick through email correspondence it occurred to me that there wouldn't be a better person to acquire and care for those legendary puppets. I guess Rick felt the same way, because he ended up buying them. Now, a lot of folks will get to enjoy them!

Rick sent me an interesting email with some pics of a couple of the Kapustas which he brought to a recent event. Our thanks go to Rick for granting permission to share these with you:

Hi Al,

Just wanted to share with you that some months ago we were asked to display some of our vintage film and TV used puppets at the Orlando Puppet Festival at the Avalon Island Gallery in downtown Orlando. This event is hosted by Heather Henson's (Jim's daughter) IBEX Puppetry Company. The event was launched with a special opening night party on Nov 16th and runs through to Dec. 10th. They have posted numerous images on their Facebook pages of which I include a few here including one of Heather.. I was specifically asked to bring Ernie and "Albumen".

I also made a slide show presentation for all the puppets and included a section on Ernie with stills of him with "Albumen" doing the "Kapusta Kid in Outer Space". It is on a digital screen that loops next to the cases for people to learn about or remember Ernie.

Rick

Rick mentioned in another email that the duck in the case with Ernie and "Albumen" was made for Dave Seville by Morey Bunin and used by him on American Bandstand in 1957:

David Seville was famous for his creation "Alvin And The Chipmunks", who of course figure very big during the holiday season with their number 1 hit "The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don't Be Late)."

And on that note all of us here in Kovacsland wish you a most Happy Holiday Season and best wishes for a prosperous New Year in 2011! It's your gracious support throughout the year that helps to keep Ernie's legacy alive for a new generation of fans.

And, as EK himself might have said: "It's Been Real!"

Be Sure You "Like" Ernie Kovacs On Facebook

2010-11-11T07:51:00.013-05:00

I've created a new fan page for Ernie Kovacs created on Facebook. I'll be disabling the group I set up some time ago and will use the fan page to post news and trivia. Click here to go directly to the page or click on the Facebook badge below:

Ernie Kovacs

It's been real!

Ben Model,
New York, NY

Two Koufax For A Kovacs

2010-05-31T16:11:00.000-04:00

Good afternoon fellow Kovacsians. It's been a while and I hope it's been real.

Every once in a while when I mention EK to someone who isn't all that familiar with him or his work, they will say "Oh, yeah, that guy who used to pitch for the Los Angeles Dodgers." Some of them are being "HAH, HAH, FUNNY!" and yet others are actually serious.

To all those folks I say that EK actually had his own version of the baseball card so you're not too far off the mark. I picked up Ernie’s "Starline Hollywood Walk Of Fame" card on eBay. They show up there quite frequently and aren't very expensive so if you’re looking for a fun EK collectible that won’t break the bank then this is it. These cards were released during 1991-1992 and clicking the link above will take you to a list of all the cards in the set.

According to the "The Movie Card Website" there were some mistakes made in the initial run of cards which were corrected for the second run. They listed Ernie’s death as November 3, 1962 when in actuality it was January 13, 1962. The web site does not mention Ernie’s card as having been corrected and since I’ve never seen one with the correct date I'm assuming they always went out this way.

When looking at EK’s "stats" you'll notice that "The Nairobi Trio" is referred to as a "monkey band", they list one of Ernie’s lesser known characters ("Irving Wong Chinese Songwriter") and they actually mention his hosting of "The Tonight Show". "Monkey band" is an odd choice of wording and Irving is too arcane of a character to make the cut but the "The Tonight Show" belongs there; readers of this blog may remember that when Conan O'Brien was slated to take the helm of the program we wrote some posts trying to convince NBC to list EK as a past host. They never did and given the way that whole fiasco turned out it was all for the best.

Should you wish to visit Ernie’s star on the "Hollywood Walk Of Fame" the address is listed, a new one on me since I never knew that marble slabs had addresses.

I'd like to wish a Happy Memorial Day to all the members of the Armed Forces past and present. And by the way if you want to trade and don’t have two Koufax cards I’ll take two Ernest Borginines and a Gene Barry. They both had a better slider than Kovacs (OOPS! I MEANT KOUFAX!) last year.

Until next time, "It’s Been Real!".

Ernie Kovacs & Early TV Comedy: Nothing In Moderation

2010-04-13T17:41:00.004-04:00

Good afternoon fellow Kovacsians. It's been a while.

Exactly two months ago I posted information about the new book "Ernie Kovacs & Early TV Comedy: Nothing In Moderation" by Andrew Horton, which was released on April 1, 2010. It includes an interview with the author and all the info you'll need if you'd like to acquire a copy. That post will give you a very thorough understanding of the book; this post will give you my quick impressions since I just finished reading it.

I thoroughly enjoyed it and suggest that it's a fine addition to the library of anyone who really wants to study the work of Ernie Kovacs; it's wonderful that fans and scholars now have another book to provide them with knowledge. It's divided into five chapters which take us through and help us to understand EK's work and what influenced it during different periods of his development, from the very beginning until the very end. That, in a nutshell, is what the book is.

Here is what it is not: a biography of Ernie Kovacs. And, it doesn't claim to be; Professor Horton points this out quite clearly towards the end of his introduction:

Finally, I wish to note that I spend almost no time in these pages on Ernie's biography since that is not the subject of my study. The Works Cited section does cover book that do justice to a summary of Kovacs' life, especially Diana Rico's thoroughly researched book "Kovacsland".

Chapter four,"Ernie in the Movies: From Comic Director to Supporting Character Actor", was the most enlightening section for me. I admit that I don't spend a great deal of time considering Ernie's films and I've been writing about him for well over a decade. I never felt that they were at all what he was about or even anything to do with him really; EK was at his best when he ran the show and not when he was a crew member on someone else's ship. And that's no joke about the ship; Ernie went to Hollywood figuring he might be a leading man one day and ended up portraying so many military officers that at one point he took out an ad in "Variety", imploring "No More Captains--Please." Professor Horton does a great job of pointing this out while at the same time providing excellent analysis of the films in which EK appeared and his contributions to them.

My thanks go out to Professor Horton for the wonderful mention he gives us in the "Works Cited" section under "Internet Sources". Both Ben Model and myself have worked hard over the years to help keep EK's memory alive and to have a solid internet resource where people can learn more about him. It's great to be given a nod for that. I'd also like to thank all of you who visit my site, Ben's, and this blog for your constant support of our work. Visit Ben's site by clicking the link above and you'll find a section called "books by/on Kovacs" which will show you a list of all that is available on EK, prior to the release of this book.

The following is off topic, but a fun way to end. I get emails from time to time asking if EK based Percy Dovetonsils on Tennessee Williams. To be honest, I don't know. I have heard it alluded to, however, and I can definitely see it. Here's a video of the great playwright reading poetry. I'll let you all be the judge:

Until we meet again, "It's Been Real!"

ED. NOTE, FRIDAY, APRIL 16, 2010:

Ben Model sent me the following message regarding the basis for Percy Dovetonsils. Thanks Ben!

Al,

Ernie's Percy character was supposedly based on someone named Ted Malone (orig name Frank Alden Russell), who read poetry on a radio program that began in 1929 and went into the 1940s called "Between the Bookends"...which is why Percy's sign-off was usually "I'll see you just outside the bookends". Here's a link to his obit on the NY Times. Here's a link to download and lithen to a 1945 epithode: click!. Malone has no dithernable lithp, but Malone's voice itself does seem to be the basis for the Percy character.

Ben

I can definitely see EK having morphed the voice into what became Percy. Here are couple of interesting pictures of Ted Malone:

Ted Malone Dining With Ronald Reagan And Jane Wyman

Ted Malone With Some Kids And An Unfortunate Mustache

I can see that aspects of Percy's looks were derived from Mr. Malone as well.

I've also found an interesting interview with Professor Andrew Horton. You'll see a poster of EK when they first show his office:

Percy's Poetry Book And A New Book On Ernie

2010-02-13T14:26:00.001-05:00

Rick Spector runs a company called ""Stairway To The Stars" which specializes in costumes, props, awards and historical artifacts from the golden age of film and television. One of the ways Rick obtains these items is through auction. He recently acquired Percy Dovetonsils' book of poetry at an auction held by the Hollywood Entertainment Museum.

Rick shared some pics with us. The color photo doesn't have to do with Percy or the auction item; Rick discovered some interesting color photos for auction on eBay and since you don't see a lot of these I thought I'd show it. The color pic dates from 1960. Thanks Rick:

Speaking of books we're excited to announce that a brand new one about Ernie is coming out in April, 2010. It's titled "Ernie Kovacs & Early TV Comedy: Nothing in Moderation" and comes to us from The University Of Texas Press. Author Andrew Horton, who is the The Jeanne H Smith Professor of Film And Video Studies at The University Of Oklahoma, took some time out of his busy schedule to answer some questions for us:

1. What inspired you to write a book about Ernie Kovacs?

I wrote this book because Ernie has always been a part of me since I was a child and I finally said, "It's time to take a closer look at what has kept me laughing so much all these years.

As I say in my intro: Kovacs was an indelible part of my own childhood. When I was growing up in the l950’s, no one made me laugh louder and more frequently than Ernie Kovacs. The sheer nutty brilliance of the man, his wife Edie Adams, and his comic co-conspirators such as writers including Rex Lardner, Deke Heyward, and Mike Marmer and actors such as Barbara Loden, Peter Hanley and Trigger Lund has come back to make me laugh again and again through the years, often at unexpected moments.

Let’s be more specific. As a child allowed to watch several hours of television a day, I became hooked not so much on "I Love Lucy" or even Disney’s "Mickey Mouse Club" shows, but on the various Ernie Kovacs shows that existed throughout this period.

I was too young to "analyze" what it was that I enjoyed so much about his humor, but in retrospect I was fully aware that Kovacs was much further "out there" as a comedian than anyone else in the biz including my other favorites, Sid Caesar and Steve Allen. In particular, I constantly entertained family and friends acting out The Nairobi Trio, those three apes who always mischievously acted out stunts on each other, particularly angering the middle ape, as the same tune, "Solfeggio" played every time they appeared. I too would hum the song and pretend to play the xylophone with my two little xylophone hammers while then turning like some kind of a robot and zapping the "ape" (be "she" my sister, mother, grandmother, or "he" my father, grandfather or a friend) over the head with my imaginary hammers (often substituting other objects).

2. Two major books have been written about Ernie: David Walley's "Nothing In Moderation: The Ernie Kovacs Story" first published in 1975 (reprinted in 1987 as "The Ernie Kovacs Phile") and Diana Rico's "Kovacsland: A Biography Of Ernie Kovacs" first published in 1990. They both do a great job of delving into the many facets of Ernie's career and art. I can tell you that every major EK fan I know, including me, has read both and is wondering how your book is different and what new information it brings to the table (or in Ernie's case the poker table).

These books are very good and useful and bring in a lot, especially Rico's, of his life/bio. Where I come in is taking first of all a wider look at COMEDY itself thus placing Kovacs, yes, with not necessarily INFLUENCES but SIMILARITIES to everyone from ARISTOPHANES in Ancient Greece to the MARX BROTHERS , CHAPLIN, KEATON and to suggest how he exemplifies elements of, for instance, COMMEDIA DELL' ARTE in Italy (the mixture of improv with set pieces, etc.) and SURREALISM as well.

As I say early in the book, Question: what do Monty Python, David Letterman, much of Saturday Night Live especially in its early years, Larry David, especially in "Curb Your Enthusiasm" on which he works without a script, "Flight of the Conchords", "Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In", "The Uncle Floyd Show", "Captain Kangaroo" and even "Sesame Street", to offer but a short list, have in common? One answer is quite simple: they all reflect--whether knowingly or not--the imaginative and wildly creative comic jokes, ludic characterizations, hilarious insights and zany experiments that Ernie Kovacs handed down in his years with early American television and late 1950’s Hollywood cinema. “Nothing in Moderation” was not only Kovacs’ wholehearted approach to comedy and life but is also the line on his tombstone in Los Angeles’ Forest Lawn Memorial Park.

Long story short, as you see from the list of chapters, I go into close detail examining the types of comedy he developed and the influences this has had:

Chapter 1: An Overview of the Post-War Era & The Ernie Kovacs Shows in the Context of American Television Comedy

Chapter 2: The Flow of the Philadelphia & New York Kovacs Shows: Comic Surrealism Verbal and Visual

Chapter 3: Silence Please! Ernie, California & Working With Music, Sound & Surrealistic Visuals on His Specials

Chapter 4: Ernie in the Movies: From Comic Director to Supporting Character Actor

Chapter 5: The Kovacs Legacy: “I Don’t Know: I Just Do It!”

3. I read the following comment on the University of Texas web site "In this book, Andrew Horton offers the first sustained look at Ernie Kovacs's wide-ranging and lasting contributions to the development of TV comedy". In what ways?

Again, I take a close look at shows and specific scenes/moments to "open up" Kovacs' comic genius of VERBAL AND VISUAL, individual and ensemble and suggest influences this has had long since his day. I watch and write not just as a FAN or as a MEDIA SCHOLAR but as a comic screenwriter myself having, for instance, published one book "LAUGHING OUT LOUD: WRITING THE COMEDY CENTERED SCREENPLAY" (U of California Press) which has been used effectively around the world, I'm happy to say! I would add one more perspective I bring which is I fully appreciate his "Hungarian Viewpoint" for I have worked in Europe including Hungary, Czech Republic, Yugoslavia and Greece and appreciate THEIR HUMOR AND CAN SEE HOW PARTIALLY ERNIE WAS PULLING FROM SOME OF THESE ROOTS TOO!

Finally, let me add this since I am writing this a few days before Mardi Gras and in the book I do look closely at the SPIRIT OF CARNIVAL THAT ERNIE REPRESENTS! LONG LIVE ERNIE AND CARNIVAL IN OUR HEARTS AND SOULS AND LAUGHTER:

Can we think of any more appropriate carnival!

Mikhail Bakhtin in writing about the nature of carnival in Europe but projecting to the spirit of the carnivalesque in any culture, commented that:

“Carnival is not a spectacle seen by the
people; they live in it, and everyone
participates because its very idea embraces
all the people. While carnival last, there is no other life outside it (7).”

Looking back on the nature of Ernie Kovacs’ original forms of comedy on early American television in the 1950’s up through into the 1960’s, it is certainly fair to say whenever and wherever Ernie was “working”, a carnival was in session and all of those around him had to understand that. Thus it seems accurate to say that Ernie Kovacs brought a spirit of carnival into the new medium of television, a spirit that has had lasting influences. Ernie’s comment that, “I don’t know. I just do it!” is absolutely “carnivalesque” in the sense we have been discussing.

Let’s be more specific. The carnival spirit can be seen as celebrating the three “F’s”: freedom, fantasy, and festivity (Horton. Laughing Out Loud: Writing the Comedy Centered Screenplay p4). Certainly Ernie felt the “freedom” to do just about anything he wanted to do (as long as no one was being hurt!), and he had endless amounts of “fantasy” that allowed him to dream up what to do. Finally the “festivity” was the SHARING of his comedy with others. If you do all of this by yourself for yourself, that is not the carnival spirit. Carnival is to be shared “in the streets” and, in this case, in the living rooms of America. And in my personal interviews with Edie Adams, she explained she enjoyed helping to edit at times because, as she put it,“ Ernie really needed someone to help edit because he was so into whatever he was doing that often he didn’t know if it was funny or not (personal interview).”

4. You're a screenwriter and have written books on the subject. Do you offer a critical analysis of Ernie's films in the book?

Yes! I have a whole chapter on his films. I NOTE, FOR INSTANCE, (SEE BELOW) HOW VERY FEW ACTORS EVER MAKE IT IN BOTH TV AND FILM, AND ERNIE WASN'T A BIG STAR YET, BUT HE WAS CLEARLY DEVELOPING IN THIS "OTHER MEDIUM" AS I NOTE BELOW IN THE CHAPTER:

In his five brief “cinematic years”, Ernie never became a famous lead actor. But he came through often as an impressive supporting character in both comedies and dramas and thus proved to be one of those rare actors who could move from television to film and back again successfully. To put this in a clearer context, it’s important to realize how small a group such actors are or have been. Jerry Seinfeld, for instance, is still funny in reruns of Seinfeld (1990-98), but he has not yet become a movie star and has actually not really tried to cross the bridge, since he has often commented how difficult such medium crossing can be. Similarly, while a few actors have been able to move between the two mediums such as James Garner, Bill Cosby and Lucille Ball, we cannot speak of distinguished feature film careers of most television comics such as Milton Berle, Johnny Carson, Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore.

