Daily Archives: April 18, 2011
Ernie Kovacs Invented Television Comedy…
Salon did a very nice article on the late Ernie Kovacs this morning because his widow, Edie Adams, has just released a complete set in DVD form of Kovacs’ kinescopes from the fifties and very early sixties (Kovacs died in an automobile accident in January of 1962… something I remember clearly as a prep school student who kept a copy of his obituary tucked into a copy of Show Business Illustrated with an article on the great man. I still have it.)
From the article:
Some of TV’s most innovative people and programs drew inspiration from Kovacs: Rowan and Martin, the Smothers Brothers, Monty Python, Kids in the Hall, SCTV, the “Saturday Night Live” casts, every host of NBC’s “Tonight Show,” and all the talk shows modeled on “Tonight.” Morning shows raided him, too: Kovacs’ 1951 program “Three to Get Ready,” broadcast live on Philadelphia’s WPTV, was the first morning program anywhere, and was supposedly the inspiration for NBC’s “Today.”
Go over and take a look at the whole piece… it is loaded with YouTube videos of Kovacs kinescopes. Meanwhile, here’s one of my favorites (I don’t think it’s in the Salon post) of the Kovacs character, poet Percy Dovetonsils:
Boy, it’s been 50 years and I still miss Ernie Kovacs.
Related Articles
- The Absurdist Genius of Ernie Kovacs (thedailybeast.com)
- A DVD Set Celebrates the TV Genius of Ernie Kovacs (abcnews.go.com)
- The Funny Man’s Comedian (online.wsj.com)