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!"

Ernie And Mad Magazine

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!"