5. Who did you interview who worked with Ernie in those early days?

I was so lucky to be able to interview Edie Adams several times in her home and in Kansas when we were both invited to the Annual Buster Keaton Fesitval in Iola to celebrate Buster and Ernie given that even on the day Ernie died he had been working with Buster on a TV Pilot Show.

A number of my friends worked in TV in the early days and they were helpful and of Ernie's staff workers I was able to interview Robert Key.

(ED. NOTE: For a thorough discussion of the pilot Ernie and Buster worked on see this article by our friend Rob Foster.)

6. The book is available for pre-order on the University Of Texas web site and the Amazon and Barnes And Noble web sites. Will it also be available in retail outlets?

I assume so but U Texas will have to tell you this. Alas, the paperback version will not be out the first year.

Our thanks go out to Andy Horton for a very informative interview. It's going to be a great new angle on Ernie's work and something I'm sure all EK fans will enjoy reading.

My Dad first exposed me to EK by making me watch "The Best Of Ernie Kovacs" on PBS in 1978 and then a couple of years later my friends and I discovered "The Uncle Floyd Show" on cable TV. That's one connection I truly look forward to reading about! Both are from New Jersey and I've always considered the similarities.

Until next time Kovacsians: "It's Been Real!"

"Solfeggio" Lyrics

2010-02-10T15:45:00.012-05:00

Someone wrote me over at my erniekovacs.info website, looking to find the lyrics to "Solfeggio" (a/k/a "Song of the Nairobi Trio"). In case anyone else has been wondering, here's what I wrote back:

They're not too complicated, especially if you know "Doe, a Deer" from the Sound of Music. "Solfeggio" is a musical notation system where each of the eight pitches on the major scale is given a name: do re me fa sol la ti do.

The "lyrics" to the song are nothing more than the names of the notes of the melody:

"Solfeggio" lyrics:

Mi sol la
Re fa-re sol
Do me-do fa re
Sol sol (bongo roll...)

Mi sol la
Re fa-re sol
Do me-do fa re
Sol sol do (wham!)

Do mi fa
Si re-se mi
La do-la fa re
Sol sol (bongo roll...)

Do mi-do fa
Si re-se mi
La do-la fa re
Sol sol do (wham!)

Thanks for writing!

Ben Model

Kapusta Kids And Nairobi Trios: IN COLOR

2009-12-22T17:54:00.008-05:00

Did the title grab your attention Kovacsians? Good. It was supposed to.

I have a great visual treat for you today and considering Ernie was such a visual comic the shoe, or in this case the shoes, masks, scarves and hats, fit.

The Hollywood Entertainment Museum held an auction this past weekend of their 100 year old collection of television and film memorabilia in order to raise money for at-risk youth. Included in the inventory of this most worthwhile cause were a mother lode of goodies from Kovacsland.

Wonderful puppets from Ernie's parody of children's sci-fi and puppet shows, "The Kapusta Kid In Outer Space," were some of the featured items. Rick Spector, a new fan of the blog and website, was the lucky winner of the EK puppet which you see pictured below. He seems to think these puppets may have been made by the late puppeteer Larry Berthelson and this certainly may be the case as his puppets appeared regularly in Ernie's early shows. "Kapusta" incidentally is the Russian, Polish, Ukrainian, and Slovak word for cabbage. You might say Ernie's puppets were the original "Cabbage Patch Kids."

In addition to the puppets, the masks and costumes of Ernie's legendary "Nairobi Trio" were also up for auction. And, as if that wasn't enough, throw in some title cards from two of Ernie's early shows, "3 To Get Ready" and "Kovacs Unlimited," some assorted props (including the "Nairobi Trio" mallets) and an odd prop with dials known as "Gearshift's Mechano Almanac" which, quite frankly, I've never heard of. It's amazing what great shape these items are in considering they date back to the early 1950s. (ED. NOTE: I have to make a correction as we've just been informed that the masks pictured are not the actual ones, but facsimiles since the original is very fragile and I'm assuming they decided not to handle it too much. Please read the comments section for additional clarification. My apologies!)

I certainly hope you enjoy the color photos posted below; something different since they, along with Ernie, were always seen on TV in black and white:

Well, there you have it Kovacsians. Until next time Happy Holidays and a very sincere "It's Been Real!"

ED. NOTE, DEC. 26TH, 2009:

The Museum Of Broadcast Communications in Chicago has their archives listed online so you can view the list. Some of these listings have a digital file accompanying them for viewing and ⁄ or listening.

"The Ernie Kovacs Show" from December 19th, 1955, is one of these. The show contains as one of its sketches "The Kapusta Kid In Outer Space." I uncovered this while doing some further research on the puppets. The EK puppet is not in the sketch but many of the others are.

To view this file:

Visit this link and sign up. It’s free.
Once you login choose the "TV" link, put Ernie Kovacs in "Keywords" and check the box at the bottom that says "Digital File Available". Then click submit. The archive listings for several files along with links to them will then come up. Look for catalog # TV_05449-3 with a date of 12/19/1955.

Most people who visit my EK sites know I don't usually promote online files because most of the time the person uploading them does not have permission to do so. Many times I'm sent emails with links to EK file downloads which I ignore and delete. My assumption here is that a broadcast museum is not just putting up clips without permission.

"Festival Of Magic" Hosted By Ernie Kovacs

2009-10-18T18:23:00.005-04:00

Good evening Kovacsians. I have something for you that I know you'll enjoy.

Kovacs fans know that outside of the "Best Of Collection" and the ten films he appeared in, there is a dearth of material with Ernie in it that is available for purchase. Now, however, there is something you can add to the list.

"Producers Showcase: Festival Of Magic" aired on NBC on Monday, May 27, 1957. Ernie acts as the emcee for this extravaganza which you can now purchase from The Miracle Factory, the company which produces it. Todd Karr, who owns The Miracle Factory, was nice enough to send us a copy for review.

The program itself is an ode to the big production number/variety shows from television's golden age. From a magic standpoint it has a wonderful theme; grand stage illusions are performed by magicians from the far corners of the world.

There's Robert Harbin , the British magician who invented the famous "Zig Zag Girl" illusion, a version of which he does here and who for purposes of the show is from "South Africa". Then from "Asia" there is "Li King Si" (a Frenchman born Edouard 'Georges' Cassel), Sorcar from India, Rene Septembre from France, June Merlin from Ireland and Milbourne Christopher from the United States.

But for me the highlight of the magic is the genius of the Englishman Richard Pitchford, better known to the world as "Cardini". This is the only performance of his full act available on film and it's something well worth seeing. He's like a great actor; the delivery and the magic together make for a fine performance and I find it amazing that unlike the other magicians, who are working with much bigger items and/or animals, Cardini pulls off his act with just playing cards and cigarettes. Truly phenomenal, a master of sleight of hand and very funny as well, the perfect compliment to EK.

"So what about Ernie?" you may be asking. In her book "Kovacsland: A Biography Of Ernie Kovacs" author Diana Rico describes him as doing a sword balancing act and performing some running "magic" gags in which he shoots, saws and otherwise tries to destroy some NBC Vice Presidents. This is an apt description; EK, who wrote his own bits for this show, is using them as a jibe at the meddling ways of television executives, something he was famous for loathing. Before addressing the assemblage of "executives" for the first time he tells the audience:

"Some of the gentleman with whom I've been at odds occasionally, the NBC Vice Presidents, felt that perhaps I might not restrain myself in doing a magic show; they're a little bit skeptical."

After turning to look at them he says:

"You've been here all day; it's awfully difficult to work with them here."

He then opens with a "trick" in which he attempts to make one of them vanish inside a large cabinet. Very telling.

Ernie performs all the "tricks" as himself so you won't be seeing "Matzoh Hepplewhite: Itinerant Magician". There is also no interaction between Ernie and the magicians themselves; he does his bits at the end of the acts before the commercial breaks and then again coming in from the breaks before the next act, then announces the act. This could have been a "meddling vice president" choice; Ernie was at his best when riffing with people or performers not used to his brand of humor so it seems odd that this was not pursued.

This is not going to go down on record as Ernie's greatest hosting performance. It's from a time period several months after his fill-in stint as permanent guest host of Steve Allen's "Tonight!" and was at a point when Ernie did not have a show of his own but was still under contract to NBC. For this reason it's apparent that it's of the "let's get Kovacs to host this magic show" variety, since NBC could never quite figure out what to do with Ernie in a show of his own. At points he's reading from cue cards and seems to not be all that into it.

That being said Ernie's bits when he's allowed to be Ernie have their moments; wind-up toy animals talk, there's a visual bit where he has a conversation with a tiny man in a pith helmet and of course the attempts to execute TV middle management disguised as illusions are great, if simply for that reason that it's obvious what his point is. Amongst the "executives" Kovacs stalwarts will recognize the veteran character actor Henry Lascoe and actor/singer Peter Hanley, both Kovacs show regulars. Hanley of course is famous for introducing the song "Solfeggio" to Ernie; he brought it into work one day to use as a singing exercise and it's the song that inspired Ernie to create the "The Nairobi Trio" and then became the music for same.

The DVD itself was made from a tape of an excellent kinescope; for the most part it looks and sounds fine with the occasionally audio and video glitches you might expect but completely watchable. Originally the producers had intended to include the original commercials but left them out because they felt it slowed down the show's pace, however, you do get to see who the sponsors are during the show opening. There is a choice on the DVD menu called "Commercials" but it is simply a little bit of comedy with EK before a commercial break. Running time is slightly over an hour and fifteen minutes which means the original show was probably 90 minutes. The cost of this DVD is $35.

All in all a very enjoyable "hour and a quarter"; as I write this I can hear my relatives laughing in the other room at EK's antics. That's as good an endorsement as any. If you're an Ernie fan, magic fan or both (and most people who read this blog are), then I suggest you pick up a copy.

Here's a short trailer so you'll have an idea what you're getting:

Until next time, "It's Been Real!"

Ernie's Former New City Home For Sale

2009-08-09T11:18:00.003-04:00

Good morning Kovacsians. It's been a while.

Back in the mid 1950s when Ernie was doing his show from New York City he purchased a home for his mother Mary Kovacs in New City, New York, which is a suburb in Rockland County. The home is currently up for sale; you can see the listing and some additional photos by clicking the link above.

(ED. NOTE, 9/12/2009- I disabled the link to the property as it's apparently been sold or pulled off the market and the page no longer exists.- Al Quagliata)

Many Kovacs fans will remember that Ernie's daughters, Bette and Kippie, were kidnapped to Florida by their mother and Ernie's first wife, Bette Wilcox. According to Diana Rico's book "Kovacsland: A Biography Of Ernie Kovacs" Ernie filled the home with presents and decorations each Christmas in the hope they would all be reunited in time for the holiday. When they were finally reunited in the summer of 1955 the girls were brought to the house for the first time. Bette Kovacs remembered that there were still candy canes and stars on the ceiling in the room where they were to sleep and these remained there for all the years her grandmother occupied the home.

A nice story for a nice Sunday. Until next time, "It's Been Real!"

Edie Adams Interview With Josh Mills And Becky Greenlaw

2009-06-23T08:07:00.001-04:00

EK fan Mary Lou Cassidy brought to our attention a six part interview that Doug Norwine of Heritage Auction Galleries did with Edie's son Josh Mills and her assistant Becky Greenlaw as part of their last celebrity memorabilia auction which took place from June 5-7, 2009.

Each segment is about 7 minutes. The first five feature Josh and Becky discussing Edie and Ernie; the sixth shows Edie's gowns and dresses which are up for auction with either Josh or Becky discussing their history:

PART 1 PART 2 PART 3 PART 4 PART 5 PART 6

We thank Mary for digging these out for all EK fans to see; they are not easy to find on the site.

One very interesting item that sold was for $1314.50 was EK's famous poker table! That's probably a lot less than Ernie would have lost in a typical night of gambling.

Until next time, "It's Been Real!"

Ernie Kovacs And Bob Hope On DVD

2009-05-14T14:30:00.001-04:00

Good afternoon Kovacsians. Our good friend John Hammes of The UGA Science Library at The University Of Georgia wanted to share with us his quick review of an interesting piece of Ernie video memorabilia which he brought to my attention a while back. Fans of the blog know John as the gent who has contributed a couple of very tough trivia quizzes to the site. Here's his latest trip into Kovacsland:

Original Air Date: 12/11/59
"Bob Hope Christmas Special"

Repeat Air Date: 10/29/76
"Bob Hope's World Of Comedy"

BOB HOPE: The Ultimate Collection is mainly comprised of the original Bob Hope anniversary/compilation specials that were broadcast circa 1970's 1980's. This is a four DVD set that was released in 2007.

The 1976 "World Of Comedy" special is the sole feature on disc four. Among hundreds of clips, this includes a sketch featuring Ernie from the 1959 Christmas Special. EK and BH had another sketch on that same special (based on top 40 radio "Payola"), but that other sketch is absent here. Guess we will need to sent nice letters and e-mails to the good people at the Hope Estate, requesting the 12/11/59 Christmas Special in full.

Ernie's segment on "World Of Comedy" was unfortunately edited somewhat: it would have been better to see the entire sketch. Still, this is a good representation of Kovacs, clocking in at two minutes.

I'd like to thank John for taking the time and effort to put this together for the EK Blog. If you're an EK fan, Hope fan or both be sure to pick up a copy.

On May 12, 2009, the New York Observer ran an interesting piece about the former talk show host Richard Bey. Interesting because I was just having a "whatever happened to discussion" with someone the other day then saw this and interesting because someone in the article compares Bey to EK. I will say this; I never liked his show because of the prurient and infantile subject matter but I always liked Bey and found the man funny. He had some good bits, did some decent character work and was always quick on his feet. I can see the EK comparison to a certain extent. Read the article if you get a chance and judge for yourself. As always feel free to post a comment.

Thanks for stopping by friends. Until we meet again, "It's Been Real!"

Ernie The Sketch The Artist

2009-05-05T12:24:00.006-04:00

Good morning Kovacsians. I bet you didn't know Ernie was also something of an artist. EK fan Lynda Francis shared the following anecdote with me:

Back in the late 70's the nurses aides at a nursing home in Chelsea (Oklahoma) decided to have an auction to raise enough money to buy every resident a Christmas gift as some had no family. They bought a book of celebrity addresses and sent letters requesting a piece of memorabilia, an autograph or whatever they could get. It was amazing the response they got. The residents not only got a gift but also other needed items. Edie Adams sent this sketch. I cannot remember what I paid for it.

Here's a photo of the sketch:

Here's a close-up of the signature:

The sketch is of a Gaucho. Lynda emailed wanting to know if EK did any other artwork. To be honest, I'm not sure. He would parody art on his shows and sketch on his morning show in Philly for the kids and his likeness was rendered for bits in Mad Magazine and by artists such as Don Bevan and Al Hirschfeld. If I find out about any other drawings EK did I'll post the info here.

Thanks for stopping by folks and thanks for the pics Lynda!

Until next time, "It's Been Real."

Quitting The Nairobi Trio

2009-04-23T16:52:00.001-04:00

Good afternoon Kovacsians. I discovered the book to the left while doing some "Nairobi Trio" research online and was able to get a copy from my local library.

I just finished reading and it's fantastic. Rather than give you a review I'll say this; its not what you might think. And the way EK and "The Nairobi Trio" work into this true story is wonderful. Yours truly picks up ANYTHING that has to do with EK and reads it, yet I found that right from the start I was enjoying the book so much that it wouldn't have mattered to me whether EK was mentioned or not. When he finally was it really hit me. Great writing and well worth your time. To learn more about the author, Jim Knipfel, visit his website. Scroll down and you'll see a link to the book on Amazon along with a plot summary.

Our fight to get EK listed as a past guest host of "The Tonight Show" continues. This link will bring you to both articles on the subject, one written by me and the other by Ben Model. There you'll find full instructions on how you can join the fight. Let's get EK on that list!! Our thanks go to both Mark Evanier and Altrok Radio for writing great pieces on this subject regarding our campaign.

