Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Merry XMAS From Kovacsland

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!"

2 comments:

Shelly said...

Is there a place where you DO share your Ernie video clips, if not here? I am not alone in loving what you do post here, and also in wanting to see more, because the dvd/vhs media is so limited. Thanks!
Shelly K.

Al Quagliata said...

There's plenty to see on YouTube and sites of that nature. Also, if you didn't know this, there is a new DVD series coming out which is being put together by my fellow Kovacs Blogger Ben Model. You can read about that here:

New Kovacs DVD Set

Its looking like that will be available Fall 2009 or later. This will be the definitive Kovacs Collection and will feature never before released material.

In addition I posted a Kovacs XMAS list this year that may give you some ideas:

Kovacs Christmas List

Thanks for writing!