Still enjoying 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, watches and loves 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.
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.
In closing, here's KOVACS ON MUSIC, the Association For Recorded Sound Collections' centenary tribute to Ernie, presented by Kovacs-philes Seth B. Winner and Ben Model.
"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". No one has even come close.
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 remain lost kinescopes. At least Ernie Kovacs' 1961 ABC specials exist; these 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).
Following the last post, which celebrated the birthday of Bill Scott and the amazing work of Jay Ward Productions (Rocky & Bullwinkle, Fractured Fairy Tales), am wondering if there were any animated TV series, even one, that proved fundamentally satiric in tone in the same sense as the Jay Ward Productions shows.
Bob Clampett Productions’ Beany & Cecil was contemporaneous with the aforementioned Jay Ward TV series, but not necessarily satiric in approach, the creative use of genius monologuist/performer/vocalist Lord Buckley in the following cartoon notwithstanding.
Until a group of animated TV series that premiered in the late 1980's - the Ralph Bakshi produced Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures and The Simpsons, soon followed by King Of The Hill, The Critic - it’s tough to think of any highly satiric 1960's and 1970's TV-toons offhand other than those of Jay Ward Productions, except one. . . Pantomime Pictures’ Roger Ramjet, created by former UPA director Fred Crippen.
Gene Moss and Jim Thurman were the writers of the series. Paul Shively wrote the lyrics for the show's theme song. The show featured a very talented cast and crew.
The last time Roger Ramjet received a TV run was on Cartoon Network in the latter 1990's.
Both silly and satiric, this series, starring a nincompoop superhero much funnier than live-action TV's Mr. Terrific and Captain Nice, clearly regards treating the "we have no budget for animation, NONE, so let's write incredibly witty scripts in mass quantities and get a crew of very talented comic actors to put 'em over" reality as a mission - and remains one of our favorites at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog.
Thinking of Roger Ramjet brings to mind the topic of today's post, Gene Moss and Jim Thurman, the two excellent comedians and voice-over actors who wrote many episodes of the series, and, along with fellow voice artists Gary Owens, Joan Gerber, Dick Beals and Bob Arbogast, got big laughs.
Typically, the usual gang of idiots at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog start posts by asking if anyone has penned books, articles or blog posts on today's topic. Comics artist and writer/director Mark Evanier wrote two very good articles about Thurman and Moss, Roger and Me and Gene Moss and Shrimpenstein, on his News From Me website.
Along with Mr. Evanier, rating high among the usual suspects regarding who has authored pieces on topics we like very much would be Don M. Yowp, Devon Baxter, Steve Stanchfield and especially WFMU's Beware Of The Blog.
WFMU, consistently a source of rather amazing material on many topics way back in the oughts, not at all surprisingly, posted the comprehensive Spooky and Kooky: The Career of Gene Moss. Even less surprisingly, the author of the piece is Kliph Nesteroff, chronicler of American standup comedy, mid-20th century pop culture (including roadside hotels) and Canadian culture par excellence.
From Kliph's article, we see that Gene Moss, among numerous showbiz accomplishments, was responsible for the very entertaining DRACULA’S GREATEST HITS album.
Asking what Moss and Thurman did after 156 episodes of Roger Ramjet and Dracula’s Greatest Hits brings us to The Shrimpenstein Show (1967) an extremely funny and original piece of kidvid produced for KHJ-TV (channel 9 Los Angeles), featuring Gene Moss as Dr. Rudolph Von Schtick and Jim Thurman as Shrimpenstein. The puppet was designed by the legendary Wah Chang. There was even a record, Dr. Von Schtick and The Tijuana Bats, associated with the show.
Produced by Michael Dormer and Lee Teacher, the series, in the Jay Ward Productions and Pantomime Pictures tradition, is designed as much to make the cast and grownups laugh as their kids. Don’t know how long The Shrimpenstein Show was on the air in 1967-1968, but it definitely and emphatically bears the signature of the guys who wrote the Roger Ramjet cartoons. Here is one of the few complete episodes we found posted on YouTube, Daily Motion, Archive.org, Vimeo, etc.
