The Poster Of Ernie Kovacs

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!"

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

Some Kovacsian Jack Benny Trivia

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!"