![]() ![]() THE NAIROBI TRIO: (Singing) Do, mi, so, do.īIANCULLI: And finally, on his various variety shows, Ernie Kovacs also served as host, talking directly and casually to the viewers at home and sometimes acting as a sort of on-air TV critic. His fast-paced shows included what essentially were early music videos, and the most famous recurring bit of his entire career featured him and two co-conspirators - usually Edie Adams, sometimes Jack Lemmon - dressed in gorilla costumes and wearing derbies and fancy overcoats, always pretending to play the same obscure Italian instrumental, "Solfeggio." This unlikely musical group was billed as The Nairobi Trio. Kovacs also loved music and championed everything from classical and jazz to nonsense and novelty tunes. ![]() One classic example reprinted in the book - question can fried chicken be eaten with the fingers? Answer no, fried chicken should be eaten by itself. He portrayed several different offbeat and endearing characters, including the poet Percy Dovetonsils and the always-unpredictable Answer Man, who replied to what he claimed were questions sent in by viewers. ![]() ![]() He played with the technical possibilities of TV like no one else in the 1950s and early '60s. They met in 1950, when she was hired for his first TV program, a local show for what is now KYW in Philadelphia.Įrnie Kovacs made TV shows for various networks from then until his death in 1962, and all of them were brilliant and unique. Kovacs himself married Edie Adams, a singer and comedian who also was a Kovacs co-star. He also, just to drop one more name, married Jolene Brand, one of the members of the Kovacs TV comedy troupe. Schlatter, in his new memoir, freely concedes that he patterned "Laugh-In" after the wildly unpredictable comedy shows of Ernie Kovacs. But "Still Laughing" is an entertaining read because of the sheer weight of the names he drops - Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, Lucille Ball and Cher - not to mention, though he certainly does mention, all that talent he shot to stardom on "Laugh-In," including Lily Tomlin, Goldie Hawn and Tiny Tim.īut even Schlatter might agree that "Ernie In Kovacsland," just published by Fantagraphics Books, is the more important and innovative book here. His memoir is a conventional treatment, a basic compendium of stories he's polished over decades about entertainers he's known and worked with. One book is an autobiography by producer George Schlatter, the creator of "Rowan And Martin's Laugh-In." The other is a lavishly designed coffee table book dedicated to one of TV's first and most forgotten creative geniuses and true visionaries, Ernie Kovacs.ĭAVID BIANCULLI, BYLINE: George Schlatter's book, which was published July 11 by The Unnamed Press, is called "Still Laughing: A Life In Comedy." And it's been a long Life. Instead, he's looking at two new books about television, specifically about some very vintage TV shows and personalities. Today our TV critic David Bianculli isn't looking at television. Other ISBN ranges for Compendium Inc: Compendium Inc (978-1-920153-.) Compendium Inc - books from this publisher (ISBNs begin with 978-1-888387) Compendium Inc ![]()
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