Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Dancing Office Furniture Trivia

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:


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

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Sentimental Journey", played by none other than the amazing Esquivel! (Didn't even have to check the videos, that tune has been running through my head after fixing large breakfasts on the weekend to the Ernie Kovacs Record Collection - "Hotcakes and Sausage", indeed!)

- Brian (again)

Anonymous said...

Also, thought this Kovacs mention would already have been brought to your attention - I don't think his name has been invoked in The Onion before.

http://www.theonion.com/content/amvo/rated_r_for_smoking

Al Quagliata said...

Brian,

Believe it or not, you are half correct regarding song title. You are correct about the composer. Hint: Go back and look at your CD case. But, good job as usual.

Thanks for the Onion link. In the post, I mention that the comment is part of "Other Side Of The Rainbow's Blog," but it is in fact from "The Onion". Its a man on the street interview in response to the question "The Motion Picture Association of America has announced that smoking will now be a consideration when determining a film's rating. What do you think?"

And as usual, its classic. The Onion once did this editorial by a goat which actually had me fall down laughing on the floor of an NYC subway as I read it.

Anonymous said...

Oh yes, the first part is "Jalousie"(Jealousy) and runs into "Sentimental Journey". I was thinking of the latter title because my favourite bit is the pencil sharpener rotating in time with the theme of the latter.

Al Quagliata said...

Well, Brian, you've done it again...that is the correct answer.

Here it is in full for the rest of the Kovacsians:

Jalousie(Jealousy)/Sentimental Journey-Medley as performed by Esquivel.