Jim Thurman subsequently worked for many years for Sesame Street and the Children's Television Workshop. Producers of Sesame Street for PBS worked within those rules estabished by Action On Children's Television as best as possible, as did the Schoolhouse Rock series. Thurman and Moss contributed to one of the Children's Television Workshop's very best series, Square One Television, which taught basic math concepts a la Schoolhouse Rock. While generally going more with more sketches than animated cartoons, Square One TV did feature an animated segment that the Roger Ramjet crew - everyone from director Fred Crippen to many of the show's voice artists - worked on. That would be Dirk Niblick of the Math Brigade!
Closing today's post: the question of whether there were any precedents to The Shrimpenstein! Show. The only one I can think of is Ernie Kovacs’ The Kapusta Kid in Outer Space. This Kovacs kidvid adventure aired on his NBC show on December 19, 1955. Wonder if Gene and Jim knew Ernie; they were on a similar wave length.
Thinking of one of the greatest comedians and comic minds of the 20th century today. With the exception of the Termite Terrace boys, he's the individual cited most often here at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog: the one, the only, the innovative, the unimaginably imaginative Ernie Kovacs.
We'll start with a clip from Ernie's first version of The Silent Show.
We raise that, from the NBC Kovacs shows, with Ernie's Howdy Doody sendup, The Howdy Deedy Show, featuring hard-drinking host Miklos Molnar.
LOVE the greatest children's show ever, "The Kapusta Kid in Outer Space," seen here on the NBC Morning Show that aired on December 19, 1955.
Amazingly, 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.
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
Have binge-watched Kovacs Corner, the YouTube channel of diehard comedy, classic movies and classic television enthusiast Richard Olko, on numerous occasions.
There is also a YouTube channel entitled Free The Kinescopes! Don't know who specifically is responsible for this portal, which includes literally hundreds of TV Shows, some dating as far back as the late 1940's.
Comedy geeks will be ecstatic perusing the numerous Ed Wynn, Jack Benny, Red Skelton, Sid Caesar, Olsen & Johnson, Uncle Miltie, Johnny Carson, Jack Parr and Ernie Kovacs shows on the Free The Kinescopes! channel, but disappointed that 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.
Immersion in the stand-up comedy of fallen heroes Gilbert and Bob lately has led, like a gateway drug, to today's Cornucopia of Clips focusing on sketch comedy.
With a note to blog readers that the Blogmeister is dealing with a host of challenging computer problems entirely of his own making, as well as the fact that Blogger does not have a functioning "Preview" (enabling one to actually see a post before it has been published), we kick this off with Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca on Admiral Broadway Revue and Your Show Of Shows.
And then there's Ernie Kovacs, remembered best for his remarkably inventive work, in front of and behind the camera, on his own TV shows. He was out of the box, WAY out of the box, but always the master of the "orthicon tube".
Across the pond from Ernie and a few years later, there was the one, the only Marty Feldman!
And, speaking of the Brits, there's Spike Milligan, co-creator of "The Goon Show."
Very likely the first time Americans saw Spike Milligan was on the short-lived but glorious 1970 sketch comedy show, The Marty Feldman Comedy Machine.
Spike co-starred and wrote sketches with an all-star crew including Marty and Barry Levinson.
Like Marty Feldman, he was a trumpet player who, instead of leading a British bebop big band, became a comedian.
The musical nature of Spike's writing proved a constant in his career as a performer and author.
The gang at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog, who do not consider it a stretch at all to compare Bob Odenkirk's comedy style to Spike Milligan, has been watching and listening to various interviews from the former Saturday Night Live, Ben Stiller Show and Mr. Show writer from his current book tour, including the April 17 appearance on Al Franken's podcast. Bob Odenkirk, on said book tour, is interviewed here by none other than the great Jack Black.