I haven't done this in a while so a here's a "shout out" (EK used to call it "Yoo Hoo Time" on TTGR) to all the members of the Ernie Kovacs MySpace Fan Page, which is currently up to 874 friends. I'd like to thank all those that have asked to be added. If you'd like to be a friend visit the page by clicking on the link above and put in a request!

If you are a Facebook user there are two EK Groups on that site; one run by Ron Evry and the other by my fellow EK blogger Ben Model. You must be a member of Facebook to join the groups and participate but clicking either link will bring you to the page so you can see them. Definitely join if you can; Ben and I always use the groups to post EK updates.

Another site to which we've added EK updates is Twitter; you can always visit that link to see what we're up to. In addition, I've embedded the Twitter updates directly into the homepage of www.erniekovacs.net. If you're a member of Twitter be sure to sign up as an EK follower; if not you can learn more about the service here.

Until next time my friends, "It's Been Real!"

EDITOR'S NOTE: After I posted this I contacted Jim Knipfel, author of "Quitting The Nairobi Trio" to tell him how much I enjoyed the book. He shared this anecdote with me:

Thank you, Al. I'm honored to have been recognized by the Kovacs cognescenti. Here's a story about the cover I think you'll appreciate.

About 2 weeks before the book was set to be released, the publisher realized that they had never obtained the rights to use the Nairobi Trio still. This was Bad News, and led to much hair pulling.

Finally, we contacted Edie Adams (who, as you know, controlled the estate) to get permission.

First, she wanted to read all the scenes in the book in which Ernie was mentioned. Happily, she was okay with those. Then came the matter of payment.

She asked how much people usually got for the rights to use an image on a book cover. "Usually anywhere between $200-$300," the publisher told her.

She thought about it for a minute, then said, "All right. I'll take $350."

God bless that woman.

(And god bless the publisher for agreeing to pay her $350.)

Many thanks again. I'm glad you liked the book.

Jim

Tell NBC To Add Ernie Kovacs To Their "Tonight Show" Host List!!

2009-04-13T13:00:00.010-04:00

If everyone who reads this blog posts something on the Tonight Show forum at NBC's website, they may get the message that something is wrong with the pantheon of hosts on their "Tonight Show Experience" website, shown below:

Go to NBC's "Tonight Show Experience" website by clicking here, and then click on "Community" to go to the posting forum. You will need to sign up in order to post to the board, but it's pretty simple to do. You should see my post about Ernie there:

Log in and post a reply (supporting this cause). Let's see if we can get NBC to take notice...

EDITOR'S NOTE: Ben; fantastic idea! I've already posted a reply on Ben's post on the NBC board. If you need more background on Ernie's "Tonight Show" tenure, I posted a piece last week that discusses it.

You can also send a message directly to NBC about without registering to post on the message board:

http://www.nbc.com/Footer/Contact_Us/

You'll see a pull down menu that says "Select Show." Choose "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno" and then a box will open where you can type in your message.

Let's try to get Ernie on that list!- Al Quagliata

Ernie & "Tonight!": Another "Nairobi Trio": EK DVD Box Set On Hold

2009-04-10T09:19:00.009-04:00

Good morning Kovacsians. As the title of this post indicates I have several EK items to share with you today.

I receive emails from time to time asking about Ernie's stint as permanent guest host of "The Tonight Show", on Monday and Tuesday nights from October 1st, 1956, through January 22nd, 1957. Ernie replaced the venerated Steve Allen who was so exhausted from the rigors of hosting five nights a week AND hosting a Sunday night variety show that so NBC could compete with Ed Sullivan on CBS, that he informed the network he would need the first two days of the week off to recuperate and prepare material for the following Sunday's show.

There's an interesting article I found on The Kansas City Blog's TV Barn which discusses the fact that in anticipation of Conan O'Brien taking over "The Tonight Show" from Jay Leno on June 1st 2009, NBC has posted a timeline of "Tonight Show" hosts which skips right from Steve Allen to Jack Paar without bothering to mention Ernie. I've posted comments on the piece so that you can learn more about Ernie's involvement as a "Tonight Show Host." In my humble opinion NBC needs to acknowledge his hosting of the program.

The number one jazz group in New Zealand is named "The Nairobi Trio" but they didn't get their name from EK's iconic sketch. The writer of this piece mentions EK and then goes on to discuss how the band got the name. It's interesting to think there are two well known "Nairobi Trios", albeit completely unrelated. I wonder who swings more, the band or the apes?

Back in November, 2008, Ben Model (who contributes here regularly) announced that he had been hired to put together a box set of 15 hours of EK material not seen in years and never before available to the general public. This set was slated for release sometime late in 2009. On April 6th, 2009, Ben announced on his own EK website that the project has been put on hold. This is sad news as so many EK fans (myself included) were looking forward to this release. We never say never in Kovacsland, however, and Ben assures me that there is a contingent that really wants to get the EK material out. Keep your fingers crossed; when there is more news you will hear about it here.

We have some great EK items available directly from The Paley Center For Media. The Vision Of Ernie Kovacs T-Shirt and Book come from a retrospective the Center (formerly known as "The Museum of Broadcasting" and then "The Museum Of TV And Radio")did on Ernie back in the 1980s. They're one-of-a-kind and you can only get them here.

Thanks for stopping by folks. Until next time, "Its Been Real!"

EDITOR'S NOTE, Wednesday, April 15th, 2009: According to the book "Inventing Late Night: Steve Allen And The Original Tonight Show" by Ben Alba, the first time Ernie hosted "Tonight" was for two weeks in August 1955 and it was during this hosting stint that he introduced "The Nairobi Trio." According to Diana Rico's book "Kovacsland: A Biography Of Ernie Kovacs", "The Nairobi Trio" was introduced on "The Ernie Kovacs Show" on April 21st, 1954. "Kovacsland" states that it was during Ernie's hosting stint of October 1st, 1956, through January 22nd, 1957 that the character Eugene was introduced in a sketch called "Library Bit." This bit would be repeated throughout the stint and Eugene would eventually get his own 1/2 hour special, "The Silent Show", in both 1956 and 1961.

I wanted to present both sides of the story as I discovered this after I commented on the TV Barn's "Tonight" post; I generally go with Diana's book for anything related to Ernie Kovacs.

The Poster Of Ernie Kovacs

2009-03-22T16:11:00.000-04:00

Good afternoon my fellow Kovacsians. I know I don't have a mustache but at least I do a reasonable job making the face.

I bought this poster at The Paley Center For Media in Manhattan, formerly known as The Museum Of Television And Radio and prior to that The Museum Of Broadcasting. They also have a location in Los Angeles. If you've never been to the Paley Center you should go as they have a great collection of EK videos for your viewing pleasure.

"The Vision Of Ernie Kovacs" was a retrospect the museum did on Ernie from from May 30- September 4, 1986. The picture you see on the right is a scan I made of a postcard I received from the museum.

The poster I framed myself. If I'm not mistaken that screwy face Ernie is making is from a segment on "Time For Ernie" which originated from Philadelphia in 1951. Ernie was using his pliable face to show the audience how the vertical and horizontal holds worked on one of those newfangled television sets. He also had a piece of wood with knobs hung from a string around his neck which he turned as he showed the various "adjustments". Quite the relevant and educational concept for those days. Now if only he were around today to show me how to use this computer...

Until next time, "It's Been Real!"

Not To Be Morbid, But...

2009-03-11T07:52:00.001-04:00

A blog by Larry Harnisch at the online version of the L.A. Times called "The Daily Mirror" posts images of pages from the paper from the past. A recent blog posting includes a hi-res image of the front page of the Times on January 13, 1962. Click here to go to the blog post to see the front page image real big and read the article. Also posted is an image of a later article interviewing Edie.

An Ernie Tribute Music Video

2009-02-27T09:33:00.001-05:00

My Google alert for "Ernie Kovacs" caught this posting from Feb 26 on a blog called PowerPop. The blog describes itself as: "An idiosyncratic blog dedicated to the precursors, the practitioners, and the descendants of power pop. All suggestions for postings and sidebar links welcome, contact any of us." Anyhoo, this posting embeds a music video by a band called The Loud Family in which the band (or their director) recreates several classic Kovacs bits, rather faithfully in some instances, and actually adds a sight gag or two that fit the mold. Here's the video:

Ernie Kovacs/Edie Adams Auction Results

2009-02-23T08:12:00.004-05:00

Good morning Kovacsians. Here are some of the results of the memorabilia auction that took place this past weekend at the Heritage Auction Gallery and featured items from Ernie Kovacs and Edie Adams (thanks go to Ben Model for providing the photo):

The two items that interested me the most, Percy's glasses and the Nairobi Trio Masks, went for a total of $5,975. Not that much for such a huge part of early TV history. I hope the folks who bought these items will consider loaning them to a museum at some point.

In a previous post I wrote about an item similar to lot number 49125 which is at the very top of the chart. I'm not surprised this didn't get bids as its a fairly common item. I think if they had obtained an E.E.F.M.S. card for the auction it would have been a different story; it's surprising they didn't as I believe these items came directly from the Kovacs estate.

You can visit the Heritage Auction Galleries website and sign up for a free account which will allow you to search the auction archives and view all the results. The auction number for the Ernie/Edie items is 7004 and the total amount sold was $720,273.11. This amount does not represent the total for Ernie/Edie items sold as there were items from other celebrities included in this auction.

Until next time, "It's Been Real!"- Al Quagliata

Interview: "Kovacsland" Author Diana Rico

2009-02-11T10:21:00.091-05:00

In January of 2008 I was contacted by one of my favorite authors/biographers Diana Rico who wrote the definitive biography on Ernie Kovacs, "Kovacsland".

What follows is an interview with Diana that has been in the works for the past year. I sincerely hope you enjoy it and I thank Diana for taking the time out of her very busy schedule to answer my questions. - Al Quagliata, February 11, 2009

1. Give our readers some background on yourself and how you got started as a writer.

I studied English literature at UCLA because I wanted to become a writer, and I minored in film history because I was an obsessive film-o-phile. Writing had actually been my dream since I was seven and read my first novel, "Little Women" (I realize now it was probably an abridged child’s version, but nevertheless I wanted to be Jo March!). When I got out of school I went to work as a magazine editor, then gradually started to pitch article ideas and get writing assignments. Eventually I was writing about the arts and entertainment for major publications like GQ, Harper’s Bazaar, Elle, and Architectural Digest, and I became the art writer for the Los Angeles Daily News and the art critic for the NPR flagship station in Los Angeles, KCRW.

2. What first got you interested in writing a book about Ernie Kovacs and how did the project finally come to pass?

I was first introduced to Ernie when I was associate editor at Emmy, the magazine of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. My editor at the time was a big Kovacs fan, and he assigned me to do an article on the history of Ernie’s shows. I sort of knew who Ernie was, but as a little kid I’d mix him up with Tennessee Ernie Ford—they both had black mustaches and smoked cigars. I think Ernie Kovacs’s work was too weird for my parents, so we didn’t watch him at home. Anyway, when I went to the UCLA Television Archives and saw Ernie’s work for the first time, I went wild. It was like watching Theater of the Absurd, only on mainstream 1950s TV. I loved the surrealism of it, his casual attitude about being on TV (unheard of at the time), his strangeness and whimsy, all his kooky characters and playful use of language. Then, in the course of researching the Emmy article, I discovered Ernie had had a fascinating, roller coaster life as well as, of course, a tragic death at the height of his creative powers. He was a bigger-than-life creative genius, and I felt he deserved a serious, in-depth biography. I hung onto all my research. A few years later, when I had an agent, I pitched the idea to him and he had me write a proposal. He actually got an auction going among several publishers, including William Morrow, where Edie Adams eventually sold her own memoir. I ended up going with Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. They were immensely supportive, especially my fantastic editor, John Radziewicz. When the book came out in 1990 they organized a book tour for me, and I was interviewed on "Larry King Live," "CBS Nightwatch with Charlie Rose," "Good Morning America"—lots of places. I must say I was blessed with a thoroughly marvelous publishing experience for a first-time book author.

3. Did you have any other titles in mind for the book besides "Kovacsland?" What made you decide on that particular title?

My editor felt, quite rightly, that it was important to have some reference to Ernie’s name visible on the spine of the book. I was a longtime fan of Lewis Carroll’s "Alice in Wonderland" and had found it enchanting that Ernie had a 1951 TV show referencing that, "Ernie in Kovacsland." So I borrowed from the best! As it turned out, it was quite apt, as I felt like I was guiding readers through this marvelous, wacky world that was peculiar to Ernie Kovacs.

4. What did you find to be the most difficult aspect of the research?

The most difficult aspect of the project was just figuring out how to write a biography for the first time. There is no roadmap for it (despite my attempts to find one by reading a zillion biographies I admired). One amasses fantastic quantities of research, ideas, notes, scripts, etc., and also develops some spiritual sense of who the person was. To say that putting order to all that chaos is daunting is an understatement. It was one of the biggest writing challenges I’ve ever had. Of course, that experience paid off years later, when I became a producer-writer for E! Entertainment Television and got to make biography shows of other artists I loved, like Richard Pryor, Steve McQueen, Alfred Hitchcock, John Lennon, Natalie Wood, and Jane Fonda—great, great talents with big, complicated lives like Ernie’s.

5. What (or who) did you find to be the most valuable aid in your research?

I think the love people still had for Ernie, years after his passing, was my greatest aid. Old crew members, his writers, poker buddies, even childhood friends—they were so happy to share their memories of Ernie, so open and forthcoming. While all the other types of research are critical for a biography, I find that interviewing the people who actually knew the subject is the best way for me to get a deep feeling about who they were and what made them tick.

6. Who was your favorite interview for the book?

Oh gosh, they were all fantastic. One of the great privileges of working on this book was getting to talk to all these wonderful people who knew Ernie. But I would have to say my absolute favorite was the late Louis “Deke” Heyward, one of Ernie’s writers from New York. We just clicked (probably because we’re both writers). Deke was an extremely intelligent man with a highly developed sense of whimsy—a wonderful combination, which Ernie shared. When I found out Deke had been a writer on Winky Dink, one of my favorite childhood shows, I was hooked! We didn’t just talk about Ernie. I mean, how often do you get to chat with the guy who invented adventures for Tom Terrific and Manfred the Wonder Dog? I got to hear all about the Magic Screen!

7. How long did it take you to complete the book?

It took three years from the time I got my contract with Harcourt Brace. I had already done the preliminary research for the Emmy article, so that helped me get off to a good start. I knew who to go after for interviews, where a lot of the resources were, the places I needed to go where he had lived, and so forth.

8. Tell us about the first time you ever saw Ernie Kovacs on TV and what sort of impression it made on you.

Please see #2 above.

9. I always get emails from Ernie fans asking me if any copies of "3 To Get Ready" exist and of course I have to tell them no. At any point in your research did you hear from a source or an interview that a copy might exist someplace?

“3 to Get Ready” was a local show in Philadelphia, as you know. In the early 1950s local shows just went out live over the airwaves and were gone, poof! In those days they only made kinescopes when a show was going to be “syndicated,” or sent to another market beyond the local one. I mean literally they would shoot the broadcast off a TV screen using a film camera, take the film cans, and “bicycle” them to another city; that was the available technology of the time. This was not done with "TTGR," because it was only sold in the Philadelphia market. So unfortunately the only documentation that exists is in written material and photographs. Andy McKay was a great help to me in reconstructing the experiences of "TTGR."

10. You quoted Ernie's ABC-TV cameraman Bob Kemp as saying "If management put up a barrier he (Ernie) would tear it down." How do you feel Ernie would have dealt with the management structure in today's television world given that there was less management interference when he was on TV? Do you feel today's bottom line "television by committee" structure would have adversely effected his art?

I doubt that Ernie would be working in TV if he were alive today. He was always attracted to what was on the cutting edge, whatever arena hadn’t been explored yet. TV was like that when he first entered it, but, as you point out, it has changed into television by committee. I think he’d being doing something way out there on the internet, or making his own independent productions (something he wanted to do, but the technology and distribution systems hadn’t become democratized as they have now in the digital era). He just wanted to be free to create, and I think if he were around now he’d be seeking out the most open-ended means of doing that.

