Ernie Kovacs

ERNIE KOVACS

U.S. Comedian

Ernie Kovacs, a creative and iconoclastic comedian, pioneered the use of special effects photography in television comedy. On the 50th anniversary of the beginning of television in 1989, People Weekly recognized him as one of television's top 25 stars of all time. During the 1950s, Kovacs' brilliant use of video comedy demonstrated the unique possibilities of television decades before similar techniques became popular on Rowan and Martin's Laugh In and the various David Letterman shows. His live shows were characterized by ad-libbed routines, enormous flexibility with the TV camera, experimentation with video effects, complete informality while on camera, and a permissiveness that expanded studio boundaries by allowing viewers to see activity beyond the set.1

His routines frequently parodied other programs and introduced imaginative Kovacsian characters such as the magician Natzoh Hepplewhite, Professor Bernie Cosnowski, and Mr. Question Man, who resembled Johnny Carson's Carnac the Magnificent. The best known of his creations was the Nairobi Trio, three ape instrumentalists playing "Solfeggio" in a deadpan manner like mechanical monkeys. The high point come when the percussionist turned jerkily to the conductor and bopped him on the head with a xylophone hammer.

Following a career in radio, Kovacs' transition to television came in 1950 when he simultaneously hosted several programs on NBC's WPTZ in Philadelphia. His first show, Deadline for Dinner, consisted of cooking tips from guest chefs. When a guest did not show, he did his own recipe for "Eggs Scavok," his name spelled backwards. In August 1950, he hosted a quiz and fashion program titled Pick Your Ideal, basically a 15-minute promotional for the Ideal Manufacturing Company. In November of that year he pioneered one of TV's first morning wake-up programs. The unstructured format required improvisational abilities Kovacs had mastered on radio. The daily 90-minute slot was titled 3 To Get Ready. (The number three referred to channel 3 or WPTZ.)

Kocacs' off-the-wall style was extremely unorthodox in early television. He approached the medium as something totally new. While his contemporaries were treating TV as an extension of vaudeville stages, Kovacs was expanding the visible confines of the studio. His skits incorporated areas previously considered taboo, including dialogue with the camera crew, the audience, and forays into the studio corridor.

Impressed with his abilities, NBC network executives scheduled his first network show, Time for Ernie, in May 1951. The daily 15-minute broadcast aired from WPTZ featuring Kovacs and music from a local combo known as the Tony deSimone Trio. In July he received his first prime time slot as a summer replacement for Kukla, Fran, and Ollie. Ernie In Kovacsland opened with the music "Oriental Blues" and title cards with cartoon drawings of Ernie. A voice-over announced: "Ernie in Kovacsland! A short program--it just seems long."

Early in 1952, Kovacs reappeared on daytime TV as host for Kovacs on the Corner, the final show to originate from Philadelphia. Similar to radio's Allen's Alley, Kovacs strolled along a cartoon-like set and talked to such neighborhood characters as Luigi the Barber, Pete the Cop, Al the Dog, and Little Johnny Merkin, a midget. One program segment allowed a selected audience member to say hello to folks back home. A closed window filled the screen. On the window shade was printed the phrase "Yoo-Hoo Time." When the shade was raised, the excited audience member waved, saying "Yoo-hoo!"

In April 1952, Kovacs moved to WCBS in New York as host of a local daytime comedy variety show named Kovacs Unlimited. Known for its parodies of other programs, Kovacs Unlimited resembled the contemporary Saturday Night Live. It was Kovacs' longest-running series out of New York, lasting 21 months.

In December, CBS aired a new, national Ernie Kovacs Show opposite NBC's Texaco Star Theater with Milton Berle. Kovacs produced and wrote the show himself and, as with his earlier broadcasts, much of the program was improvised. Unlike other TV comedies, there was no studio audience, nor was canned laughter used. In Kovacs' view, the usefulness of an audience was diminished because they could not see the special effects. Described as his "hallucinatory world," the program featured many ingenious video effects as though illusion and reality were confused. In his skits, paintings came to life, flames from candles remained suspended in midair, and library books spoke.

Kovacs reappeared periodically in shows over various networks. In April 1954, the DuMont network's flagship station, WABD in New York, scheduled him as a late-night rival to Steve Allen. NBC aired his show as a daytime comedy premiering in December 1955 and in prime-time a year later. Kovacs' final appearances were in a monthly series over ABC during 1961 and 1962. He received an Emmy for the 1961 series sponsored by Dutch-Masters Cigars. Regulars on many of Kovacs' early shows were Edie Adams, who became his second wife, straight-men Trigger Lund and Andy McKay, and the Eddie Hatrak Orchestra.

The most extraordinary episode in Kovacs' career was the half-hour NBC broadcast, without dialogue, known as the "Silent Show." Seen on 19 January 1957, it was the first prime-time program done entirely in pantomime. Accompanied only with sound effects and music, Kovacs starred as the mute, Chaplinesque "Eugene," a character he earlier developed during the fall of 1956 when hosting The Tonight Show. In 1961, Kovacs and co-director Joe Behar received the Directors Guild Of America Award for a second version of the program over ABC.

Kovacs was an avant-garde experimenter in a television era governed by norms inherited from earlier entertainment media. In his routines, he pioneered the use of blackouts, teaser openings, improvisations with everyday objects, matting techniques, synchronization of music and sound with images, and various camera effects including superimpositions, reverse polarity (a switch making positive seem negative), and reverse scanning (flipping images upside down). Recent TV documentaries have celebrated his work. These include WNJT's Cards And Cigars: The Trenton In Ernie Kovacs (1980), Showtime Cable's Ernie Kovacs: Television's Original Genius (1982), and ABC's Ernie Kovacs: Between The Laughter (1984). In 1987, he was inducted into the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences' Hall of Fame.

--Frank J. Chorba

ERNIE KOVACS. Born in Trenton, New Jersey,U.S.A., 23 January 1919. Attended New York School of Theatre and American Academy of Dramatic Art in Manhattan. Children from first marriage: Betty and Kippie; 2) Edie Adams, 1954, one daughter. As teenager, performed in stock companies, 1936-39; hospitalized, for 19 months, 1939; formed own stock company, 1941-43; columnist for hometown newspaper, The Trentonian, 1945-50; announcer, director of special events, and assistant programming for radio station WTTM, 1942-50; first worked in television, 1950, on cooking show for WPTZ-TV; morning show, WPTZ-TV, 1950; It's Time for Ernie, NBC-TV, 1951; host, various shows, 1950s; first film, Operation Mad Ball, 1957; Bell, Book and Candle, 1958; first starring vehicle in British film Five Golden Hours, 1961. Recipient: Emmy Awards, 1957 and 1961; named to Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame, 1987. Died in Los Angeles, 13 January 1962.

Television series (selection)

1951 It's Time for Ernie
1951 Ernie in Kovacsland 1952-53,
1956 The Ernie Kovacs Show (first titled Kovacs Unlimited)
1960-61 Silents Please (host)

Television Specials

1957 Festival of Magic (host)
1961 Private Eye, Private Eye (host)
1961-1962 The Ernie Kovacs Special

Films

Operation Mad Ball, 1957; Bell, Book and Candle, 1958;It Happened to Jane, 1958; Our Man In Havana, 1959; Wake Me When It's Over, 1960; Strangers When We Meet, 1960; Pepe, 1960; North to Alaska, 1960; Five Golden Hours, 1961; Sail a Crooked Ship, 1961; Cry for Happy, 1961.