Ernie The Grizzled Old Miner

Good afternoon my fellow Kovacsians. I'll start off by saying that the Ernie Kovacs My Space Fan Page is up to 680 friends, an increase of 4 since our last post. As always we thank everyone who requested an add or accepted a request from us.

I also need to mention that no one, not even my best "Kovacsian Trivia Answer-ers," has been able to answer all the question from our last quiz. Its a tough one; even yours truly couldn't get it. Give it a shot if you're brave enough. I'm going to let a few more weeks go by before I post the answers to give some more folks a chance to answer.

In our last entry I had a link to a blog post about the old TV western Shotgun Slade which starred actor Scott Brady in the title role. I found this post interesting because:

1. I'm a big fan of old TV westerns and had never heard of this one.
2. Ernie is the guest star in the pilot episode.

The pilot episode of this show was called "The Salted Mine" and it actually aired on March 27, 1959, as part of the "Schlitz Playhouse Of Stars," an anthology series of that era. In it Ernie plays a grizzled old miner named "Hack" (he tells Shotgun "Hack Berry's the whole of it." At least that's what I think he says...) who owns the "Hack Mine," which is located "over the hill a piece."

I'm not going to go into a long winded description of the series or the episode. That's because you can click on the links above to learn more about the show and its lead actor. And you can watch the actual pilot episode with Ernie below:

Its important to realize that before becoming a radio and then TV personality Ernie had trained to be a stage actor. His mentor was his high school drama professor Harold Van Kirk and he also acted in summer stock and studied drama in New York City. He was quite the excellent character actor as you can see from watching this program. Comics like Ernie have the ability to really inhabit and make you believe the characters they play, whether comedic or dramatic.

I sincerely hope you enjoyed the episode and I apologize for the quality. My goal in all the Ernie pages I run is to expose you to things about his career that you may not have known about or seen and I hope this has fit the bill!

Thanks once again for stopping by and until we meet again "Its Been Real!"

Who Is That Masked Man?

"There's a standard formula for success in the entertainment medium and that is beat it do death if it succeeds."- Ernie Kovacs, 1961

That quote from Ernie was in one of his ABC specials from the early 1960s and directly preceded a sketch he did parodying the TV western, which was the most predominant genre on TV at that time (Think "reality TV" and apply the same quote. Works rather well, doesn't it?).

Now take a look at the photo above. One of the bits in the sketch was, according to Ernie, "a new European Western." And that dear friends will lead us to this week's trivia question. It has several parts. Have fun, hombres:

1. What was the name of this western?
2. What is the LITERAL translation of the title.
3. Who is the character a satire of?
4. What is the name of the desperado Ernie is going to fight, as played by Joe Mikolas?
5. What is the translation of the desperado's name?
6. What does Ernie put in his six shooter?
7. What language are they supposedly speaking in this "European Western?"

Some hints: If you have "The Best Of Ernie Kovacs" two DVD or five VHS tape set you can find the answer pretty easily. As far as translating goes there are plenty of sites on the Internet for that. It's a doozy right? Didja think every question was going to be about the "Nairobi Trio?"

You can post your answers here or if you're an Ernie MySpace friend feel free to message me your answers and I'll take care of the posting. And speaking of the MySpace page it is now up to 315 friends. We're averaging several friend requests a day and thank everyone who has added us or requested to be added.

I had someone email me asking if there were any pictures of Ernie without a moustache. In the book "Kovacsland" by Diano Rico there is a picture of him in high school with no moustache but I don't know of any of him as an adult and I don't think he was ever without it as an adult. So, I decided to send a pic of him to the "photoshop barber" so we can see what he would have looked like were he not hirsute under the proboscis. Picasso I ain't, but I think you'll get the point.

I found some nice Ernie links this week to share with you:

John Parnell of "Down The Rabbit Hole" writes about Ernie's genius and gives us some analysis on the meaning of "The Nairbobi Trio". It's an interesting, well written piece:

http://downrabbitholemacon.blogspot.com/2007/04/ernie-kovacs-rocks-its-shame-that-ernie.html

According to this post Chicago's new "Museum Of Broadcast Communications" (www.museum.tv), in conjunction with "TV Land," is displaying the masks Ernie used in the Nairobi Trio; read this carefully as some of the dates don't seem to make sense and if you are in the Windy City you may wish to contact the museum before visiting. You'll have to scroll a bit to see this and if you do go I hope you'll take a pic and let us know how it was :

http://chicago1000.blogspot.com/2007/04/tv-land-and-chicagos-museum-of.html

Associated Content is a website which allows writers to submit articles for publication and hopefully receive payment for them. Here's an Ernie bio that was published this week. Its nothing out of the ordinary in terms of new info but is a job well done nonetheless:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/218917/ernie_kovacs_biography.html

Until next week, folks, "It's Been Real!"