(ED. NOTE: I interviewed Ernie's head ABC cameraman Bob Kemp a while back and he has a similar opinion.)
11. I've read the biographies of many of the famous TV comics/comic actors from Ernie's era; giants such as Lucille Ball, Jackie Gleason, Sid Caesar, Milton Berle, Jerry Lewis, etc. and while all were comic geniuses there are many stories about the conflicts they sometimes had with others or about employees disliking them. Yet in your book and in David Walley's "The Ernie Kovacs Phile" the picture that's given is that for the most part everyone liked Ernie. Why do you think this is?

For all his genius, I think Ernie had very little ego (except when, as you mentioned earlier, management was trying to quash his creative urges—then he could fight like a tiger). Everyone, everyone I interviewed talked about his sweetness, his extreme generosity, how he treated everyone as equals. He had a childlike quality too that was genuine, a really charming innocence. These characteristics set him apart from the usual “star” type personalities. The crew members and writers I talked to wanted more than anything to please him. They just adored him.

12. What are your favorite Kovacs sketches and why?

To this day my favorite sketch is the Nairobi Trio. It’s almost a mystical thing; the charm of it cannot be explained. It’s mimed, it’s slow, it’s deliberate, it’s crazy. I will never tire of it.

13. Which is your favorite Kovacs film and why?

In truth most of the films Ernie appeared in were pretty dismal and not strong showcases for his talent. I like him best in "Operation Mad Ball" – it’s lovely to see him with his best pal, Jack Lemmon. And I think "Our Man in Havana" is an elegant film. I’m working on a novel right now that takes place partly during the Cuban Revolution, and director Carol Reed actually shot that film on location as the Revolution was happening. I mean, I read a magazine interview with Ernie in which he talked about how they could hear the rebels setting up firing squads as they were filming the movie. So for me it’s also an interesting document of the time.

14. In your intro to the book you say that some of Ernie's work is "nearer in structure and spirit to absurdist theater and Dadaist and surrealist art than to the sitcoms and stand-up routines that have defined most of television comedy since the earliest days." Which pieces do you feel most exemplify this?

I think the last work he did, the ABC specials, were the most avant-garde expressions of his sensibility and the closest to the European avant-garde movements I cited. I mean, Ernie didn’t even appear in those pieces. They were strange little films of his peculiar, unique visions. It still amazes me that they were made for broadcast TV. But then he was selling those cigars in the commercials. As long as he brought the sponsor’s money in, the network was ok with the rest of it.

15. Would you consider some of Ernie's more abstract pieces to be an early form of performance art?

Performance art uses the artist’s body as a sort of instrument and is presented live before an audience, so I wouldn’t say Ernie’s work was performance art. But I would definitely consider it early video art. A lot of the concepts he pioneered in his use of the TV medium were ideas that video artists like Nam June Paik and Teddy Dibble later explored in depth.

16. Two of the people closest to Ernie, Edie Adams and the late Jack Lemmon, declined to participate in the project. What was the reason for this? It's a generally positive and very honest portrayal and you figure they'd want to share their reminiscences.

Edie cooperated with me when I was working on the Emmy article. In fact, at one point we were in discussions about the possibility of my helping her catalog her incredible cache of Ernie costumes, props, and other paraphernalia, which she had in storage at Bekins in L.A. She had Percy Dovetonsils’ leopard smoking jacket! But when I got my book contract, she decided she wanted to do her own book. She hired a theater writer, Robert Windeler, to ghost it for her. She was very close to Jack Lemmon, and out of respect for Edie, he shared his memories exclusively with her. But absolutely everyone else I approached participated happily, including his two daughters, Kippie and Elisabeth, who were marvelous.

17. If Ernie were alive today how do you feel he would make use of all the new technology?

Please see #10 above.

18. Is there any TV comic performing today who you feel best carries the torch passed on by Ernie Kovacs?

That’s a good question, but I can’t say. I don’t watch much TV these days, to be honest.

19. It seems that while you do see movies with Ernie frequently on cable (especially "Bell, Book And Candle" and "North To Alaska"), its only TRIO-TV which shows his programs as part of their "Brilliant But Cancelled" series and I've heard this is because the president of that network is a fan. In the beginning Comedy Central used to show his work all the time but then stopped. Why do you think there aren't more cable nets showing Ernie's work given the fact that there are so many channels that you'd think there'd be a need for content?

Oh, that would require a dissertation on the vagaries and politics of cable TV management and economics. But I also think Ernie’s work never appealed to very large numbers of people, and it still may not. His fans are fiercely devoted, but not as huge in numbers as those of some of the more mainstream comedians. And TV, whether it’s cable or broadcast, always tends towards the mainstream.

20. How do you feel about the state of the television industry today?

I think TV is still a marvelous medium with so much potential. But unfortunately a lot of what gets made and watched is, in my opinion, junk. In particular I deplore the mean-spiritedness of a lot of the so-called “reality” shows, which (I can tell you because I have a lot of friends who have worked on them) are anything but real. There is, however, some brilliant writing and producing going on in the area of dramas and “dramedies.” I have great respect for the really gifted producer-writers who manage to get their unique visions and voices on the air, like Shonda Rhimes (Grey’s Anatomy) and Marc Cherry (Desperate Housewives).

21. You're a producer, publisher, photographer, writer/journalist and I want to strongly encourage our readers to visit your website AND pick up a copy of this great book. What projects are you working on currently?

Well, I left Los Angeles three years ago and became a nomad, dividing my time between New Mexico, Colorado, and Guatemala, where I wrote documentaries for a director named Mischa Prince. Those projects are now in post production. Now I’m settling in New Mexico and building up my business, The wordARTist (http://www.wordartist.net/), which offers premium writing, editing, producing, and multimedia content development services exclusively for individuals and organizations in the arts. I love doing this! I’m also in the middle of curating a series of live readings by major award-winning authors (Alisa Valdes Rodriguez, Hampton Sides, Robin Romm, numerous others) for the Society of the Muse of the Southwest, a venerated literary nonprofit in northern New Mexico. And I am working on an experimental novel about the late Cuban-American artist Ana Mendieta called "The Woman Who Fell to Earth". I researched her life and work as if I were writing a biography, but now I am freely imagining her life, and bringing in elements of magical realism, the Santería religion, Cuban music, mythology, art history—all sorts of things. I’ve received fellowships and grants from a number of organizations for this project, including the Wurlitzer Foundation, the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, and the Harwood Museum of Art. Oh yes, and a few days ago I launched a blog! It is sooooo fun, a whole new genre of writing. It’s on the subject of creativity, and people can check it out at http://theloveartblog.wordpress.com/. Please leave comments on the posts—I truly want this to be an interactive endeavor! Maybe that’s what Ernie would be doing now. Blogging.

Thanks again Diana! You can also visit Diana's main website at http://www.dianarico.com/.

Kovacsians, if you've never read "Kovacsland" you really need to pick up a copy. I've read it several times and its my constant reference companion for helping to answer all the questions I get from Ernie's fans. Its a fantastic and wonderful resource about everything to do with Ernie and his work.

While the book is available from most major online booksellers we suggest you get your copy from Powell's Books; they give authors a much better percentage on book sales than most. For a great biography like this that is most deserved.

Thanks for stopping by and until next time: "It's Been Real!!"

Fan Scan Joe Masi's The Man!

2009-01-20T19:28:00.001-05:00

Good evening Kovacsians. Let me start out by thanking all the folks who have put in friend requests on the Ernie Kovacs MySpace Fan Page. Accept my apologies; we haven't mentioned the page in quite a while and are always getting requests. We're pushing towards 1,000; the page is currently at 856 fans and we're grateful to all who are helping to keep Ernie's work alive!

Today I'd like to share with you two scans which Kovacs fan Joe Masi sent me. The first is an autographed card from "Kovacs Unlimited" which he received back in 1953:

And here's an extra fun artifact in case you were wondering when Joe received this prized possession (I removed the street address):

Almost 56 years ago! Remember the days before zip codes? How about typewriters? Remember two cent postage? Well I don't but I wish I did. I grew up in Westchester County so of course Port Chester resonated with me; that I remember!

Joe was inquiring as to what the value of the card might be. To tell you the truth I'm not sure. Our last post talks about an upcoming auction of Kovacs memorabilia; a similar "Kovacs Unlimited" card is one of the listed items and there are several title cards which Ben Model thinks are also from that program. Here is another scan of one of these autographed cards which a fan sent me about seven years ago.

From left to right in the photo are "Kovacs Unlimited" cast members Eddie Hatrak, Edie Adams, Ernie, Trigger Lund and Andy McKay, each with an accompanying signature underneath. In all the different photos of this card the signatures appear similar though the ink colors are different. Joe is of the opinion that the signatures on his are "secretarial" and I tend to agree; "Kovacs Unlimited" was a nationally broadcast program which orginated daily, "live from New York", and I doubt very much that the cast would have had the time to sit around signing cards for which there were probably myriad requests while still preparing for a live comedy show. That being said this is still a great piece of Kovacsian memorabilia which could probably draw some nice bids at auction, especially with the envelope featuring that cool CBS-TV logo.

Joe also mentions in his email that he once had an EEFMS card but lost it; I have a feeling these are worth a bit more because they were from Ernie's local "Three To Get Ready" program in Philly and are probably rarer. Even though it's a scarce item I've received many scans of it from a variety of fans. Here's a color version of the card.

We thank Joe very kindly for his question and for taking the time to send these scans; what keeps this blog going and Ernie's legacy alive are the memories of the folks who loved him and enjoyed his work.

Until next time my fellow Kovacsians: "IT'S BEEN REAL!"- Al Quagliata

Kovacs Memorabilia Auction Feb 21-22 2009 In Texas

2009-01-17T08:44:00.000-05:00

A pair of Ernie's Percy Dovetonsils glasses are among many piece of Kovacs memorabilia slated for the auction block on Feb 21-22 at Heritage Auction Galleries in Dallas Texas.

You may never get a chance to see any of these items again, but you can take a gander at the auction preview page. Click here to go directly to the list of Ernie Kovacs stuff. In each item display, just above each item image, there is a text box that says "turn off/on Pan & Zoom Images". Turn it off and then click on the image to see it in high resolution. For instance, you'll see that the black horizontal "eyelids" on Percy's glasses were drawn on.

There are also two books that have been hollowed out with some sort of sound or light effect inside. Ernie tried out the "library" sequence of the 1957 Silent Show a couple times when he was hosting Tonight in November and December of 1956. These prop books may be from those dry runs. Kinescopes survive for at least one of those Tonight episodes.

Below is an image for four title cards up for auction, in a lot, which are not identified but I believe these are from Kovacs Unlimited (CBS, 1952-54), as Schroeder was one of the puppets used on the show. The puppet is still around, in the collection of a relative of Andy McKay.

Anyone with deep pockets live near Dallas? Paging Mr. Letterman...!

Anniversary Of Ernie's Death (And Birth)

2009-01-14T06:45:00.000-05:00

Yesterday marked the anniversary of the accident that prematurely ended Ernie's life in 1962. His 90th birthday comes up in ten days, on January 23rd. There used to be an event held in Trenton in January to commemorate these two events, organized by a woman whose uncle was Bernie Kosnowski, the "polka king" of NJ (or Trenton, anyway) and whose last name Ernie used a great deal (the names Arthur B. Kosnowski or Betty Lou Kosnowski pop up a lot in sketches). But it got too hard to get people to come out in January to play poker and smoke cigars.

For those of you in the NJ area, I will be giving a talk on Kovacs and showing clips at the Ocean County Library in Toms River, NJ on Monday January 26th 2009. Click on the image to go to the library's website. I'm still narrowing down what I'm going to show, but have to tell you it won't be anything planned for the DVD set, as that material hasn't been transferred or remastered yet. If nothing else, the evening will be a chance to meet – and watch Ernie Kovacs – with other fans. Click on the image to find out more.

Ben Model

Twas The Night Before Christmas…Dovetonsils-Style

2008-12-24T06:51:00.011-05:00

The classic holiday poem was given a Percy Dovetonsils treatment by Ernie, and was published in the December 1961 issue of Playboy Magazine. Ernie also recorded it in the fall of that year for the Dovetonsils LP he did for Vanguard, which was never released (but master tapes survive).

Pour yourthelf thum thnappth, thnuggle up to the hearth in your thartreuthe theerthucker drething gown, and warm yourthelf with thith little bon mot --

*******************

THAT HOARY
HOLIDAY CHESTNUT
IS GIVEN A
PARK AVENUE
TWIST

by
ERNIE "PERCY LLEWELYN DOVETONSILS" KOVACS

'Twas the night before Christmas and all through the duplex
Just a valet was pressing (a glen plaid with blue checks).
The nylons were hung by the chimney with care
C.O.D. from I. Magnin's (the bill was still there).

The boys home from prep school all snug in their beds,
While visions of Marilyn danced in their heads.
And Mumms in her Bergdorf and I in my Saks
Lay in Louis XIV (whose first name was Max).

When up in the penthouse there arose such a clatter
I summoned the butler, asked, "What was the matter?"
I ran through the room in a 40 yard sprint,
Pulled up the venetians and leaned out to squint.

The moon on the sidewalks of chic Sutton Place
Gave the color of liver to the old doorman's face.
When what to my wond'ring eyes did appear
But a Mercedes-Benz pulling up in high gear!

With a cute little driver so lively and quick
I knew 'twas the chauffeur of Jolly Saint Nick!
More rapid than Jags, his convertible came
And he whistled and shouted and called it by name.

"Now Stupid! Now Junk-heap! Now Bucket of Bolts!
Look out for those taxis! (Those drivers are dolts!)
Look out for the porch! Look out for the wall!
Whatever you do, Mercedes don't stall!"

As strollers 'fore taxis and buses do fly,
He hit a poor cop and knocked him sky high.
Then up to the duplex the convertible flew,
With a trunk full of toys and St. Nicholas, too.

And then in a twinkling like a fast-driving heiress,
He slammed on the brakes and parked on the terrace!
As I drew on my Homburg and was turning around
Down the stone fireplace Santa came with a bound!

He was dressed all in cashmere from his head to his foot.
Abercrombie & Fitch was stamped on each boot.
He had a Hathaway shirt -- and was looking quite dudie
As he took genteel puffs on a meerschaum Kaywoodie.

His Cavanaugh hat and bright Argyle socks
Matched the fur on his suit which was ermine, not fox.
His beard was white mink -- a right jolly old elf
And I laughed at his spats, in spite of myself.

But a look at his tie (shantung and in red!)
And I wished that I'd stood all snug in my bed.
He spoke not a word but went straight to his work
And drove Sardi's caterer fairly berserk.

He ate like a demon as he trimmed up the tree--
Pheasant, hors d'ouevres and lobster gelée.
In a fine linen hankie he blew on his nose,
Sucked in his tummy -- up the chimney he rose.

His driver was snoozing, a lovely young dame.
She woke with a smile when he called her by name.
Come Gina, Bambina, it's time for linguini --
But first to the Stork Club, a real dry martini.

He saw me and hollered ere he whizzed out of sight --
"I'll bill you next month for my labors tonight!"

OUR OWN BEN MODEL GIVES US HIS INTERPRETATION OF THE POEM "A LA DOVETONSILS".
PRINT OUT THE POEM AND FOLLOW ALONG:

Kovacs Christmas List

2008-12-13T14:27:00.023-05:00

It's that holiday time of year again and you're probably saying to yourself "Gee, what great Ernie Kovacs gifts can I get for a loved one?" Or if you're your own most loved one then get them for yourself!

"The Ernie Kovacs Collection" 6 DVD set, released on April 19, 2011, is the most comprehensive collection of video available to date. This is a must have for the diehard fan or anyone interested in Ernie’s work. Click the preceding link to learn more about this landmark set and to find out how you can order your copy. It will make a fantastic holiday gift!

Let's start out with some links to Ernie Kovacs items on the sites of various online retailers and auctioneers (if you have other sites let us know by posting a comment):

Ernie Kovacs At Amazon

Ernie Kovacs At Best Buy

Ernie Kovacs On Ebay

Ernie Kovacs At Powell's Books

You can also visit Barnes And Noble and search for "Ernie Kovacs"; for some reason I couldn't get the site to generate a direct search link that would work. They do, however, carry plenty of Kovacsian items.