In the 21st century known for adding a wry sensibility to provocative, hard-hitting, tough-as-nails dramas (Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul) and unconventional action hero thrillers (Nobody), Bob Odenkirk began his career in the 1980's writing comedy sketches with Second City. We know him well from his role as Winston Deaver in Disney/Pixar's Incredibles 2.
Also know Mr. Odenkirk from his years writing for Saturday Night Live, along with a crew that included Conan O'Brien and Robert Smigel. The most famous SNL sketch he wrote would be the following.
In 1995-1998, Odenkirk and David Cross, supported by a host of comedy luminaries (John Ennis. Jay Johnston, Paul F. Tompkins, Jill Talley, Tom Kenny, Brian Posehn among the continuing players, Dino Stamatopoulos, Sarah Silverman and Jack Black as guest stars) produced four seasons of Mr. Show with Bob & David.
Mr. Show with Bob & David could be described as an American version of the kind of humor exemplified by the Pythons, especially in the movie Monty Python's The Meaning Of Life.
The Story Of Everest and Megaphone Crooners sketches would be this blogger's favorites.
Quite a few Mr. Show episodes are up on YouTube in their entirety.
Our favorite examples of the exceedingly vivid imagination of Ernie Kovacs at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog remain 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.
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.
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!
For more, check out the following interview with Josh Mills, Edie's son and a historian/archivist, among the prime movers responsible for preserving Ernie's work and making it available on DVD, on The Bob Cesca Show.
Thinking about Jackie Robinson and watching the documentary about his life that aired on PBS last week brings to mind baseball movies, as well as the question of why Your Correspondent does not have a Blu-ray of Pride Of The Yankees.
There are a zillion baseball flicks, many of which this classic movie obsessed MLB geek has not seen, listed in detail on the Boston Baseball website. Today's post will not get into latter-day baseball movies, even some pretty darn good ones with a 20th century pedigree - although it's a good bet I will be watching the following films again before the MLB season ends.
Other writers, especially the late Roger Ebert, have covered this territory quite well. That said, what Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog will get into, as usual, is curios, cartoons, comedies, short subjects and, as inevitably as death and taxes, trailers.
And, of course, commercials.
While the greatest film about the national pastime ever made, hands-down, is Baseball Bugs, just one among several devastatingly funny cartoons Isadore "Friz" Freleng and his crew at Warner Brothers produced that year, the very first baseball movie this writer ever saw was the following Fleischer Studios cartoon, The Twisker Pitcher. This confirms that Popeye The Sailor had a helluva screwball and would easily command 30+ million buckaroos a year in 2016!
Neither offering that wonderful gritty New York City factor seen to great advantage in 1930's Fleischer cartoons nor quite as hilarious as Baseball Bugs but still damn funny, is Tex Avery's twisted take on "play ball", Batty Baseball.
It's a good bet Tex saw Goofy in How To Play Baseball and concluded that he could top it.
When the topic of baseball comes up, the first person from the world of entertainment one thinks of is Buster Keaton.
Knowing Buster's love of the game, it seems rather amazing that Buster did not devote an entire feature film to baseball. Hollywood legend has it that the first question in a job interview with Buster Keaton Productions was "do you play baseball?" One imagines an incredible action-packed comedy feature co-starring Buster with his mentor Roscoe Arbuckle, Roscoe's ever-acrobatic and quadruple-jointed nephew, Al St. John, and the ever-menacing Big Joe Roberts as the umpire.
That said, this entry from Buster's mid-1930's series of Educational Pictures comedy shorts, One Run Elmer, threadbare budget notwithstanding, has its charms. It's impossible for Keaton to be anything but fascinating onscreen.
Another baseball loving movie comedian was Joe E. Brown.
Joe both worked as a broadcaster for the New York Yankees and starred in two immensely entertaining baseball comedies, Elmer The Great and Alibi Ike.
