Talk:Ernie Kovacs

Radio Show???
Didn't he have a radio show in NYC??? I'm sure I was a member of EEFMS - The Early Eyeball Fraternal & Marching Society.TRIKER1 (talk) 22:13, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

He sure did! I was his biggest fan. I was in High School in New City, NY (in Rockland county north of NYC) and would listen to the Ernie Kovaks Show in the early mornings whenever I could. I still have my red E.E.F.M.S. member card. I was told Kovacs had a home in Rockland County at the time. He also wrote hilarious articles for Mad Magazine in the 50's.71.50.97.138 (talk) 03:00, 24 June 2016 (UTC)

Kovacs started in radio. He started on WTTM (Trenton, NJ) with a night music show which he gradually turned to interviews and humor. He later went on to host "Coffee with Kovacs," a week-day morning show. Kovacs also covered news for WTTM with a primitive tape recorder housed in a "mobile unit" which was a delivery truck containing the recorder, a desk, and a power converter to power the recorder. In the late 40s he was on "The Talk of the Town." In one notable instance he arrived at the seen of a mass shooting by an Army veteran in time to interview witnesses. His news reporting resulted in Kovacs receiving the H. P. Davis broadcast journalism award. Ernie's exposure on WTTM led to his working TV on WPTZ (Channel 3, Philadelphia, PA). WPTZ was a NBC Television affiliate. WPTZ had started in 1932 as one of the earliest experimental TV stations of the Philco Corporation, W3XE. W3XE was first to broadcast a night football game (1939) and was the first TV station to give major coverage of a political convention (1940 Republican Convention). The station became WPTZ, the second commercial TV station in the nation, in 1941, and continued it's role of broadcasting innovation (for example the first use of multiple cameras to cover a baseball game). Kovacs became an announcer broadcasting wrestling matches. On March 20, 1950 the host of the "Deadline for Dinner" show failed to show up and with 5 minutes to spare Kovacs was given the job of hosting the show. The stage manager, Andy McKay, put on his headphones, pointed at Kovscs, and said "You're on Ernie. Kovac's career in television was off and running. (Kovacs dubbed the show "Dead Lion for Dinner.") Mark Lincoln (talk) 19:34, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

Notes & external links
We need to agree on what stays and what goes in these sections and get what stays in "Notes" worked into other sections so the "Notes" section disappears totally.

Notes

Kovacs is sometimes credited with saying, "Television: a medium, so-called because it is neither rare nor well done," but the actual quip originated with radio legend Fred Allen on the premiere of Tallulah Bankhead's radio variety program, The Big Show, on 5 November 1950: "You know, television is a new medium, and I have discovered why it's called a medium—because nothing is well done."

Kovacs frequently played gin with other entertainment friends such as Jack Lemmon, who called Kovacs and Walter Matthau two of the worst card players he had ever known. (Think I will eventually be able to get into this with refs.)

Although Kovacs was a longtime spokesman for Dutch Masters cigars (resulting in some of the most creative and humorous commercials of the time), in real life, Ernie only smoked expensive Havana cigars, as many as 20 per day at a cost of $2.00 each (approximately $18 apiece in 2008 prices). (Think I will eventually be able to get into this with refs.)

The day he died, he met Julian Koenig to discuss his job as spokesman for Dutch Masters. He dropped off Koenig at the airport and then went to the party at Berle's house. Koenig found out the next morning when he arrived in New York that Kovacs had been killed. (Think I will eventually be able to get into this with refs.)

Ernie was a night owl and insomniac, surviving on no more than 3 or 4 hours sleep at night, and often much less than that (sometimes no sleep at all if a good card game was in progress). He credited frequent steambaths, followed by a cold swim underwater in a pool, for invigorating him and keeping him going when his energy lagged.(Think I will eventually be able to get into this with refs.)

Kovacs had some success in radio. He was morning man at WABC, New York City in 1955.(Think I will eventually be able to get into this with refs.) Kovacs' search for his kidnapped daughters is the primary focus of the 1984 made-for-television movie Ernie Kovacs: Between the Laughter. (Think we have covered this but would put the IMDB link into that section.)

Kovacs is also the subject of a play, The Importance of Being Ernie by multimedia artist Sean Sanczel.

What can we cut out of links?