Now for some descriptions of what to look for. In some cases I've provided direct links to specific Ernie items:

There is "The Best Of Ernie Kovacs" 2 DVD set that you can purchase (if you visit amazon.com you can also get the VHS tapes though we suggest the DVDs as they are better quality and have extras). (ED. NOTE, 8/8/2010: This title has gone out of print since the time of this post. Visit the links page at Ernie Kovacs Dot Net and look in the "Videos" section for links to sites where you may be able to acquire a used copy.)

For some great holiday fireside reading pick up a copy of Diana Rico's wonderful book "Kovacsland" which Ms. Rico suggests you buy from Powell's Books. The late great David Walley wrote the fantastic "Ernie Kovacs Phile" (an alternate title is "Nothing In Moderation: A Biography Of Ernie Kovacs") which you can find from most booksellers or used book dealers.

Ernie had two books of his own; "Zoomar" and "How To Talk At Gin." These are most easily found by searching those titles at Amazon and EBay where you will be able to obtain them used.

Edie Adams also wrote a book called Sing a Pretty Song: The Offbeat Life of Edie Adams, Including the Ernie Kovacs Years. The link here is to Amazon which seems to be the only retailer who carries it. I've read it and its very interesting; its a look at Edie's life and a perspective on Ernie from the person who knew him the most intimately.

There's a book I have called "The Vision Of Ernie Kovacs" which I had obtained from the The Paley Center For Media (known back then as "The Museum Of TV And Radio) in New York City. I also had a t-shirt and poster from the retrospective they based the book on. I don't have the t-shirt or poster anymore but I still have the book and its great. Usually you can find a copy on EBay. Look around for it; the book offers some great scholarly analysis of Ernie's work. If you can find the t-shirt and poster let me know; I'd love to replace the ones I lost! (ED NOTE: You can now buy the book and the t-shirt directly through the parent site of this blog, Ernie Kovacs Dot Net. Click the link for more details).

For the music fan there are "The Ernie Kovacs Album" released in 1976 on Columbia Records and "The Ernie Kovacs Record Collection" on July 15, 1997 on the Varese Sarabande label; the latter can still be found although its expensive and your best bet for the former is to search EBay and other auction sites.

Then of course there are the movies Ernie appeared in which are listed below chronologically along with an IMDB link where you can get a plot description. You can search for these on any site where you buy films and find them:

Episode 13 of The Lucy Desi Comedy Hour (click the link for the DVD on Amazon) was titled "Lucy Meets The Moustache" and is famous because it was the last time Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz ever appeared in a show together (Lucy filed for divorce the day after shooting ended). Ernie and Edie starred in this episode. The release of this DVD collection of all 13 episodes in 2007 marked the end of a long period where the Ernie/Edie episode was NOT available; the other 12 episodes were easily obtainable in one form or another. This makes a great gift because you get to see Ernie and Edie in a historic program and you get 12 other episodes and extras!

Just to give you an idea of what you're getting here's a clip of Edie performing in the Ricardo's home in Westport, Connecticut (OK, it was a Desilu Studios in Hollywood but its SUPPOSED to be Connecticut):

Many times you will find Ernie tidbits on EBay that are bootlegs; old kinescopes someone is selling of shows like "Kovacs On The Corner" or "Silents Please." While I don't endorse this I won't say it doesn't exist. What I will say is be careful; they're not always the greatest quality and as far as giving them as gifts is concerned the packaging never looks great nor do the contents.

Well my fellow Kovacsians that is the Kovacs Christmas List. I hope you've found it helpful. And now on to some other Kovacsian points of interest:

The Ernie Kovacs My Space Fan Page is up to 847 friends this week. We thank everyone who requested an add or accepted a request from us.

Here are a couple of interesting and fairly recent news stories that involve Ernie albeit indirectly:

New City Neighbors Oppose O&R's Plan To Build Substation ( I know; you're wondering how can this involve Ernie? Just click the link will ya? We haven't steered you wrong yet, have we?)

Comedy Writer Irving Brecher Dies At The Age Of 94

On behalf of Ben Model and myself here is wishing all Ernie Kovacs fans everywhere the most joyous and wonderful holiday season and a most spectacular 2009! We thank all of you very kindly and are most grateful for your support of our continuing efforts to keep alive the legacy of the great Ernie Kovacs.

And as always, in closing, I bid you a fond and heartfelt "It's Been Real!" - Al Quagliata

ED. NOTE, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2009

Here are three new DVDs we've come across in the last year that have EK in them:

Bob Hope: The Ultimate Collection

Producers Showcase: Festival Of Magic

"OUR MAN IN HAVANA" from BARNES AND NOBLE and also from AMAZON.

And from www.erniekovacs.net there's "The Vision Of Ernie Kovacs" Book and T-Shirt ; two hard to find items which are a great addition to your "Kovacs Chrismtas List"!

ED. NOTE, SUNDAY, AUGUST 8, 2010

In April of 2010, Andy Horton's book on Ernie was released. Here are links to his page and different sites where you can obtain this title:

ANDY HORTON AUTHOR OF
"ERNIE KOVACS & EARLY TV COMEDY: NOTHING IN MODERATION"
ALSO AVAILABLE FROM AMAZON AND BARNES AND NOBLE

Happy Holidays!

Kovacs Images From Life Posted Online

2008-11-22T11:41:00.007-05:00

A friend of mine found something on Google images related to Kovacs. Life Magazine has posted, in somewhat hi-res, images of Ernie Kovacs from its collection. Most of these are photos by Ralph Morse from the April 15, 1957 cover story, but a few – like a few alternate versions of the color photo of Ernie in front of a television camera (image at right is one of them) – are new to my eyes.

Click here to go to Life's page on Google images to see all of these.

It's still been real...

Ben

Ernie Kovacs DVD Box Set To Be Released In 2009

2008-11-15T13:00:00.003-05:00

"Hold everything...don't nobody move!!" There's big news for Ernie Kovacs fans…real big news. A new DVD box set of Kovacs programs is slated for release in 2009.

Koch Entertainment and the Archive of American Television have banded together to launch a new series of DVD's called The Archive of American Television Presents. The first release is a box set called The Studio One Anthology, which contains 17 episodes of the landmark live drama series Studio One. The set came out last week, on November 8th. Their next release will be the 1959 TV adaptation of Budd Schulberg's What Makes Sammy Run. Click on the link above for the AAT to see more about these and to watch a trailer for the Studio One set.

Also in the works is a DVD box set of Ernie Kovacs programs. I have been hired to curate the set, which will contain 15 hours of Ernie Kovacs shows, plus bonus extras.

I've been involved with the project for about a year, although things have become more official and in motion in the last few months (that's why you're only hearing about this now). I've screened a lot of material, visited Edie Adams' film/tape storage facility in L.A. and inspected kinescopes, done research at the Paley Center in N.Y., and looked at rare Kovacs materials found by private collectors.

There is no "street date" slated for the DVD set, but the release will happen sometime during 2009, possibly as early as the middle of the year. It's a little early to talk about specifically what will be on the set at this point. I will post updates here and on my site erniekovacs.info as things are remastered, confirmed and locked in as DVD content.

Edie was to have had a creative hand in helping select the programs on the set, and I was really looking forward to working with her on this. I miss her and hope that the set does justice to all the hard work she put in (since the 1960s!) to save kinescopes, videotape masters, scripts et al of Ernie Kovacs' amazing work.

-- Ben Model

EDITOR'S NOTE, FRIDAY, APRIL 10 2009: I'm sad to report that this project has been put on hold. Click here to read more.-
Al Quagliata

Rats In My Room

2008-10-31T13:05:00.009-04:00

WFMU's blog site posts MP3's of many many of the LP's from their collection. I found today that the entire album "Music To Suffer By", recorded by Leona Anderson — whose immortal "Fish" and "Rats in My Room" were Kovacs show staples — are posted there.

Click here to go to the WFMU blog page for the album, where you can listen to and or download the entire album as well as see hi-res images of the front and back of the LP sleeve. The back has liner notes and photos of the recording session.

Happy Halloween!

Ben Model, in NYC

Good Ol' Officer Boyle Of The EEFMS

2008-10-22T21:37:00.000-04:00

Good evening Kovacsians. When Edie Adams passed away last week I sent an email to our good friend Jack Phillippe, who grew up in Philadelphia and as a young man was a guest on a January 1952 episode of "Kovacs On The Corner."

Hearing of Edie's passing made Jack reminisce about growing up in Philly during the 1950's and watching the great television shows of that time. He wanted to share some artifacts from his collection with all of us and has been gracious enough to take the time to send me some scans.

The first is of an EEFMS card; it's an original from Ernie's very first show on WPTZ Channel Three, NBC in Philadelphia, "3 To Get Ready." Jack sent this once before and I posted it, but this time its a bit bigger and clearer. Enjoy:

One staple of Philadelphia televison in the 1950s was Officer Pete Boyle, played by that icon of Philadelphia Kids' TV Peter Boyle Sr.. Pete Sr. was the father of the late actor Peter Boyle Jr. most recently of "Everybody Loves Raymond" fame. "Offcier Pete Boyle" appeared in his own shows on WPTZ and many times as a guest on Ernie's. In fact, he played his "Officer Boyle" character the day that Jack appeared as a guest on "KOTC!"

Jack went to high school with Peter Boyle Jr. in the 1950s and Peter was an actor even back then. These photos are some extracts from a playbill that Jack kept from his high school days; they're for a musical called "Song Of Norway" in which the young Mr. Boyle appeared.

A very young Peter Boyle (a far cry from Frank Barone!):

Here he is on the cast list (even in high school it seems he had an understudy):

Peter Boyle Sr. hosted a very well known kids show in Philly called "Chuckwagon Pete" in which played the title character. Here's an ad he took out in the playbill:

You can click on the "Peter Boyle Sr." link above to see a photo of "Chuck Wagon Pete" and read more about the show.

Jack, thanks again for some great memories.

Until next time, "it's been real!"

AL QUAGLIATA

P.S.- The Ernie Kovacs My Space Fan Page is up to 828 friends since our last post. As always we thank everyone who requested an add or accepted a request from us. We also thank you for the nice comments sent about Edie.

Edie Adams Passes Away At The Age Of 81

2008-10-16T20:29:00.010-04:00

It is with great sadness that fans everywhere mourn the death of the wonderful Ms. Edie Adams, who passed away on October 15th, 2008 at the age of 81. According to her son Josh Mills the cause of death was cancer and pneumonia.

My fellow Kovacs Blogger Ben Model took the time today to compile some information which I've taken and consolidated into this post. Thanks Ben.

Here's you go folks, courtesy of Ben Model:

Edie Adams' obituary appears in today's New York Times, written by Bruce Weber. To read it, click here.

Among Edie's major accomplishments, although not mentioned in the obit, is the fact that she spent decades saving and hunting down Kovacs programs...scripts, kinescopes, 2" master tapes etc etc. She was an amazing woman, full of life and always working on some project or other, and she will be missed.

Here's a link to an obit posted on Playbill.com and another on Theatermania.com.

For the story as posted by the AP click here

Here's Edie's performance on the 1950 Miss U.S. Television program. She had won that title and this was her first major television exposure:

Ben Model

It's the end of an era my fellow Kovacsians.

Rest in peace Edie and say hi to Ernie for us. It's been real.

Al Quagliata

Al Wein Sculpture Exhibit In Boston

2008-10-13T16:57:00.021-04:00

Albert Wein (1915-1991), who did set design for some of Ernie's ABC specials, has a career retrospective at the Boston Athenaeum, running through the end of November. Entitled "Albert Wein: American Modernist," the exhibit showcases more than 50 of his classic sculptures, paintings and medals. The use of sculptures and special props like that are in quite a few of the 1961 programs, and I'm sure the sculpture of a woman with a hole in her stomach being carved by Miklos Molnar was one of Wein's creations. There's a link to an article on the retrospective here, and the museum's website is here.

The photograph is of a sculpture of Bacchus by Wein hung in Ernie's wine cellar.

Ben Model

EDITOR'S NOTE:

Ben, thanks for a great post. I want to add that back in December of 2006 sculptor Michael Keropian let me know about the website for Al Wein. Michael worked for Al and as far as I know is still involved with his art work. This is a great site and I strongly suggest that all Kovacs fans pay a visit!

Al Quagliata

Eugene on ABC

2008-09-09T20:26:00.004-04:00

Here's a nice still I picked up on eBay recently. Caught my eye because of Ernie's "Eugene" costume (the shoes are a dead give-away, even if Kovacs isn't wearing the hat). Flanking Ernie are Bobbie Lauher and Maggie Brown, who were part of the ensemble cast for the ABC specs.

At right is the memo from ABC's photo department, attached to the photo, showing the program's airdate and time.

It's been real!

Ben

Cooking Up Some "Hammes" With Miklos: Trivia!!

2008-06-25T17:50:00.000-04:00

Good evening my fellow Kovacsians.

The Ernie Kovacs My Space Fan Page is up to 741 friends and as always we thank everyone who requested an add or accepted a request from us. I'd love it to hit 1,000 members by the end of the summer if possible; we're up 16 from our last post so we're on the way, albeit a small way.

Our fellow Kovacsian, friend and trivia buff, John Hammes of The UGA Science Library at The University Of Georgia, has sent us yet another fantastic trivia quiz. You may remember the last one which involved Ernie and Jack Benny; this promises to be even MORE difficult and of course I'm grateful to John as it means that I don't have to think of a new one myself! Thank you John!
This trivia involves that classic Kovacsian character, master Hungarian chef "Miklos Molnar" who, contrary to popular belief, did not always appear as a chef in Ernie's sketches. Here are John's questions:

1. Miklos Molnar was not restricted to a cooking show...name another genre "lucky" enough to claim him.

2. What then current show was Ernie lampooning?

3. Miklos kept a pair of shears handy; how did this help him interact with the show's co-star?

For Extra Credit: Give Miklos' version of this show's title and describe in what state Miklos interacted with members of the show's audience.

Here's a hint in case your having trouble; John saw this on the A&E Biography which was done on Ernie and broadcast almost exactly ten years ago; June 23, 1988 to be exact. The link will bring you to the one page I found where you can purchase the VHS which is Amazon; A&E's website was no help. Hopefully you have a copy.

You can submit answers to the questions in any one of the following ways:

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

I'll announce the winner in a future post so get to it!

Before I leave you today I'd like to share a very interesting video clip I found of Ernie on a 1957 episode of the game show "What's My Line?"; Ernie was a frequent panelist and actually used to do his own spoof called "Where Do You Work-a John?" Unfortunately I've never seen that and I don't think anyone else in the present day has as its not on any video collections I've encountered.

Thanks once again for stopping by and until we meet again "Its Been Real!"

Going Back To The Corner With Kovacs

2008-06-06T21:31:00.000-04:00

Good evening my fellow Kovacsians. Just a few tidbits of info for you tonight.

The Ernie Kovacs My Space Fan Page is up to 725 friends and as always we thank everyone who requested an add or accepted a request from us. It seems that the friend requests for the Fan Page have started to level off so I hope you'll encourage your friends to contact us if they haven't. I'd love it to hit 1,000 members by the end of the summer if possible.

I ran a piece on May 23rd called "Hanging Out On The Corner With Kovacs" in which I interviewed my friend from Pennsylvania, Mr. Jack Phillippe, about his appearance on a January, 1952 episode of "Kovacs On The Corner." Unfortunately I didn't have the photos I would liked to have run so I put up a pic of the street sign for Ernie Kovacs Street in Ernie's hometown of Trenton, New Jersey. I figured that would indicate the idea of "corner" well enough as the sign is at the corner of Stockton Street.

Well, Kovacsians, I have since acquired some photos that supplement the interview nicely and I'd like to share them with you. Better late than never is my motto. I couldn't have done this without Jack's help so thanks Jack!!

Here's a compilation of photos from the episode of "KOTC" on which Jack appeared:

Jack also has his original membership card in the "EEFMS" which was Ernie's fan club. He made me a copy and I've scanned it to share with you. I've shown photos of these cards before which have been sent to me by Ernie fans. The difference in this case is that those were from Ernie's days in NYC; this is an original card from his very first show on WPTZ Channel Three, NBC in Philadelphia, "3 To Get Ready." Enjoy, as I'm sure very few of these still exist:

Thanks for your help Jack and for taking us on this wonderful trip down memory lane!