Another beloved comedian was Shemp Howard, who, between stints as one of The Three Stooges, may well have been the hardest working man in showbiz at Vitaphone. Here's the opening from Dizzy and Daffy, a Vitaphone 2-reeler intended to spotlight St. Louis Cardinal stars and "Gas House Gang" luminaries Jerome and Paul Dean. Although Shemp shares the film with both the MLB stars and stuttering comic Roscoe Ates (a funny guy but no Mel Blanc), he is a riot, as usual, as a nearsighted pitcher.
When it came to comedy, as a Stooge or a supporting player with the likes of W.C. Fields, Olsen & Johnson and Abbott & Costello, Shemp Howard unquestionably had The Right Stuff. Another superb comedian with The Right Stuff was Ernie Kovacs, who shall prepare yours truly for Giants vs. Dodgers later tonight and be our intimidating flame-throwing "closer" for today's post. Play Ball!
Our love for the incredible Ernie Kovacs and Edie Adams being well documented, the comedy-crazed crew at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog is ecstatic to see articles from Broadway World and The Hollywood Reporter announcing that the intrepid film preservation gurus of The Library Of Congress have acquired the Ernie Kovacs and Edie Adams collection from Edie's son, Josh Mills.
The Ernie and Edie material will join rare videotapes and kinescopes from such luminaries as Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, Groucho Marx, Danny Kaye, Johnny Carson, Jerry Lewis and Bob Hope.
Your Correspondent, seriously lacking writing mojo today, shall quote the press releases:
"The Library of Congress is the ideal place for the Ernie Kovacs and Edie Adams Collection, because both are synonymous with television history and the preservation of American popular culture," Mills said.
"It's immensely gratifying that Edie's dedication to preserving the history of Ernie's pioneering genius in television will ensure that both of their work will live on for generations to enjoy."
"The Ernie Kovacs and Edie Adams Collection is an especially welcome acquisition for us," said Mike Mashon, head of the Library's Moving Image Section.
"We're very proud of our humor collections and we're always looking to expand our holdings in early television. With Ernie Kovacs and Edie Adams, we accomplish both."
The collection includes more than 1,200 audiovisual items, documenting some of Kovacs' and Adams' earliest work in television.
Highlights include:
2" videotape masters of all eight of Kovacs' monthly specials for ABC (1961-1962)
35 mm kinescopes of 74 episodes of Kovacs' morning show for NBC (1956)
2" videotape masters of 35 episodes of "Take a Good Look," Kovacs' tongue-in-cheek panel quiz show (ABC, 1959-1961)
Original 16 mm elements of Kovacs' silent-movie spoof "The Mysterious Knockwurst," made for his CBS morning show in 1953
2" videotape masters of all 21 episodes of "Here's Edie" (ABC, 1962-1964)
Original 16 mm kinescopes for "Ernie in Kovacsland" (NBC, 1951)
Audio masters of a formerly unreleased Kovacs LP "Percy Dovetonsils...Thpeakth"
Test footage of matting effects for Ernie as "Superclod"
Once the processing procedures at LoC are completed, The Ernie Kovacs and Edie Adams Collection will be available to researchers in the Library's Motion Picture and Television Reading Room in Washington, D.C. And big time Kudos, Bravos and Huzzahs to that!
The cinema and pumpkin-crazed rapscallions at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog send our very wishes for a Happy Halloween.
We raise a hemlock-filled toast with the following snippets of celluloid, cartoon and video goodness, starring a veritable rogues' gallery of our very favorite artistes!
Today would have been the 96th birthday of Ernie Kovacs, comedy creator supreme, especially on television, sometimes in radio and writing.
Most importantly, Kovacs was the king of the "blackout" format, a.k.a. strings of ingenious sight gags, frequently set to music.
Ernie was also a very good character actor, as evidenced in the following wonderful soliloquy sketch (note: watch to the end, as the payoff is a thing of beauty).
While Ernie didn't get to write or direct movies, he did have some blazing moments as a character actor, many in features starring his chum and cohort Jack Lemmon.
