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

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.

Ernie Kovacs DVD Box Set To Be Released In 2009

"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