Moving on to other news Kovacsians. My good friend and contributor to this blog, Ben "Undercrank" Model, is an expert on silent film (when you get a chance click on the link and you'll see what I mean). Ben sent me the following email:

A suggestion for the blog: you have the sub-head "A blog devoted to the Charlie Chaplin of Television, the late great Ernie Kovacs!"

I think of Kovacs as more a Buster Keaton than a Chaplin. BK used the medium of film in ways that Chaplin never bothered with, and occasionally called attention to the fact that you were watching a film. You might consider revising this. Just my $0.02...

Great idea Ben! Your $0.02 has been accepted and the sub-head has been changed. No offense to Mr. Chaplin if he's up there looking down at this...

I'd like to leave you with a couple of internet pieces I found enjoyable. The first is from the blog Boomerville, USA and it offers up some video of the infamous "Nairobi Trio." The second is a wonderful video celebrating the many years in television of station WIVB-TV. This Buffalo, New York station, which also broadcast Ernie's shows, did some wonderfully creative and original programs of their own during television's golden age. You won't see any Ernie material in the piece but its well worth watching. If only television were like this today!

Thanks for stopping by my friends and until we meet again I bid you a very heartfelt "It's Been Real!"

Hanging Out On The Corner With Kovacs

2008-05-23T20:23:00.002-04:00

Good evening my fellow Kovacsians. Its been a while since last we spoke.

The very fact that I create these posts devoted to my favorite television comedian affords me the opportunity to connect with people who themselves had a connection with Ernie Kovacs in the past. One of these people, a gentleman in the truest sense of the word, is 71 year old lifelong Pennsylvania resident Jack Phillippe.

Jack sent me an email recently stating that back in 1949 at the ripe old age of thirteen he appeared on an episode of Ernie's very first show for WPTZ Channel Three, NBC in Philadelphia, the famous "3 To Get Ready," for which no known kinescopes exist. He appeared in a "trading post" segment in which Ernie would exchange some useless item an audience member gave him for some equally useless item from the prop box or backstage.

What struck me immediately when I read Jack's email was that I had seen his segment and it wasn't on "3 To Get Ready." It was on Ernie's program "Kovacs On The Corner," the final Kovacs series to originate from WPTZ before Ernie made the big jump to New York. The show had a very short run from Thursday January 4, 1952 until Friday March 28 of the same year and was broadcast nationally Monday-Friday in the 11am-11:30am time slot. The show would open with the announcer saying "NBC holds the key to WPTZ's very own television town where everyday around this time you'll find Kovacs On The Corner!" Then, as on all his shows no matter the title, Ernie's famous theme music would start.

"KOTC" featured Ernie against a corny "neighborhood" type set (think a low rent Sesame Street) interacting with the lovely Edie Adams, The Dave Appell Trio dressed as sanitation workers, a couple of actors dressed as a large dog (Al) and a large cat (Tondelaya) and Officer Pete Boyle, played by that icon of Philadelphia Kids' TV Peter Boyle Sr.. Pete Sr. was the father of the late actor Peter Boyle Jr. most recently of "Everybody Loves Raymond" fame.

I was in one of the massive chain bookstores about ten years ago looking for jazz CDs when I spotted a video tape from the now defunct "Video Yesteryear" of a "KOTC" episode. The tape jumped out at me when I saw Ernie's mug on the box and I bought it right away. When I got home and put it on I was fascinated by it; the show is early TV kitsch at its best delivered in that inimitable Kovacs style. I've read that Ernie was never a big fan of doing the show; the network kind of forced it on him and interacting with costumed characters wasn't really a format he enjoyed. Still its funny, its Kovacs, and luckily for Jack Phillippe the one episode he appeared on is the one episode that you can still get a hold of.

Jack was right that he appeared on camera to trade something with Ernie; I remember Ernie trying several times in the segment to pronounce his last name correctly and when I saw the name in his first email to me I thought, "No, that's 'Kovacs On The Corner' you were on!"

I asked Jack to answer some questions for us about the experience. Here's what he had to say:

Q: Welcome to "The Ernie Kovacs Blog" Jack. Tell us a little bit about yourself.

A: I grew up in Philadelphia in the forties. After graduating high school and college prep I moved on to several jobs, until I landed a job with the Philadelphia Inquirer and stayed there for thirty one years until my retirement.

Q: Tell us how you first become aware of Ernie Kovacs.

A: The first family television was purchased in 1948 and at that time Philadelphia had three television stations, one of them being WPTZ. Ernie Kovacs first television show was on WPTZ in the morning called "Three To Get Ready". At that time, I became an Ernie Kovacs fan and I also loved "Howdy Doody". Ernie had a club on "Three To Get Ready" that included a membership card, I still have mine some fifty eight years later. It is called an EEFMS (Early Eyeball Fraternal And Marching Society) card.

EDITOR'S NOTE: CLICK THE LINK TO SEE A PICTURE OF AN "EEFMS."

Q: What did you think the first time you saw one of Ernie's shows?

A: I was enamored with Ernie and his show, so much so that I wanted to join his show very much like a child wants to run away to the circus. I wrote to him telling him so; of course he never responded and in a way I did not expect him to.

Q: How did you end up in the audience of "Kovacs On The Corner?" I believe you were sick at the time and being home schooled?

A: I was out of school at that time with rheumatic fever and was being taught at home. One day I asked my mother if I could go down to the show; she said yes. Believe it or not you did not need tickets then. Back then mothers were homemakers and fathers worked so television stations were hoping someone would show up to be a part of their audience.

Q: What did you think of Ernie when you met him? How about Edie and the rest of the cast members?

A: Ernie stays in my memory more than anything or anyone else but I do remember Edie Adams eyes and were taken aback by their beauty. Ernie was what he was, that is he was Ernie Kovacs on television as well as in person; likable and lovable.

Q: Tell us about the bit you did with Ernie. I know you guys exchanged some really "valuable" gifts with each other!

A: At that time Ernie had what I remember as what was called a "trading corner" as a part of his show and asked his viewing audience to bring something to the show for a trade.

One morning at home I got out of bed and went to the hall closet where the family's coats were kept and I spotted a "derby hat". It seems that the night before my parents had some of my relatives in for a party and the drinking got heavy and so it seems someone forgot their derby hat. When my mother got up that morning I asked if she knew who owned the derby hat? She stated that she did not.

That's when I decided to go to Ernie's show and trade the derby hat. I might add two weeks later my uncle Sam called and asked my mother if he had left his derby hat there. My mother responded that she did not see it and of course she was not lying; she didn't because it was now in Ernie Kovacs' possession. I might add I half remember Ernie cutting the top off of the derby hat and gluing a piece of paper on its inside that said "Hi ya doll!" It was, he said, "an easy way to pick a up a girl."

I received block of ice as a trade for the derby. Who else but Ernie could come up with that? I do not know if it shows on my face but when I received the block of ice I was disappointed. I wanted something that I could keep for years such as an old fashioned 1890's shoe that was on the set to be traded; in it was a single flower. I couldn't keep the ice but I was able to keep the plastic apron it was wrapped in and I was happy to be a part of TV history!

Q: Peter Boyle Sr. was an icon of Philly TV in the 1950s and played Officer Pete Boyle on "KOTC". He was the father of the late actor Peter Boyle Jr., most recently famous for his portrayal of Frank Barone on the CBS sitcom ""Everybody Loves Raymond." You got to watch the shows of both Ernie and Pete growing up at that time and I know you attended high school with Pete Jr. Tell us a bit about those two Philly icons.

A: Pete Sr. was the weatherman at WPTZ and also had a show where he was called "Chuck Wagon Pete" it was a kids show. Pete Sr. was an artist and used that talent for his kids show.

Peter Boyle Jr. was in high school at the time I was given the OK to return to high school. Both Peter Boyle and I attended the same high school; at that time Peter was a senior and I a freshman. Peter Boyle was in the school plays but not top billing. I still have the play bill that has a picture of Peter Boyle with hair when he was just another senior. Sadly both Pete Sr. and Peter died suddenly.

Q: Did you continue watching Ernie's shows after he left Philly and as you matured into adulthood?

A: Yes, I followed his career until he entered films. Movies just were not Ernie's vehicle.

Q: How did you feel when Ernie died? I believe you were about 25 years old at the time.

A: I was outside doing something to the car then and had the car radio on when they announced his death. I was stunned; it was like losing a friend. I often think about him and the pleasure he brought to those who watched his style of comedy. Yes, I was twenty five then and if I remember right he was killed in January, the same month as my birthday.

EDITOR'S NOTE: ERNIE WAS KILLED ON JANUARY 13, 1962.

When Jack answered these questions he had not had a chance to see the episode he appeared on; he answered completely from his own memories of that time. I can tell you this Kovacsians; he did a great job!

Since that time he's had a chance to see the episode on which he appeared:

I never did see it because I was on the program at the time and these shows weren't re-run as in those days programs of this type were broadcast live. I was surprised that it was on national television and that a kinescope copy was made but the more I think about it, I believe that the kinescope copy was probably made just for the west coast.

It is hard to describe seeing yourself 56 years later as a kid. I often have wondered how the likes of Shirley Temple felt, when she watched her self grow up on the screen? I do wish my parents were here to see it. I just want to thank you for your knowledge and assistance in providing me with ability to obtain this little piece of personal history about myself.

Thank you Jack for answering my questions and for being a part of Kovacsian history!

I will leave you with a quick link to an interesting article from September 1955 about Ernie's genius for special effects.

Until next time, my friends, "Its Been Real!!"

June 20: Edie Adams Flicks On TCM

2008-05-05T16:13:00.006-04:00

Just a head zup -- movies with Edie Adams are the Prime Time Feature on Turner Classic Movies on June 20th in the evening. Wind up your TiVo, clean your VCR heads and blow the dust off your wire recorder for:

8pm - The Best Man (1964), with Henry Fonda and Cliff Robertson
10pm - Lover Come Back (1961), with Doris Day, Rock Hudson and Tony Randall
12pm - Love With the Proper Stranger (1964), with Steve McQueen, Natalie Wood and Tom Bosley.

Click here for schedule details on TCM's site, with links to film info (cast, synopsis etc).

A New Film About The Life Of Ernie Kovacs?

2008-04-28T17:34:00.001-04:00

Good afternoon my fellow Kovacsians.

I just found a very interesting article I wanted to share with you entitled "Edie Adams' Memories Of 'The Apartment'." It was written by Ruthe Stein for the San Francisco Chronicle's Sunday, April 6, 2008 edition.

The writer interviews Edie about the making of the Billy Wilder film in which she played the vindictive Miss Olsen, nosy secretary to a high-level boss at a large Manhattan insurance company. The boss was played by Fred MacMurray.

I enjoyed this interview and know my fellow Kovacs Fans will too. But this is the question and answer I found the most intriguing and it has to do with another film entirely:

Q: I understand you are hoping to get another movie made about your late husband. (There was a 1984 TV movie, "Ernie Kovacs: Between the Laughter," starring Jeff Goldblum.)

A: That's true, but I'm not supposed to talk about it. We're trying to get George Clooney to play him.

Wow. Wouldn't that be something? I've seen the Goldblum film and have always admired his performance. My problem with that film, however, was that the storyline mainly dealt with the kidnapping of Ernie's daughters by their mother, Ernie's first wife Bette Wilcox. It did not spend nearly enough time on all the great things Ernie pioneered in television which were treated almost as a side note. That's what happens when something is "made for TV"; you get all the sensationalism and none of the substance. Its not that the kidnappings weren't a major or important part of Ernie's story; its just that they're not the only part and audiences learned very little of the man from watching this film.

Therefore its high time that a movie be made about Ernie that really explores his life and legacy and of course it ought to be a major theatrical release and not just TV fare. And who better than George Clooney to play the lead? That would be a great box office draw and would introduce Ernie and his work to an entirely new generation that might not be familiar with him.

I think Clooney would make a great Kovacs; he's an excellent actor and has already proven he can do a great job with these projects about TV's bygone days as both director and actor; just take a look at "Good Night, And Good Luck" and "Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind".

So let's keep our fingers crossed my fellow Kovacsians. And while we're doing that let's all wish a happy belated birthday to Edie who was born on April 16th.

The Ernie Kovacs My Space Fan Page is up to 715 friends, an increase of 35 since our last post. As always we thank everyone who requested an add or accepted a request from us.

Until next time my fellow Kovacsians, "Its Been Real!"

Ernie The Grizzled Old Miner

2008-03-17T11:49:00.014-04:00

Good afternoon my fellow Kovacsians. I'll start off by saying that the Ernie Kovacs My Space Fan Page is up to 680 friends, an increase of 4 since our last post. As always we thank everyone who requested an add or accepted a request from us.

I also need to mention that no one, not even my best "Kovacsian Trivia Answer-ers," has been able to answer all the question from our last quiz. Its a tough one; even yours truly couldn't get it. Give it a shot if you're brave enough. I'm going to let a few more weeks go by before I post the answers to give some more folks a chance to answer.

In our last entry I had a link to a blog post about the old TV western Shotgun Slade which starred actor Scott Brady in the title role. I found this post interesting because:

1. I'm a big fan of old TV westerns and had never heard of this one.
2. Ernie is the guest star in the pilot episode.

The pilot episode of this show was called "The Salted Mine" and it actually aired on March 27, 1959, as part of the "Schlitz Playhouse Of Stars," an anthology series of that era. In it Ernie plays a grizzled old miner named "Hack" (he tells Shotgun "Hack Berry's the whole of it." At least that's what I think he says...) who owns the "Hack Mine," which is located "over the hill a piece."

I'm not going to go into a long winded description of the series or the episode. That's because you can click on the links above to learn more about the show and its lead actor. And you can watch the actual pilot episode with Ernie below:

Its important to realize that before becoming a radio and then TV personality Ernie had trained to be a stage actor. His mentor was his high school drama professor Harold Van Kirk and he also acted in summer stock and studied drama in New York City. He was quite the excellent character actor as you can see from watching this program. Comics like Ernie have the ability to really inhabit and make you believe the characters they play, whether comedic or dramatic.

I sincerely hope you enjoyed the episode and I apologize for the quality. My goal in all the Ernie pages I run is to expose you to things about his career that you may not have known about or seen and I hope this has fit the bill!

Thanks once again for stopping by and until we meet again "Its Been Real!"

Some Kovacsian Jack Benny Trivia

2008-03-11T16:50:00.002-04:00

Good afternoon fellow Kovacsians. I receive many nice emails from folks who enjoy our various Kovacsian websites. Here's one I received today from John Hammes of The UGA Science Library at The University Of Georgia:

Thank you for all you are doing. A lot of people can now receive greetings from Ernie Kovacs "over your internet tube"! His work is so superior to today's programming, and a quick visit to "his" web pages makes a lousy day much better. Many, many thanks!

Well, John, thank you for visiting! Its my pleasure and I certainly echo your sentiments.

It turns out that John is quite the Jack Benny fan and he had an idea for a trivia quiz related to Ernie's January 25th, 1959 appearance on CBS TV's Jack Benny Program:

1. During Jack's opening monologue, what prized possession does Ernie share with him?

2. What do Jack and Ernie present for the main sketch?

3. Ernie gives a very dramatic performance at sketch's end. Why?

4. There are two things about this broadcast that are the first and only time something happened to Ernie during his career. What are they?

I must admit that I did not know the answers to these questions and I don't think you'll find them in books so it will take a real Jack Benny fan to answer them. I may have seen the episode once at the Museum of TV and Radio (then known as the Museum of Broadcasting and now known as The Paley Center For Media) but that was quite some time ago. I did find out, however, that you can see the episode by ordering The Best Of Jack Benny, a 4 DVD set where it is found on Disc Two.

Thanks to John Hammes for a great quiz! He's reached Kovacsian blog immortality and you can too by submitting answers to the questions in any one of the following ways:

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

I'll announce the winner in a future post so get to it!

The Ernie Kovacs My Space Fan Page is up to 676 friends this week, an increase of 15 since our last post. As always we thank everyone who requested an add or accepted a request from us.