Ernie Kovacs is remembered best for his remarkably inventive work, in front of and behind the camera, on his own TV shows. He was out of the box, WAY out of the box, but the master of the "orthicon tube".
It is also noteworthy that ubiquitous comic character actor Franklin Pangborn, paramount in Preston Sturges' stock company at Paramount, as well as tres cool silent film comedian Raymond "The Silk Hat Slicker" Griffith share January 23 birthdays with Ernie.
Thanks, Mr. Kovacs, for the laughs - and your creativity.
After 50+ years, one of the great television variety shows, Here's Edie has been released today on DVD and digital formats.
First and foremost, Edie Adams was a gifted and expressive singer. If one is unaffected by Edie's performance of That's All on The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour. . . well, that individual doesn't have a heart and needs to be checked for vital signs immediately!
As fate would have it, Edie Adams, the star of Wonderful Town, one of the greatest musical gals of Broadway just happened to fall in love with. . . maverick comedian, raconteur, director, writer, sight gag genius and television innovator Ernie Kovacs.
Ernie and Edie ended up working on recordings and television shows together through the 1950's.
As an intrepid troupe member on The Ernie Kovacs Show, she proved herself as outstanding as a comedienne as she was as a vocalist.
To this day, nobody has topped Edie's Marilyn Monroe impersonation.
One of Edie's greatest celluloid moments was her performance in the Kovacs On Music special.
Back to the Here's Edie and Edie Adams Show series, neither show has been seen in any format since their original broadcast in the 1960's.
Musical guest stars include Andre Previn, Lauritz Melchior, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Stan Getz, Laurindo Almeida, Spike Jones, Lionel Hampton, Woody Herman, Sammy Davis Jr., Bobby Darin, Johnny Mathis. Comedians include Bob Hope, Rowan & Martin, Soupy Sales along with her co-stars in It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World - Buddy Hackett, Dick Shawn and Terry-Thomas.
Inevitably, there will be classic Muriel Cigars commercials throughout.
Here's a classic Muriel Cigars commercial from a few years after Here's Edie and The Edie Adams Show.
Most noteworthy of all are the performances of Edie, a remarkable performer who nails everything from standards to Broadway with warmth, sensitivity and the skill of a classically trained singer.
Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog directs an extended tip of the Fred Astaire/Jimmie Hatlo top hat to Josh Mills (Edie's son, who has worked on preserving her television legacy much as she rescued tapes of the Ernie Kovacs Shows un the 1960's) for getting Here's Edie: The Edie Adams Television Collection over the goal line. Here's the lineup:
DISC ONE
Here's Edie Pilot Airdates: April 9, 1962, May 26, 1963 (as Special #7).
Guests: Dick Shawn, André Previn
Special #1 - "New York"
Airdate: October 23, 1962.
Guests: Duke Ellington and His Orchestra, Peter Falk, the Claremont String Quartet
Special #2 - "London"
Airdate: December 13, 1962
Guests: Sir Michael Redgrave, the Piccadilly Buskers, the Grenadier Guards, the Third Air Force Band, and the children of London.
Special #3 - "Bossa Nova"
Airdate: January 20, 1963
Guests: Stan Getz, Laurindo Almeida, the Roger Wagner Chorale, Jerry Fielding and His Orchestra (plus cameos by Don Rickles and Cesar Romero)
*Special #4 - "Las Vegas"
Airdate: February 26, 1963
Guests: Charlie Barnet, The Eligibles, the Earl Barton Dancers, Jerry Fielding and His Orchestra, Eddie Fisher
Special #5 - "Western"
Airdate: March 16, 1963
Guests: Hoagy Carmichael, Rowan & Martin, Hank Henry, the Homer Garrett Dancers, The Eligibles, Jerry Fielding and His Orchestra.
