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!"

An Interview With Adams, An Interesting Ad, And A New Dot Org

Good afternoon my fellow Kovacsians.

The Ernie Kovacs My Space Fan Page is up to 661 friends and pushing towards 700. Our thanks go out to anyone who requested us as a friend or who has accepted a friend request from us.

Here's something really great that I found on one of my recent Kovacs Internet searches. Its a fantastic collection of 10 interviews with Edie Adams conducted by the Archive Of American Television and recently posted by them on YouTube. There's a great deal of info about Ernie and how he worked along with Edie's reminiscences about her own career. All the interviews average about half an hour and were conducted on March 11, 1999 by Henry Colman. I've watched one already and hope to watch the others soon. I know you'll enjoy them!

I mentioned in my last post that I've been in touch with with Diana Rico who wrote Kovacsland: A Biography Of Ernie Kovacs" I've sent questions to Diana and hope to have an interview for you soon.

Yesterday I acquired the domain erniekovacs.org, which along with edieadams.org had been one of the URL’s for a website run by the Kovacs estate. Starting back in the summer of 2004 this site was set up as a tribute to Ernie and Edie's work along with a fan club and store. It was pulled down in early 2006 for reasons that were never explained. The domains were allowed to expire, eventually being purchased by one of those places that snaps up domains simply to use them as search engine portals. While edieadams.org is unfortunately still being used in this way I found out that erniekovacs.org had become available and so I purchased it. It now points to http://www.erniekovacs.net/ and it makes me very happy that its no longer being used to sully Ernie's good name. Now when you type in either address you'll be brought to the main site.

A fan sent me this interesting scan of an old 1950s ad from an entertainment magazine for one of the Kovacs' shows. Which show? Well it doesn't say, but I would guess whichever one was on that night or week. Hopefully the cigar won't ignite the paper:

Pretty cool and interesting, don't you think? It says it all without saying too much. Something today's overblown media ought to take a cue from. Thanks for sending it!

Until we meet again my fellow Kovacsians I bid you a fond "It's been real!"