We hope (talk) 00:18, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

The actual Kovacs quote was: "Television is called a medium because it is seldom rare or well done." - Ernie Kovacs & Early TV Comedy, Andrew Horton, University of Texas Press, Austin, TX, 2010, pg xiv. Mark Lincoln (talk) 18:04, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Ernie Kovacs. Please take a moment to review my edit. You may add after the link to keep me from modifying it, if I keep adding bad data, but formatting bugs should be reported instead. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether, but should be used as a last resort. I made the following changes:
 * Attempted to fix sourcing for http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/E/htmlE/ErnieKovaksShow/erkovacshow.htm

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 10:36, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 5 one external links on Ernie Kovacs. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Corrected formatting/usage for http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DE1DA173CF93BA35750C0A961948260
 * Corrected formatting/usage for http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D07E2D91539F934A25752C1A964948260
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20140111113337/http://www.emmys.tv/awards/hall-fame/hall-fame-archives-honorees to http://www.emmys.tv/awards/hall-fame/hall-fame-archives-honorees
 * Corrected formatting/usage for http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/15987/Ernie-Kovacs-Between-the-Laughter/overview
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090105200357/http://www.erniekovacs.info:80/ to http://www.erniekovacs.info

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 00:30, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

Excessive "influenced by" in the lede
In the lede, we have entities influenced by Kovaks as:
 * Johnny Carson, Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, Saturday Night Live, Monty Python, David Letterman, Chevy Chase, Conan O’Brien, Captain Kangaroo, Dave Garroway, Sam and Friends, The Goodies, Jimmy Kimmel, The Muppets, Sesame Street, The Electric Company, Uncle Floyd, The Wallace and Ladmo Show, You Can't Do That on Television, The Amanda Show, Mystery Science Theater 3000.

To my mind this is excessive for the lede. Wishing to pare it back, I removed these, which had been recently added by an editor:
 * Sam and Friends, The Goodies, Jimmy Kimmel, The Muppets, Sesame Street, The Electric Company, Uncle Floyd, The Wallace and Ladmo Show, You Can't Do That on Television, The Amanda Show, Mystery Science Theater 3000

For a number of reasons. First of all, these are not in the online refs. 5 of the 7 refs are online, but two aren't (TV Guide: the official collector's guide and page 202 of The Ernie Kovacs Phile).

Normally I'd assume that these are in the two offline refs... except they were all added in without adding another ref, which doesn't prove they aren't in the existing refs, but its a common rookie mistake to add in unref'd material on top of an existing ref (this is a new editor), so...

Anyway, accuracy aside, most of the removed entries are obscure (The Wallace and Ladmo Show being a local show, and so forth), and some of these strike me as a stretch (Sesame Street, really?) although of course that doesn't prove anything.

But the editor is apparently wanting to keep these. I invite her or anyone else to comment. IMO if we really do want to keep all these, we seriously need to move them into an separate section out of the lede. Herostratus (talk) 04:29, 26 March 2017 (UTC)
 * The other editor not engaging, I again removed this material. Herostratus (talk) 07:26, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Well done; agree on each point. 2nd PP nonsense copy: "received Emmy nominations...his talent was not recognized formally". WP.so.lame. Sadsaque (talk) 17:41, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 8 external links on Ernie Kovacs. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Corrected formatting/usage for https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DE1DA173CF93BA35750C0A961948260
 * Corrected formatting/usage for https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D07E2D91539F934A25752C1A964948260
 * Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.emmys.tv/awards/hall-fame/hall-fame-archives-honorees
 * Corrected formatting/usage for https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE4DE133FF930A25756C0A966958260&scp=4
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110314083350/http://www.erniekovacs.info/JoeMikolas.html to http://www.erniekovacs.info/JoeMikolas.html
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110314083420/http://www.erniekovacs.info/percy_d.html to http://www.erniekovacs.info/percy_d.html
 * Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.erniekovacs.info/
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20141213201422/http://www.johnbarboursworld.com/kovacs.html to http://www.johnbarboursworld.com/kovacs.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 10:02, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on Ernie Kovacs. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110727213132/http://ftp.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F2/355/355.F2d.349.19953_1.html to http://ftp.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F2/355/355.F2d.349.19953_1.html
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110117025038/http://www.shoutfactorystore.com/prod.aspx?pfid=5257356 to http://www.shoutfactorystore.com/prod.aspx?pfid=5257356

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 21:25, 5 December 2017 (UTC)