DISC TWO
*Special #6 - "Love"
Airdate: April 19, 1963
Guests: Buddy Hackett, The United Nations Children's Choir, Jerry Fielding and His Orchestra
Special #8 - "Bob Hope"
Airdate: June 18, 1963
Guests: Bob Hope, Lionel Hampton and His Orchestra, The United Nations Children's Choir, Jerry Fielding and His Orchestra
The Edie Adams Show (after the show returned from a summer break, it was given a new title.)
Special #1
Airdate: September 26, 1963
Guests: Zsa Zsa Gabor, Eddie Sauter, Stan Getz
Special #2 Airdate: October 10, 1963
Guests: Louis Nye, Maury Wills
Special #3
Airdate: October 24, 1963
Guests: Al Hirt, Nancy Wilson
EXTRAS
Sid Caesar and Edie Adams promos
Song performances from Ernie Kovacs shows:
"Would I Love You (Love You, Love You)"- Ernie in Kovacsland, July 6, 1951
"My Funny Valentine" - Ernie in Kovacsland, August 23, 1951
" 'S Wonderful" - Kovacs on the Corner, January 1952
"I Feel a Song Coming On" - Kovacs Unlimited, May 28, 1952
"Mississippi Mud" - The Ernie Kovacs Show, January 4, 1956
Marilyn sings "Ballad of Davy Crockett" - The Ernie Kovacs Show, January 4, 1956
"Paradise" - The Ernie Kovacs Show, January 23, 1956
"Get Happy" - The Ernie Kovacs Show, January 26, 1956
"A Sunday Kind of Love" - The Ernie Kovacs Show, January 30, 1956
DISC THREE
The Edie Adams Show (contd.)
Special #4
Airdate: November 7, 1963
Guests: Allan Sherman, The United Nations Children's Choir; plus regulars George Furth, Don Chastain, Peter Hanley
Special #5
Airdate: November 21, 1963
Guests: Don Chastain, John Hendricks, Lauritz Melchior, Count Basie and His Band; plus George Furth
Special #6
Airdate: December 5, 1963
Guests: Sammy Davis Jr., Mitzi McCall & Charlie Brill; plus Don Chastain, Peter Hanley
Special #7
Airdate: December 19, 1963
Guests: Rowan & Martin, André Previn; plus Don Chastain, Peter Hanley
Special #8
Airdate: January 2, 1964
Guests: Pete Fountain, Cliff Norton; plus Don Chastain, Peter Hanley
EXTRAS Song performances from Ernie Kovacs shows:
"Everything I Have Is Yours" - The Ernie Kovacs Show, April 12, 1956
"Dancing On The Ceiling" - The Ernie Kovacs Show, April 17, 1956
"Chicago" - The Ernie Kovacs Show, April 20, 1956
"I Could Have Danced All Night" - The Ernie Kovacs Show, April 26, 1956
"Moritat" - The Ernie Kovacs Show, May 8, 1956
"Honey Bun" - The Ernie Kovacs Show, May 17, 1956
"Summertime" - The Ernie Kovacs Show, June 12, 1956
DISC FOUR
The Edie Adams Show (contd.)
Special #9
Airdate: January 16, 1964
Guests: Terry-Thomas, Spike Jones,
Special #10
Airdate: February 6, 1964
Guest: Bobby Darin
Special #11
Airdate: February 20, 1964
Guests: Woody Herman and His Band, Jack Sheldon, Mitzi McCall & Charlie Brill
Special #12
Airdate: March 5, 1964
Guests: John Raitt, Louis Nye, Charlie Byrd, Mitzi McCall & Charlie Brill
Special #13
Airdate: March 18, 1964
Guests: Johnny Mathis, Soupy Sales, Alan Sues
EXTRAS
Muriel promotional film (1965)
Song performances from Ernie Kovacs shows:
"To Keep My Love Alive" - The Ernie Kovacs Show, June 27, 1956
"Take Me in Your Arms" - The Ernie Kovacs Show, July 24, 1956
Medley: "Lullaby of Broadway" & "42nd Street" - The Ernie Kovacs Show, August 27, 1956
