One of the most innovative, irreverent and iconoclastic souls ever to grace television's waves was Ernest Edward Kovacs. This man in fact took the medium to places it had never before ventured and in fact have not really since. Sure, there have been pastiches, and those would be of the un-credited variety as well as many a blatant rip-off of the inimitable style that Kovacs himself cultivated. There was little doubt that this man was a pioneer that chartered territories, voyages that no one else dared.
Sadly Ernie was only with us for forty-three years, but what he achieved during his brief time, would have taken lesser folk, three lifetimes at least, to achieve. He had an affinity for the gag visual, and he would enlighten his audience by way of his revolutionary use of photography, special-effects that were utilized in an unconventional trick technique, that would be quite a feat during television's incubation, to be aeons and aeons ahead of the proverbial game. It was Jack Lemmon who admiringly quipped that Ernie was "always 15 years ahead of anyone else." And if that way inclined, you can see for yourself, with the clip above titled Kitchen Symphony, Kovacs musical short from the year 1961, where every day appliances take on human aspects if you will.
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| Have Percy! |
Ernie Kovacs got his start in local repertory theater and attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1937, and would journey the summer stock circuit, until a fateful event in 1939, where the budding comedian suffered a serious form of pleurisy, such that the doctors doubted chances of remission. Kovacs, who was never one to sit still or let himself fall victim to defeat, would, even during his dire prognosis, entertain the doctors and staff, and it is said in fact that he honed most of his comedy chops from his hospital stays.
After a full recovery, Kovacs would secure a job in radio, at a local New Jersey station with the call letters WTTM. Decades ahead of what is considered today shock-jock, Ernie would actually perform death-defying stunts that were heard over the airwaves, one of which involved jumping on railroad tracks until the train made its arrival, and only stepping away from the tracks within a hair of a second, to illustrate the act of what it would be like if one was actually hit by a train.
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| Edie and Ernie Sitting in a Tree...or at a table with a guillotine prop. |
Kovacs, did for radio - what he would do for television - to be the first of his kind. Giving us much to revere via optical wonderments such as a hula-hooping girl being cut in half, an shadow of a woman who disappears completely as she takes her kit off, and having the instinct to know just how to maneuver a camera, so that the shot of milk being poured was captured at the precise moment where it defied all reason and would side flow. He mastered his lens as paintbrush, absolutely marauding its canvas with the most unorthodox and seemingly impossible sight gags.
It was the optical that was essential to Kovacs, sound was merely a deviation. It was considered of minimal concern, and only used when absolutely necessary as in the subtle method of a bullet working it's way through the innards of a tuba in another one of his inimitable skits.
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| Monkeys Shine! |
I have myself noticed that there are many comedians influenced by Kovacs and so few are willing to confess he was their muse and inspiration. For instance, the gesticulations and mannerisms of the character he created Percy Dovetonsils, an eccentric poet laureate, in fourth-wall fashion read in nonsensical tones. The verisimilitude with that of Bill Cosby in the mannerisms he conveys, nearly two decades later cannot be denied. Cosby made no bones about Groucho Marx's inspiration, namely his 1950-61 stint as game-show host/raconteur for You Bet Your Life, a feat which Cosby himself would egregiously try to recreate in 1992.
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| Groucho's were Imposters imports. |
Kovacs is perhaps remembered best for The Nairobi Trio, accompanied by Robert Maxwell's Solfeggio, the piece in which Kovacs heard and had a synesthetic affair with the first time his ears were privy, dreaming up the sequence that he would ultimately bring to fruition. It's here in this particular sketch that we find three souls clad replete in gorilla costumes, overcoats and hats, life-like incarnations of inanimate monkeys mechanical. Another of his notorious moments was a skit involving Kurt Weill's Mack the Knife set to an oscilloscope's audio as synchronized waves would be displayed on the television.
There have been many sketch intensive comedy shows on television since the departure of Ernie's groundbreaking Kovacs Unlimited, and even traces of his schematics in various episodes of Monty Python's Flying Circus, but there has hardly been anything remotely on par with the optical adventures of Ernie Kovacs caliber and his essence to this day remains unprecedented.
Ernie Kovacs tragically left us all too soon on the morning of January 13, 1962 due to fatal injuries as a result of an automobile accident after leaving a party hosted by longtime friend Billy Wilder.