And now some fun Ernie related posts from the Blogosphere:

Robert McHenry is Mad about Mad Magazine!

Portzebie talks about the history of Mad's Alfred E. Neuman

A great post about the early days of video which talks about Ernie

Ernie in the old TV series Shotgun Slade? I guess so, pardner!

Pop Art Diva talks about the Tonight Show Hosts and mentions our fellow Kovacs...

Thanks once again for stopping by and until we meet again "Its Been Real!"

An Interview With Adams, An Interesting Ad, And A New Dot Org

2008-02-29T16:52:00.006-05:00

Good afternoon my fellow Kovacsians.

The Ernie Kovacs My Space Fan Page is up to 661 friends and pushing towards 700. Our thanks go out to anyone who requested us as a friend or who has accepted a friend request from us.

Here's something really great that I found on one of my recent Kovacs Internet searches. Its a fantastic collection of 10 interviews with Edie Adams conducted by the Archive Of American Television and recently posted by them on YouTube. There's a great deal of info about Ernie and how he worked along with Edie's reminiscences about her own career. All the interviews average about half an hour and were conducted on March 11, 1999 by Henry Colman. I've watched one already and hope to watch the others soon. I know you'll enjoy them!

I mentioned in my last post that I've been in touch with with Diana Rico who wrote Kovacsland: A Biography Of Ernie Kovacs" I've sent questions to Diana and hope to have an interview for you soon.

Yesterday I acquired the domain erniekovacs.org, which along with edieadams.org had been one of the URL’s for a website run by the Kovacs estate. Starting back in the summer of 2004 this site was set up as a tribute to Ernie and Edie's work along with a fan club and store. It was pulled down in early 2006 for reasons that were never explained. The domains were allowed to expire, eventually being purchased by one of those places that snaps up domains simply to use them as search engine portals. While edieadams.org is unfortunately still being used in this way I found out that erniekovacs.org had become available and so I purchased it. It now points to http://www.erniekovacs.net/ and it makes me very happy that its no longer being used to sully Ernie's good name. Now when you type in either address you'll be brought to the main site.

A fan sent me this interesting scan of an old 1950s ad from an entertainment magazine for one of the Kovacs' shows. Which show? Well it doesn't say, but I would guess whichever one was on that night or week. Hopefully the cigar won't ignite the paper:

Pretty cool and interesting, don't you think? It says it all without saying too much. Something today's overblown media ought to take a cue from. Thanks for sending it!

Until we meet again my fellow Kovacsians I bid you a fond "It's been real!"

Merry XMAS From Kovacsland

2007-12-25T13:15:00.003-05:00

Merry XMAS my fellow Kovacsians. As a general rule I don't post clips here, but this one was sent to me and its rare so I figured I would share it as sort of a holiday gift. Its a commercial for "Dutch Masters" from Ernie's quiz show "Take A Good Look":

You'll notice the commercial doesn't actually feature Ernie, outside of his intro and outro. That's the rarity of it. Most of the spots for "Dutch Masters" had Ernie in them. I love the goofy background music and cheap animation. There's nothing quite so joyous at XMAS time as a corny old "retro-mercial" with a tag line like "man alive, take five!"

I've been in contact with Diana Rico who wrote my favorite biography of all time, "Kovacsland: A Biography Of Ernie Kovacs." You've heard me say in the past what a great book this is and how its the ultimate source on Ernie. I'm saying it again! It makes a great holiday gift so please pick up a copy. I'm hoping to interview Diana for the blog sometime in January so stay tuned. In the meantime learn more about this writer/producer by clicking on her link above.

I run two other blogs; "The Jazz Guitar Corner," which is a tribute to jazz guitar, and "GEOMOP," which is a satire blog. Click on either link to be brought to the posts I'm about to describe.

In the guitar blog I put up a tribute today to the late great jazz pianist Oscar Peterson who passed away Sunday at the age of 82. It has a great film clip that I know you will love. While this isn't Ernie related Oscar was a giant of jazz and a profound influence on me as a musician. Since Ernie was such a fan of this music I think he would approve. There's now another creative giant up in heaven to join him and unfortunately many less creative giants on earth than there used to be.

On my satire blog I've posted a short that I made called "Here Comes Hoyt!". Its a dig at so-called "reality shows" done as an old kinescope from the early days of television. I kept Ernie in mind as I was making it and I hope his influence is apparent.

The Ernie Kovacs My Space Fan Page is up to 592 friends and pushing towards 600. Our thanks go out to anyone who requested us as a friend or who has accepted a friend request from us.

Until we meet again Kovacsians, Happy Holidays to all and a fond "It's been real!"

Ernie And Mad Magazine

2007-12-05T09:28:00.000-05:00

As many of you knowledgeable Kovacsians may be aware Ernie was a contributor in the early days of "Mad Magazine." Well folks, our dear friend and "Kovacs Trivia King" Brian was kind enough to contribute some pics of pages from those early days of "Mad." Click on any one of the photos to get a larger view of the "Barker 61 Cigar", the rules to that classic old family board game"Gringo (aka 'Droongo')", or to enjoy the odd and wonderful tales of the "Strangely Believes Its":

And here my fellow Kovacsians, courtesy of "Trivia King Brian" are the original instructions for "Gringo/Droongo":

Mr. Ernie Kovacs, foremost Gringo player, is shown in the process of shouting "Gringo!" three times, as his Roundee lands in the High Roller Bonus square.

Gringo, which Mr. Kovacs himself introduced to the Western Hemisphere, promises to be the hottest parlor game since Monopoly, Scrabble and Lotto.

On our right is the directions sheet extracted from a set of Gringo. A careful reading will give you a clear idea of what the game is all about... and what will be plainer still is if you had one grunch but the egg-plant over there.

PICTURES BY WILL ELDER /
DIRECTIONS FOR PLAYING GRINGO BY ERNIE KOVACS

IN EACH BOX

27 small red squares which are called Enchiladoes
13 blue, plastic triangles called Blue Plastic Triangles
17 perforated disks, called Roundees
113 Yellow darts
113 Green darts
113 White darts
2 Orange darts
1 deck of playing cards with pictures of former mayors of Hong Kong from the Ming Dynasty to the present era
1 large GRINGO board with automatic lazy susan?

HOW TO PLAY
Any number of players may play GRINGO... two, three, four, seven, eleven, thirteen, one hundred and forty-four... whole towns have been known to play.

TO START THE GAME
The player who rolls the highest number on the eleven pairs of dice goes first. He rolls the same dice (with the exception of the one pair marked High Roller First, as this pair is only included in determining who is first.) After totalling his score on pencil and paper, he takes an Enchilado and moves it the corresponding number of squares on the Gringo board. He then rolls again, this time the pair of dice marked High Roller First may be included if his Enchilado landed on the square marked HIGH ROLLER BONUS.

ROUNDEE MOVE
On this roll he moves his Blue Plastic Triangle according to his total and moves a Roundee (the perforated tile disk) two and a half times one quarter the distance the total of the distance of the Enchilado and the Blue Plastic Triangle, unless the player on his RIGHT throws a Green dart into he air, shouting "GRINGO" three times, in which case player number one must move the Enchilado and the Roundee four times the cube root of the sum of throws, this is a special throw, on the dice marked HIGH ROLLER FIRST.

THIRD GRINGO RULE
He then moves his Roundee correspondingly, unless the Green dart thrown by the player to his RIGHT landed before the third "GRINGO". If the Green dart landed on the SECOND "GRINGO", player number one moves his Roundee ONE QUARTER way around the board PROVIDED the player to his LEFT does not call out the name of one of the Hong Kong Mayors as he throws a Yellow dart in the air on the first "GRINGO" shouted by the player to the RIGHT of the first player.

FREE THROW
This is standard procedure on first roll with ONE EXCEPTION: If the name of the Hong Kong Mayor called out by the player to the LEFT with the Yellow dart starts with the letter "B", then all must roll again and move their Roundees back two spaces, unless of course, their Blue Plastic Triangles are on a square marked Omit Hong Kong Mayor "B" penalty, in which case the player whose Blue Plastic Triangle is on this Omit Hong Kong Mayor "B" penalty square gets a free throw with a white dart, eliminating ANY player from the game he happens to hit.

So there you have it fellow Kovacsians.

The Ernie Kovacs My Space Fan Page is up to 579 friends this week. As always we thank everyone who requested an add or accepted a request from us.

Until we meet again Kovacsians, Happy Holidays to all and a fond "It's been real!"

Behind The Scenes At ABC

2007-10-29T15:21:00.002-04:00

Just won this still on eBay, and thought I'd post it here. What intrigued me about this image is that it's a rehearsal shot, showing Ernie in director mode with Steve Blauner, getting ready for a dry run of the "Dinner Symphony". This was for the Kovacs ABC spec #2. The music was something of a mystery for a while. Irwin Chusid had wanted to include it on the Ernie Kovacs Record Collection CD, but no one was able to identify it. Some months after the CD's release, the piece was ID'ed as having been written by a lesser-known Hungarian composer named Kara Karajev.

Below is the info from the ABC photo dept attached to the still. It's still been real...

Ben Model - http://www.erniekovacs.info/

End Of The Weekly Ernie Kovacs Posts

2007-09-05T10:51:00.000-04:00

Good day my fellow Kovacsians.

The Ernie Kovacs My Space Fan Page has finally hit the 500 mark; we're up to 503 friends this week. Our thanks go out to anyone who requested us as a friend or who has accepted a friend request from us.

This will be the last regular weekly post. The blog was started in March 2007 as an adjunct to my Ernie Kovacs Tribute Site. I figured it could be used as a way to quickly publish articles, essays and trivia contests without having to constantly update the main site. It has served that purpose well and will continue to do so. Its become too time consuming, however, to publish weekly and there's really no need to. I still plan to post as the mood hits me or as any interesting news about Ernie presents itself. The main site will always be updated to let you know of any new posts and of course I will post bulletins on the My Space page whenever the blog is updated. Feel free to stop by anytime; there's always a chance that myself or contributing blogger Ben Model will have something new for you.

One interesting piece of news that I discovered today concerns a new facility in Virginia called the National Audio-Visual Conservation Center. You can read an article about it by clicking here. The article states that the facility "has kinescopes of the earliest black-and-white television shows of comedians such as Milton Berle and Ernie Kovacs." Hopefully it will be "new" material that hasn't been seen in years and isn't available anywhere else.

Until we meet again Kovacsians, "It's been real!"

Ernie Kovacs Cameraman Bob Kemp

2007-08-29T14:02:00.000-04:00

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.e rniekovacs.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!"

Miklos Molnar The Soccer Playing Danish-Hungarian Chef

2007-08-20T11:15:00.000-04:00

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!!"

Ernie Wants A Danish!

2007-08-15T12:02:00.000-04:00

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!!"

Bill Wendell

2007-08-08T12:41:00.000-04:00

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!!"

A Short Ernie Kovacs Post

2007-08-01T16:00:00.000-04:00

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!!"

Trivia Winners And Choco Spinners

2007-07-25T17:28:00.002-04:00

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!!"

Mr. Question Man & Dr. Stroehmann

2007-07-18T08:44:00.000-04:00

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!!"

Some Kovacsian Fun

2007-07-11T10:50:00.000-04:00

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!!"

Hey Taxi!

2007-07-07T12:47:00.000-04:00

Here it is:

The Vision Of Ernie Kovacs

2007-07-04T11:00:00.007-04:00

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!"

Ernie, Edie, Lucy, Desi

2007-06-27T07:44:00.002-04:00

Good day my fellow Kovacsians.

The first person to successfully answer last week's trivia question was our good My Space Fan Page friend Brian, who has become the Kovacs trivia master. To see the question and the answer click the link. The answer is in the comments section so once you read the question scroll all the way down. I'd also like to congratulate our good My Space friend Barbara who sent in her answer after Brian but also got it correct.

The Ernie My Space is up to 413 friends this week, an increase of 5 from last week. We thank everyone who requested an add or accepted a request from us.

And now for this week's trivia question. Have a look at the photo below:

1. What was the title of the episode that Ernie and Edie appeared in?

2. What was the plot of the episode?

3. Where is it that the Riccardo and Kovacs families live (city and state)?

4. What was the original air date of this episode?

5. Did Ernie's daughters appear on the program?

6. What is the significance of this episode in terms of the careers of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz and in terms of the running order of episodes? What number episode is it in the series?

7. At one point in the episode Lucy stops by to visit Edie. Edie opens the refrigerator to show Lucy something. What is taking up the ENTIRE fridge?

FOR EXTRA CREDIT: Who was the program's sponsor?

This is a tough one folks but I know you can do it. I'll level with you; this is not an easy show to find. I've seen it at the Museum of TV and Radio and on TV Land; when they aired it I taped a VHS copy. The entire series was supposed to come out on DVD this year but has not yet and the VHS tapes of individual episodes are hard to come by. I know, however, that many of you have probably seen this episode. You can research most of these questions online and in Ernie biographies.

I didn't find any new blog posts or news clips this week, so until next week, "Its Been Real!!"

ED NOTE, 11/30/2010: The entire series has been available on DVD for a while now and you can get it from Amazon.

A Power's Out Post And Some Trivia

2007-06-21T05:05:00.000-04:00

OK. I just had to rush over the the library to write this post, fellow Kovacsians, because the power in my building went out once again. Then, I had to wait until this morning to post it because I had left the photo file at home and couldn't get back to the library. That's why the post is a day late. Please accept my apologies. Twelve hours with no power is no fun!

Take a look at the photo to answer this week's trivia question:

1. What is the name of Ernie's character?

2. What is his profession? (the full title)

FOR EXTRA CREDIT: Name a couple of his fictitious sponsors and if you're feeling truly adventurous some of the "tunes" that are on the records in the picture.

Once again thanks to all the folks have put in a friend request on the Ernie Kovacs MySpace Fan Page. We've added eleven new friends since last week and are now up to 408.

Here are Kovacsian articles and blog posts of the last week:

A piece about one of the last true local TV show hosts who lists Ernie as an influence

Newsfromme talks about Jim Hawthorne, a famous LA radio and TV guy in the 1950s with a Kovacsian bent

A nice piece from cartoonist Skip Williamson about Help! magazine, a comedy rag from the early 1960s that used to use photos of Ernie for "photo comic strips"

Until next week, friends, "Its Been Real!"

Take A Good Look

2007-06-13T11:06:00.000-04:00

Most Kovacsians are familiar with "Take A Good Look," a game show hosted by Ernie from October 22, 1959 to February 9, 1961, Thursday nights, 10:30 p.m. - 11:00 p.m. on ABC television. For those who are not, I've borrowed a description of the program from blog contributor Ben Model's website, "The Unofficial Official Ernie Kovacs Website:"

"Dutch Masters sponsored Ernie's version of the popular panel show, such as "What's My Line" and "To Tell the Truth," which he had been sending up for years on his own shows. The program was called "Take a Good Look" and aired from October 1959 through February 1961, when he began making his monthly specials. The concept was simple. Ernie's panelists had to guess his guest's occupation by asking the guest questions and watching 3 videotaped clues. The clues were basically Kovacs, Bobby Lauher and Jolene Brand doing blackout gags which had something -- something extremely remote -- to do with the guest's occupation. The clues were funny and surreal, but usually left the panel clueless. A couple of episodes were released on home video from 16mm kinnies (albeit surreptitiously) in the 1980s, and they pop up on eBay sporadically."

Thank you, Ben, for saving me some work. I'll add that some of the hapless panelists included Cesar Romero, Edie Adams, Hans Conreid and Carl Reiner. I also remember an episode with one of the Gabor sisters, but I can't recall which one (it was Eva or Zsa-Zsa, not Magda).

An Ernie fan showed me the bootleg video of "TAGL" to which Ben refers. Like Ben said it shows up sporadically on the websites of shady DVD sellers and on eBay. It contains several full episodes of "TAGL" with commercials. If you'd like to see the show your best bet is to visit the Museum Of TV And Radio in either New York City or Los Angeles where you can see full episodes. Your other option is to watch clips on "The Best Of Ernie Kovacs" 2 DVD set. Be advised that the clips only exist as extras on the 2 DVD set; the 5 VHS tape set DOESN'T have them. And speaking of the Museum Of TV And Radio I found out this morning that on June 5th they officially changed their name to "The Paley Center For Media" named for industry pioneer and former CBS chairman William S. Paley. For some reason there are two websites, one under the old name which can be accessed from the link above and one under the new name at http://www.paleycenter.org/.

