Ernie Kovacs: Encyclopedia II - Ernie Kovacs - Writing TV and Movie Credits

Ernie Kovacs - Writing TV and Movie Credits

Kovacs wrote a novel entitled, ZOOMAR (A Sophisticated Novel About Love and TV) in 1956, published by Doubleday. While he worked on several other projects in book form, his only other published title was "How To Talk At Gin", published posthumously in 1962. During 1955-1958 he wrote for Mad Magazine, including the recurring "Strangely Believe It!" (a parody of Ripley's Believe It or Not! that also was featured on Kovacs' TV show) and "Gringo," a board game with ridiculously complicated rules that was renamed "Droongo" for the TV show.

His television programs included Three to Get Ready (local Philadelphia TV, 1950-1952), Time for Ernie in 1951, Ernie in Kovacsland in 1951, The Ernie Kovacs Show in 1952, The Tonight Show (as a 2-day per week substitute for Steve Allen) from 1956 to 1957, and the game show Take a Good Look from 1959 to 1961. He also did several TV specials, including the famous "Silent Show" in 1959, and a series of monthly half-hour specials for ABC in 1961-62. (These last shows, done on videotape and utilizing unprecedented editing and special effects techniques for the time, are said by many to be his best TV work.) Kovacs' comedic style was lost on many 1950's TV viewers, who were used to a steady diet of bland sitcoms and variety shows. (His pal Jack Lemmon said that no one ever understood his work because "he was always 15 years ahead of everyone else.") Consequently, while he always had a small, hard-core fan base who "got" what he was trying to do, he never had a long-lasting or highly-rated TV series.

In the last few years of his life, Kovacs found modest success as a character actor in Hollywood movies, often being typecast as a swarthy military officer in such films as Operation Mad Ball and Our Man in Havana. But he also garnered critical acclaim for such roles as the perennially inebriated writer in Bell, Book and Candle and as the cartoonishly evil head of a railroad company in It Happened to Jane. His own personal favorite film was the offbeat Five Golden Hours (1961), in which he portrayed a larcenous professional mourner who meets his match in professional widow Cyd Charisse.

Shortly before his death, Kovacs had been slated to appear as Melville Crump in Stanley Kramer's star-packed comedy It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, along with real-life spouse Edie Adams portraying his screen wife Monica Crump. The role eventually went to comedian Sid Caesar.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Writing TV and Movie Credits", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki