Actors - Ernie Kovacs

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	Actors - Ernie Kovacs

Ernie Kovacs (January 23, 1919 – January 13, 1962) was a creative and innovative entertainer from the early days of television. His on-air antics would go on to inspire TV shows like Laugh-In, the Uncle Floyd Show, Saturday Night Live
and TV hosts like David Letterman.

Born in Trenton, New Jersey, Kovacs became a pioneer of television comedy as a distinct medium; earlier television comedians mostly continued comedy styles of vaudeville, film, or radio.

His shows were innovative for their time because of their ad-libbed routines; experimentation with video effects (including superimpositions, reverse polarity, and reverse scanning which flipped images upside down); the use of quick "blackouts" and running gags; abstraction and non-sequitur; and a willingness to break the "fourth wall" by allowing viewers to see activity beyond the set - including crew members and, on occasion, outside the studio itself. He would also talk to the off-camera crew, or introduce segments from the control room.

Visual Humor and Characters

Kovacs invented many camera tricks that are still common today. One of his most popular gags was a bit where Kovacs sat down at a table to eat his lunch. He took items out of his lunch box and one by one, each item mysteriously rolled down the table into a gentleman reading the newspaper at the other end. Kovacs then started to pour a glass of milk. The milk appeared to pour from the thermos in an unusual direction. The visual trick, which had not been seen on TV before, was created with a crooked table and an equally crooked camera tilted to the same angle as the table.

Kovacs constantly pushed the envelope of what was possible in the video medium, and accomplished many visual tricks with very primitive and improvised means to produce effects that later were more commonly done electronically. He once had the inspiration of attaching a children's kaleidoscope to the camera lens with cardboard and tape -- the resulting abstract images, set to music, were very avant-garde and very much ahead of his time. Kovacs was rarely seen without a cigar, which he often incorporated as a prop. In one memorable segment, he was seen sitting in an easy chair, calmly reading a newspaper. After a short interval, he took the cigar out of his mouth and exhaled smoke. The unique feature of this otherwise ordinary sequence was that it took place entirely underwater. (The "smoke" was actually milk that Kovacs had filled his mouth with prior to submerging.)

Other popular bits included such gems as an all-gorilla version of Swan Lake; a poker game set to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony; The Nairobi Trio, three derby-hatted apes miming mechanically to the tune "Solfeggio"; the Silent Show, in which a nerdy character interacts with the world accompanied solely by music and sound effects; parodies of typical TV commercials and movie genres; and various musical segments with everyday items (such as kitchen appliances or office equipment) moving in sync to music. He used everything from long, extended sketches and mood pieces to quick "blackout" gags lasting a few seconds. (One famous example was a bit involving a used-car salesman, a jalopy, and a breakaway floor -- a bit that cost $50,000 to produce and lasted 6 seconds on screen!) There were no wasted moments in a Kovacs show, with gags starting during the opening theme song, and continuing even into the midst of the ending credits (which frequently incorporated bizarre fake credits and comments interspersed between the legitimate crew names and titles).

Recurring characters created by Kovacs included fey and lisping poet Percy Dovetonsils; German disc jockey Wolfgang von Sauerbraten; horror show host Auntie Gruesome; bumbling magician Matzoh Heppelwhite; Miklos Molnar, the sardonic Hungarian host of a children's show; Frenchman Pierre Ragout; and The Question Man, who would answer queries supposedly sent in by viewers.

Use of Music

His musical choices were certainly eclectic. His main theme was called "Oriental Blues", a quirky piano number derived from a Gershwin tune. A German version of "Mack the Knife" frequently underscored mimed sketches. Robert Maxwell's "Solfeggio" became so associated with the infamous derby-hatted apes that it became better known simply as "The Song of the Nairobi Trio". The piece de resistance, if that's the term, were tunes by Leona Anderson such as "Rats in My Room". Leona was reportedly a kind and gentle soul, whose singing voice, in contrast, could be unfavorably compared to fingernails on a blackboard. Naturally, Kovacs incorporated her songs at every opportunity. Kovacs also incorporated classical music into his shows, usually as background for abstract visual images and montages. Two such pieces used were the "Concerto for Orchestra" by Bela Bartok and music from the opera "The Love for Three Oranges" by Sergei Prokofiev. The classical piece most often associated with Kovacs is Haydn's "String Quartet, Opus 3, Number 5" (the "Serenade," which was indeed written by Haydn, not Roman Hoffstetter), which was used in his memorable Dutch Masters commercials.

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