There's another purpose to this week's post besides just educating you about "TAGL." A friend from "over the pond" in England contacted me with an interesting story. Here it is, in her own words:

This is my story- My name is Judy Stivers. I was born in Birmingham England and grew up there. In 1958 I met & married my husband (Bryant Stivers) who was in the air force @ the time. On a Pan Am flight to the United States I gave birth to twin girls. The plane was over the Atlantic 80 miles N.E. of Newfoundland at the time of their birth. Needless to say there was a lot of publicity about it. The Take A Good Look Staff contacted me by phone & I was on my way to CA to be on Ernie's show. Edie Adams, Cesar Romero and Rowan & Martin were the panelists. Ernie came out dressed in basketball attire and threw one basketball into the air and three came down. We were instructed to give one word answers to the panelist questions. They did not guess what had happened to me. I was given $300.00 for appearing on the show. In 1959 not everyone had a TV so we did not get to see the show which aired in Nov. 1959. If anyone has any information as to whether the show still exists I would appreciate any information you may have.

So there you have it folks. I told Judy that I don't know of a copy of that episode existing anyplace (its not on the bootleg DVD nor the "Best Of." I'm also not sure if the Museum Of TV And Radio has it); if anyone has info about this episode I hope you'll let me know, either by posting a comment here or by contacting me through my main site, http://www.erniekovacs.net/. You can also contact me through the Ernie Kovacs MySpace Fan Page which this week is up to 397 friends, an increase of 9 from last week's total of 388. Thanks as usual to everyone who added us or accepted a request from us.

And now, the Kovacsian blog posts and news clips from the past week in Kovacsland:

A great article by David Sarno of the LA Times about the proliferation of vintage video clips on sites such as YouTube

Dr. Wes Browning has a nice Ernie post this week

Have Opinion Will Travel with an Ernie post

Endless Mike's Farewell talks about Esquivel and shows a couple of Ernie clips

Until next week, "Its Been Real!"

Trivia Answered / Remembering A Friend

2007-06-06T12:35:00.000-04:00

Good afternoon fellow Kovacsians. Time for the weekly report.

Last week's trivia question was successfully answered by TWO MySpace Fan Page friends, "Sluggo" and Barbara. You can click the link above to see the original trivia post and accompanying photo. Here are the answers:

1. What is the name of Ernie's character? MATZOH HEPPLEWHITE

2. What is his profession? MAGICIAN

3. What word proceeds the name of his profession on screen and what does this word mean? (IE, if he were a plumber named Joe Smith, the title card might read "Joe Smith Master Plumber").

ITINERANT, which basically means travelling from town to town or place to place, or covering a circuit of places. So, the full title on the screen was "MATZOH HEPPLEWHITE ITINERANT MAGICIAN."

FOR EXTRA CREDIT: The actor on the far right went on to fame as a soap opera star. What's his name, which soap opera, and what character did he play for many years and as recently as 2006? In the bit pictured above what was his function?

BILL HAYES who plays Doug Williams on the NBC soap Days Of Our Lives. Bill worked frequently on Ernie's shows and is interviewed in one of the documentaries about Ernie. His function in the bit was as an audience member, as pointed out by Barbara. He was actually up on stage to inspect the equipment, but Ernie's character kept pushing him off stage lest he find out any of the secrets to the poorly performed trick.

My thanks to both Barbara and "Sluggo" for a job well done. And my thanks, as always, to everyone who has added us as a friend or accepted a friend request from us for the MySpace Fan Page. We've added seven new friends this week and are now up to 388!

When I first started the fan page back in April I sent friend requests to people who had Ernie listed as an influence or favorite TV show/personality. One of the first folks to respond and accept a request was a gentleman by the name of Justin (aka "Goldbug") who was a lifelong Ernie fan. He was a very nice guy and always ready with a friendly note or reminiscence of Ernie; he grew up in the Philadelphia area and watched Ernie's shows in the 1950s.

I hadn't heard from Justin in a while and found out the other day that he passed away. Today's post is dedicated to him; if you have some time I hope you'll remember him along with me and read the piece that he wrote for us.

That's it for this week Kovacsians. As usual, here are a couple of interesting posts I found that mention Ernie:

Ina Diane Archer is a visual artist who says she channels Ernie in her work

An article relating the Ernie film "Our Man In Havana" to EX Cia Chief George Tenet

Until next week, "Its Been Real!"

I Need A Volunteer From The Audience

2007-05-30T13:04:00.000-04:00

Good afternoon fellow Kovacsians. Greetings through your computer orthicon tube, if there is such a thing.

Last week's trivia question was successfully answered by Ernie MySpace Fan Page friends Brian and Craig. Kudos. To see the question and answer click here (the answer is in the comments section of the post). As of this writing the fan page is up to 381 friends, and increase of 9 friends since last week. Thanks to everyone who requested us as a friend or added us.

Here's this weeks trivia question. "Take A Good Look" at the photo to the left (pardon the pun and be advised that its not from that show).

1. What is the name of Ernie's character?

2. What is his profession?

3. What word proceeds the name of his profession on screen and what does this word mean? (IE, if he were a plumber named Joe Smith, the title card might read "Joe Smith Master Plumber").

FOR EXTRA CREDIT: The actor on the far right went on to fame as a soap opera star. What's his name, which soap opera, and what character did he play for many years and as recently as 2006? In the bit pictured above what was his function?

As always you can message the answers to my at the Ernie MySpace Fan Page or post them as comments here.

And finally a look at the Ernie blog posts and news items of the last week:

Ramblefish gives us a look at the closing credits to one of Ernie's shows

The "Grammar Police" show us an Ernie bit from the "AESOP" Broadcasting Company

Dave Lucas with a piece on the defunct Dumont Network on which Ernie had a show

A Nairobi Trio clip with an interesting anecdote

Labay's place also shows the Ernie closing credits

Until next week Kovacsians, "Its Been Real!"

Dancing Office Furniture Trivia

2007-05-23T15:17:00.000-04:00

OK fellow Kovacsians, its time for a new trivia question and I promise its not as hard as the last one:

"What is the name of the music used as the soundtrack to Ernie's famous "Musical Office" sketch and who performed it?"

If you'd like to the view the sketch you can do so either by looking on the VHS "Best Of Kovacs" collection or the DVD. On the DVD its chapter 8 on the menu and is called "Musical Office." On the VHS series the sketch is located on Volume One, which is the tape in the dark red box. "The Turksville Trolley Blog" also has a stream of the sketch which you can view by clicking here.

This is one of my all time favorite Ernie sketches; its an absolute piece of inspired genius that works splendidly on both visual and musical levels. The late, great author David Walley who wrote "The Ernie Kovacs Phile" (a wonderful book that every Kovacsian should own) put a series of appendices in the back which are quite informative. Appendix B is the "text of memo sent to staff for third Special, taped May 28, 1961, aired May 15, 1961 (I realize that the dates don't seem to make chronological sense, but that's what it says). This is Ernie's memo to the staff about how to execute the bit and also contains what he called the bit, which is a hint to part of the song title. Its an amazing read, as is the whole book so get a hold of it if you don't already own it. The book had several printings and is also known as "Nothing In Moderation: A Biography Of Ernie Kovacs." Many libraries have a copy.

Every week I say thanks to anyone who has accepted a friend request from or put in a friend request to the Ernie Kovacs MySpace Fan Page. We are up to 372 friends from last week's total of 361. Please tell your friends about us if they don't know and ask them to put in a request if they have a MySpace page.

When I started acting back in around 1988 I did a student film at the State University Of New York At Purchase. Parker Posey, an amazing actress whose films are well worth you time, was a student there and was the lead in the film. She's in a new film called Fay Grim and this review mentions Ernie. Since I love them both I thought I'd share it with you.

Well, fellow Kovacsians, I close this week with my usual list of blogs and articles that mention our dear friend Ernie:

Bad Banana's Blog has a video of a couple of Ernie "Dutch Master's" Spots AND a great piece
about Ernie and advertising

An interesting post from the "Hadleybloggers" about the Golden Age Of Television

The "Other Side Of The Rainbow" wrote a piece with an Ernie reference that had me laughing out loud for several minutes

"10Speed3" with an interesting take on Ernie and the Internet video craze which I am in agreement with

Until next week friends, "Its Been Real!!"

The Masked Man Finally Is Un-Masked!

2007-05-16T13:17:00.001-04:00

OK. I know that there are many of you that are dying to know the answers to the infamous trivia question and I'm happy to say that someone has finally gotten it. I promise I won't keep you in suspense for much longer.

But first, I want to thank (as I always do each week) anyone who has accepted a friend request or requested to be a friend on Ernie's MySpace Fan Page. As of my last post there were 348 friends and there are now 361. Please let other Ernie fans who have MySpace pages know about us if they don't already. We will gladly process their friend requests.

And now, the moment you've all been waiting for. The trivia question was answered by our dear MySpace friend Brian, pictured to the left ( I think this photo may have been taking after some painful dental surgery). Here are the answers. Ernie would have been proud:

1. What was the name of this western?
"Das Einsame Aufseher"

2. What is the LITERAL translation of the title.
"The Lonely Overseer"

3. Who is the character a satire of? The Lone Ranger

4. What is the name of the desperado Ernie is going to fight, as played by Joe Mikolas? "Schwarze Bart"

5. What is the translation of the desperado's name?
"Black Bart" (Or "Black Beard" since Bart = beard in German)

6. What does Ernie put in his six shooter? "Silber Kugels!" = silver bullets

7. What language are they supposedly speaking in this "European Western?"
Mangled German

Brian speaks some German and I accept his answers as more correct than the ones I came up with when I first wrote the question. I thought that "Das Einsame Aufseher" meant "The Lonely Custodians," but that was probably because the translation website I used is inaccurate.

Here's Brian's take on it:

In fact, I remembered the whole sketch except for the word "Aufseher", and had to play the video to get that. "Aufseher" means literally "out-seer", and the dictionary says it means overseer or supervisor. I think Kovacs might have meant it in the sense of a scout, which would be "Spaher" (umlaut (little dots) over the a). I speak enough German to wince at how "Wolfgang Sauerbraten" mangles the language!

So there you have it. A profound thanks to Brian for his good sportsmanship and fine effort. I'm giving him extra points because he had to look on the VHS tapes to get some of the answers and didn't have the help of an easy to search DVD.

Another MySpace friend, "MadWriter," was asking me about the two versions of "Eugene" (aka "The Silent Show") that were done. Yes, there were two! The first was in color and was the only time Ernie ever appeared on TELEVISION in color. He appeared in movies in color all the time. Here's what I told "MadWriter":

When Jerry Lewis split with "Dino" in 1956 he was given a 90 minute special by NBC to go out on his own with. Thing is, his agent told them Jerry didn't want to do 90 minutes.

So, they needed to fill the extra 1/2 hour. They offered it to many well known comics but NO ONE was crazy enough to go on after Lewis who was extremely popular at that time. No one except for Ernie that is. And he did Eugene for his 1/2 hour and garnered lots of acclaim. That version is in color. The only place I've ever seen it, or part of it anyway, was at the "Museum Of TV And Radio" here in New York (http://www.mtr.org/). And its the only time Ernie was ever in color on TV. And, it was LIVE. Of course, Ernie was in color in the movies quite a bit.

The version on the VHS or DVD is one of the ABC specials from 1961 (November I believe) and that is the one most everyone knows.

Last week a magician named Glenn Bishop wrote a very nice post about this blog and I hope you'll all go read it. Once you're there be sure to check out all of Glenn's blogs. There are some great video clips and info on magic, which used to be a hobby of mine. Glenn's a really talented magician and a fellow Ernie fan with an interesting take on Ernie's process. Thanks for the post Glenn!

I'll close as always with some other blog posts and articles I found this week in cyberspace:

The column "Pop Matters" talks about the pros and cons of "The Nairobi Trio"

Steve Gerber Gives Us A Quick Opinion On "The Nairobi Trio"

Inner Toob Gives A Quick Nod To Ernie

Some more "Nairobi Trio

Until next week, friends, "Its Been Real!"

Ernie's Slow News Week

2007-05-09T10:41:00.001-04:00

Good morning fellow Kovacsians. Not much to report this week, so here goes:

The trivia question from two weeks ago still has not been answered. If no one gets it this week, I will post the answer next week. Post your answer in the form of a comment or contact me with the answer via the Ernie Kovacs MySpace Fan Page.

Speaking of the MySpace Fan Page, we're up to 348 friends this week from 332 friends last week. Thanks to everyone who has requested an add or accepted a request from us. Please let other Kovacs fans know about us if you haven't.

Contributing blogger Ben "Undercrank" Model wrote a post Monday I know you'll enjoy. Check it out if you haven't already by clicking here. And therein lies an answer to part of the aforementioned trivia question so read carefully.

LATEST ERNIE POSTS FROM THE "BLOG-O-SPHERE":

An interesting post from Tom Pry which mentions Ernie and makes you realize how hard it was to watch TV in the early 1950s.

Glenn Bishop, a magician, talks about how magic DVDs should be produced and mentions Ernie.

An art teacher writes of a gameshow she invented to keep small toddlers calm.Yes, Ernie is mentioned at one point.

The Duckpond has a Nairobi Trio clip.

Some more Nairobi Trio clips from Captelensar.

A short post about YouTube that mentions Ernie.

Until next week friends, "Its been real!"

Ernie & Edie's NYC Penthouse

2007-05-07T10:10:00.001-04:00

Here's a photo I snapped (from inside Central Park) a few months ago of the El Dorado, on Central Park West between West 90th and West 91st Streets. This is the building Ernie and Edie lived in during the mid-1950's in that giant penthouse. If the building looks familiar, it's because it's the building that Ghostbusters takes place in. Was that location a suggestion of Dan Aykroyd's, who was/is a major Kovacs fan? Who knows. The interior of the penthouse apartment is shown in some of the photos in the Life Magazine article from 4/15/57 (pick yours up on eBay if you haven't already).

"Silver kuggels!!"

Ben

Ernie Trivia Redux

2007-05-02T00:02:00.000-04:00

Hi folks. Welcome to this week's "Kovacsian" blog post.

Every week I thank the people who have sent in friend requests or accepted our requests from the Ernie Kovacs MySpace Page. The page was started just about a month ago and we are already up to 331 friends as of this writing. Please encourage any Ernie fans you know to come join us!

Last week's trivia question was a toughie and I received NO answers. I must admit this surprised me very much given the knowledgeable Ernie fans who read these posts. So, here's the link so you can give it another shot:

http://erniekovacs.blogspot.com/2007/04/who-is-that-masked-man.html

I know you guys can do it! Post your answer in the form of a comment here or send it through the Ernie MySpace page.

Every week I search the news and blogspot for any relevant Ernie posts. I didn't find anything in the news but here are the blog posts I found:

"Revolution 21's Blog For The People" discusses the old NBC radio show "Monitor" on which Ernie was a regular presence:

http://revolution-21.blogspot.com/2007/04/im-on-monitor-beacon-nbc-monitor-beacon.html

"Mold-A-Rama wrote a nice post about Ernie:
http://moldarama.blogspot.com/2007/04/ernie-kovacs-innovation-and-parody.html

"The Almost Daily Rooster" discuses Ernie in the article "Some Radio & TV Nostalgia"

http://thealmostdailyrooster.blogspot.com/2007/04/some-radio-tv-nostalgia.html

"CW's Cynictionary" posts a famous quote of Ernie's:

http://cynictionary.blogspot.com/2007/04/television-medium.html

An interesting post by "Mercedes-Benz Videos" discussing Ernie's relationship to a "300-SL" in "Our Man In Havana":
http://mercedesvideos.blogspot.com/2007/04/our-man-in-havana-ernie-kovacs-mercedes.html

Mike from "Films2See" mentions a showing of "Our Man In Havana" which will take place Monday, May 7 in New York City. If you're in the area go check it out:

http://films2see.blogspot.com/2007/04/may-revivals-first-half.html

That's all for this week kids. Remember to work on that trivia question!

Until next time "Its been real!"