Extended binge-watching of TV shows starring Ernie Kovacs and Edie Adams.
Every time it seems like an overdose of Ernie & Edie is imminent, one finds a few more absolutely amazing sketches.
The Ernie & Edie musical sketches are invariably amazing.
"Take A Good Look", still the weirdest of all game shows, absolutely floors me!
Even the commercials crack me up!
Also still flooring me after countless viewings: pretty much everything in the 1961 Kovacs ABC specials which followed Take A Good Look and aired at 10:30 p.m. on Thursday nights.
After first discovering Ernies last TV series back in the 1970's thanks to the Best Of Ernie Kovacs shows, the gang here finds Ernie and crew - Edie Adams, Bill Wendell, Jolene Brand, Bobby Lauher, Joe Mikolas, Maggi Brown - genuinely surreal while hilarious and at times, such as the following piece, also evocative and dramatic.
These sketch comedy shows express Ernie's unique sensibility, much along the lines of an animator or experimental filmmaker and very different from the approach of his TV comedy contemporaries (Bob Hope, Lucille Ball, Milton Berle).
Ernie and Edie's musical sketches are some of their very best. Here, the dynamic duo skewers "Tannhouser."
Have a funny feeling that Mel Brooks and Madeline Kahn saw Edie's bravura rendition of Victor Herbert's "Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life."
Here, Edie does her best impersonation of the staggeringly tone-deaf vocalist and socialite Florence Foster Jenkins. Could Flo have been the actual prototype for Citizen Kane's doomed (and even more staggeringly tone deaf) Susan Alexander?
Edie went on to host two variety shows in 1962-1964.
Here's Edie and The Edie Adams Show feature talented comics Don Rickles, Dick Shawn) and excellent jazz ensembles.
Edie introduces Duke Ellington!
Is there any film clip that includes Don Rickles, Laurindo Almeida AND Stan Getz? Yes, this one from the Here's Edie show!
Of course, with both series, Edie starred in vintage Muriel Cigars commercials.
Edie went on to appear as a guest star on mid and late 1960s variety programs, including The Dean Martin Show.
She continued as the spokes-model for Muriel Cigars, which led to more terrific commercials.
In the early 1980's, Edie appeared on Late Night With David Letterman several times during its first two seasons on NBC. I give Mr. Letterman tons of credit for having numerous comedy greats on his many programs, starting with his 1980 morning show.
Ernie's announcer and periodic sketch player from his 1950's NBC shows, Bill Wendell, was also the announcer for Late Night With David Letterman.
As he did on the NBC Ernie Kovacs shows, Bill Wendell got to make on-camera appearances.
"Some years ago I had a complete nervous breakdown, was dead broke and had to be put in a charity ward with 30 others. I was there 18 months and doctors didn`t give me long to live. So now each day to me is a special dividend, so I live it to the hilt". Ernie Kovacs
Remembered most for his remarkably inventive TV work, in front of and behind the camera, Ernie Kovacs (1919-1962) possessed a unique sensibility and gag mind that was out of the box, WAY out of the box, in another universe - and frequently on the dark side.
Even Ernie's unique game show Take A Good Look, featuring ace Kovacs Show repertory players Bobby Lauher and Jolene Brand, was the most mind-bending interpretation of that format imaginable.
Kovacs was also quite funny in the handful of movies he appeared in.
Then in the 1950's - early 1960's and now, Ernie remains the unequalled jedi master of the "orthicon tube".
Our favorite examples of the exceedingly vivid imagination of Ernie Kovacs are the "sound-to-sight" pieces, mini-musicals staged for television which explored video technology in a highly creative and witty way. The first, based on Béla Bartók's "Concerto for Orchestra" is evocative and lyrical, as well as a prime showcase for Ernie Kovacs the filmmaker, a man with a video camera and cinematic aspirations.
These micro-musicals were in Ernie's last series of eight specials for ABC, produced in 1961. His co-stars include the aforementioned Bobby Lauher and Jolene Brand, along with Joe Mikolas and Maggi Brown: comedy heroes all.
Thanks, Ernie - and a big time thanks to Edie Adams for her outstanding onscreen contributions to The Ernie Kovacs Show and equally outstanding (and tireless) efforts she made decades later to preserve Ernie's pioneering work in television. She was a brilliant performer, comedienne and vocalist, but also a hero of film preservation.
One wonders just how many Ernie Kovacs Show and Here's Edie videotapes she personally rescued from being taped over or tossed in the East River!
We raise our mugs, tumblers and Percy Dovetonsils approved champagne flutes to Ernie and Edie! In closing, the gang at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog must note that we absolutely LOVE Ernie's song Hot Cakes & Sausage, a great, witty and jaunty tune to start any day with.
Who's the individual cited most often here at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog? The unimaginably imaginative Ernie Kovacs.
Here's an excerpt from Ernie's first version of The Silent Show.
Ernie's Howdy Doody sendup, The Howdy Deedy Show, features hard-drinking host Miklos Molnar.
LOVE "The Kapusta Kid in Outer Space," seen here on the NBC Morning Show that aired on December 19, 1955.
Ernie's NBC shows still exist, largely thanks to the tireless efforts of the late, great Edie Adams.
Edie, who married Ernie in 1954, was the intrepid co-star and musical guest throughout the NBC years and up through the unorthodox ABC game show, Take A Good Look. Her rendition of Davy Crockett, King Of The Wild Frontier in the style of Marilyn Monroe never fails to get me ROFL.
Here's The Ernie Kovacs Show from July 2, 1956
And July 16, 1956
And July 30, 1956
And August 6 1956
And September 3, 1956
Too bad Kovacs' 1954 DuMont Network programs (as well as that elusive February 22, 1953 episode of The Colgate Comedy Hour starring The Ritz Brothers) remain lost kinescopes.
