Early Kovacs

Perhaps excepting Fred Allen, no one worked harder or more devotedly at his craft than Ernie Kovacs, wrote reporter Hal Humphrey after Kovacs’ stunning death in a car accident in January 1962.

Much was written at the time about him and his innovative approach to television comedy. Much was written later about where television comedy might have gone had he lived. But like many in TV, Kovacs had come out of radio and moved into the new medium with everyone else. He began in his hometown of Trenton, New Jersey in the 1940s then landed on television on an NBC affiliate in Philadelphia—doing a morning wake-up show. He was silly, irreverent and imaginative. His show wasn’t for everyone, but the TV critic for the Philadelphia Inquirer loved him.

And maybe was inspired by him. I love the critic’s the-hell-with-it attitude and turned what was supposed to be a review of the Doodles Weaver Show into another look at Kovacs, who had been handed a night-time show called “Ernie in Kovacs Land” on the local station.

We’ll get to that in a moment. First, his column on April 17, 1951 dealing with Kovacs’ morning show. It gives you a good idea of what he was doing on the air at the time.

'Early Birds' Fly to Dials For Kovacs' Video Show
By Merrill Panitt
Somewhere between 35,000 and 60,000 television sets in the Philadelphia area flip on about 7:30 in the morning these weekdays to catch a program on WPTZ entitled, "Three to Get Ready."
This proves that either some people are so anxious to watch TV that they'll get up out of a sound sleep to turn on their receivers, or that the program is really worth watching. In either case, this early bird TV viewing has been going on since last November, and a whole flock of sponsors apparently agree with WPTZ that before, during and after-breakfast television has a future.
FORMER ANNOUNCER
The rather odd character who runs this show is Ernie Kovacs, a 32-year-old former radio announcer from Trenton. Kovacs stands 6 feet 2 1/2 inches in his stocking feet—and you're just as liable to see him in his stocking feet as not on the show. He weighs about 230, has a black pencil-line moustache and a shock of wavy black hair, and is only slightly less inhibited than a bunch of 3-year-olds let loose in a candy factory.
Often as not, the program opens with a shot of Kovacs walking up 17th st. on his way to the studio, for which a camera points out the window and follows Ernie as he stops to buy a paper, have his shoes shined, or complete whatever other delaying action suits his mood of the moment.

CLUTTERED DESK
Once in the studio, Kovacs sits behind a cluttered desk and makes like a disc jockey. At all times during the show a clock is superimposed over the lower left quarter of the picture. A sign on the desk gives the weather forecast and the temperature. As records are played, the name of the song and star are on a piece of paper hanging at the right lower quarter of the picture. Above this mass of information Kovacs capers.
If he feels like it, he'll pantomime the song. Sometimes he'll get out some puppets and have them act out the number. He's got a big stuffed dummy of a little girl with whom he argues—the girl being the recorded voice of Bugs Bunny or whoever else happens to be in the transcription file.
FIGHT COWBOY BADDIES
Sometimes Kovacs will get himself into an argument with cowboy baddies. The screen will show film of baddies riding over a hill, and Ernie will pick them off, one by one, with his cap pistol. You see baddies riding, then Ernie shooting, then baddies falling. Sometimes they shoot back at him, but so far he's escaped serious injury.
It was touch and go one morning when Ernie had a big fight with the lady dummy. They fought all over the studio, up into the catwalks, high above the cameras. Ernie finally won, and he threw the lady down to the studio floor, 20 feet below. She survived.
ENJOYED BY HOUSEWIVES
They say kids love Kovacs, and housewives think he's wonderful. Some people who used to wake up with a growl say Kovacs is as good as that first cup of coffee for setting them right.
It's kind of a strange show. I'd like to review it some time, but who can tell whether it's good or bad so early in the morning?

In 1951, television copied radio in that the big shows had summer replacement series. Sid Caesar did was one. So Doodles Weaver was brought in to fill June-July-August with a variety show put together on the cheap. He was no Sid Caesar and he was no Ernie Kovacs, as this column of July 12, 1951 attests.

Doodles Weaver Show Rapped as Amateurish
By Merrill Panitt
This was originally intended to be a review of the Doodles Weaver Show. Unfortunately, all I can think to say about the thing is that NBC ought to be ashamed of itself for putting on such a hodgepodge.
A great big network like that must have a carload of bright, new ideas in its files and shouldn't have to stoop to such a hodge-podge of amateurish blackouts many of which I've seen performed more capably by Boy Scouts around a camp-fire and so-so variety acts.
COULD BLAME IT ON HEAT
The only possible excuses for the Doodles Weaver Show are the heat, the absence on vacation of most of the network's big brains, or the work of the master salesman who must have peddled the thing. I've seen test patterns that were more entertaining than the Doodles Weaver Show.
Ernie Kovacs, despite the number of interruptions forced on him, is running a right amusing program these evenings at seven, the half hour has been split into two segments, and each segment has an opening, two breaks for commercials, and a closing. In between the segments there's a station break.
INGENUITY DISPLAYED

Anyone else beset by such obstacles (Jack E. Leonard has four breaks an hour on Broadway Open House and he weeps bitterly when he speaks of them) would give up any hope of having continuity. Before each break Ernie has a man sneaking on to yell, "Don't Nobody Move!" and everyone freezes. After the commercials the cameras return, and with a shout of "Reeeezoom" the action goes on. It almost makes the commercials (and WPTZ has a real, honest-to-gosh paid one coming up next week) part of the program.
It's pretty hard to describe what Ernie actually does. He may haul a cow into the studio and demonstrate cuts of meat. He may go into dialect, or put on a Private Eye Mystery to end all such P.E.M.'s, or toss firecrackers at the Tony DiSamone Trio. The important thing is the general effect of a pleasant half hour guaranteed to produce a few chuckles and maybe even a belly-laugh from time to time.
COOPERATION ACCLAIMED
There's a lot of by-play with cameras, and often there are tricks the cameramen must spend hours working up. It's good to see a show that succeeds because of the cooperation between performer and technicians, and Ernie's the first to give credit to the men who work with him.
This esprit de corps is evident to an even greater extent during his early morning Three to Get Ready program. As an example, sound man Bill Hoffman has lifted the phrase, "I wouldn't say that," from a Bugs Bunny record and it.
He also has records of Ernie saying, "Think of me, I need the money."
So while Ernie is delivering a commercial in the morning, he may praise a sponsor's pineapple juice to the sky, only to hear Bugs Bunny interrupt with, "I wouldn't say that." Or if Ernie extolls the virtues of a vacuum cleaner and is being unus-all-y sincere, he's liable to hear his own voice saying, "Think of me, I need the money."
"Hoffman sits there like a fiend," Ernie says, "and I never know what he'll do to me next."
As I said earlier, this was supposed to be a review of the Doodles Weaver show, but we got off on this subject of Ernie Kovacs. He's good, Kovacs, that is. And even though he's looking forward to the return of Kukla, Fran and Ollie, and a chance to play some golf again, I rather hope the network gives him a regular evening spot without all those interruptions come fall.

Kovacs’ sojourn in Philadelphia was reasonably short. In 1952, he was off to New York and, eventually, network stardom and an Emmy in 1962 that he never lived to collect.