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A PA-302 General Precision Laboratories (GPL) kinescope (c.1950–1955). Its movie film camera, bolted to the top of the cabinet, used Kodak optics. (Photo: Peter Lindell, Canada Science and Technology Museum)

Kinescope ( /ˈkɪnɨskoʊp/), shortened to kine /ˈkɪniː/, also known as telerecording in Britain, is a recording of a television program made by filming the picture from a video monitor.

Typically, the term can refer to the process itself, the equipment used for the procedure (a 16 mm or 35 mm movie camera mounted in front of a video monitor, and synchronized to the monitor's scanning rate), or a film made using the process. Kinescopes were the only practical way to preserve live television broadcasts prior to the introduction of videotape in 1956. A small number of theatrically released feature films have also been produced as kinescopes.^{[citation needed]}

The term originally referred to the cathode ray tube used in television receivers, as named by inventor Vladimir K. Zworykin in 1929.^[1] Hence, the recordings were known in full as kinescope films. RCA was granted a trademark for the term (for its cathode ray tube) in 1932; it voluntarily released the term to the public domain in 1950. ^[2]

History[link]

The General Electric laboratories in Schenectady, New York experimented with making still and motion picture records of television images in 1931.^[3]

There is some evidence to suggest that the BBC experimented with filming the output of the television monitor before the television service was placed on hiatus in 1939 due to World War II. BBC executive Cecil Madden later recalled filming a production of The Scarlet Pimpernel in this way, only for film director Alexander Korda to order the burning of the negative as he owned the film rights to the book, which he felt had been infringed. However, the evidence for this is purely anecdotal, and indeed there is no written record of any BBC Television production of The Scarlet Pimpernel during the 1936–1939 period.

According to a 1949 film produced by RCA, silent films had been made of early experimental telecasts during the 1930s. The films were shot off television monitors at a speed of eight frames per second, resulting in somewhat jerky reproductions of the images. By the mid 1940s, RCA and NBC were refining the filming process and including sound; the images were less jerky but still somewhat fuzzy.^{[4][dead link]}

During World War II, television cameras were attached to American and German guided missiles to aid in their remote steering.^[5][6] Films were made of the television images they transmitted for further evaluation of the target and the missile's performance.^[7]

The first known surviving example of the telerecording process in Britain is from October 1947, showing the singer Adelaide Hall performing at the RadiOlympia event.^[8] The wedding of Princess Elizabeth to Prince Philip also survives, as do various early 1950s productions such as It is Midnight, Dr Schweitzer and the opening two episodes of The Quatermass Experiment, although in varying degrees of quality. A complete 7-hour set of telerecordings of Queen Elizabeth II's 1953 coronation also exists.^{[citation needed]}

Worldwide Program Distribution[link]

In the days before satellites, telerecordings were used to distribute live events such as a Royal Wedding as quickly as possible to other countries of the Commonwealth that had started a television service. An RAF aeroplane would fly the telerecording from the UK to Canada, where it would be broadcast over the whole North American network; for Australia, a second telerecording would be made in San Francisco and flown to Sydney for transmission. After being originally televised in 405 lines, telerecorded, scanned in 525 lines, telerecorded again, and then rescanned in 625 lines for local transmission, the quality would be terrible, but it could be broadcast only 18 hours after the event.

Even after the introduction of videotape, the BBC and the ITV companies made black and white telerecordings of selected programmes for international sales, and continued to do so until the early 1970s by which time programmes were being videotaped in colour. Most, if not all, videotapes from the 405-line era, have long-since been wiped, as have many from the introduction of 625-line video to the early days of colour. Consequently the majority of British shows that still exist before the introduction of colour, and a number thereafter, do so in the form of these telerecordings. A handful of shows, including some episodes of Doctor Who and most of the first series of Adam Adamant Lives!, were deliberately telerecorded for ease of editing rather than being videotaped.

Eastman Television Recording Camera[link]

In September 1947, Eastman Kodak introduced the Eastman Television Recording Camera, in cooperation with DuMont Laboratories, Inc. and NBC, for recording images from a television screen under the trademark "Kinephoto". Prior to the introduction of videotape in 1956, kinescopes were the only way to record television broadcasts, or to distribute network television programs that were broadcast live from New York or other originating cities, to stations not connected to the network, or to stations that wished to show a program at a different time than the network broadcast. Although the quality was less than desirable, television programs of all types from prestigious dramas to regular news shows were handled in this manner.

NBC, CBS, and DuMont set up their main kinescope recording facilities in New York City, while ABC chose Chicago. By 1951, NBC and CBS were each shipping out some 1,000 16mm kinescope prints each week to their affiliates across the United States, and by 1955 that number had increased to 2,500 per week for CBS.^[9] By 1954 the television industry’s film consumption surpassed that of all of the Hollywood studios combined.^[10][11]

"Hot kinescope"[link]

After the network of coaxial cable and microwave relays carrying programs to the West Coast was completed in September 1951,^[12] CBS and NBC in 1952 instituted a "hot kinescope" process in which shows being performed in New York were transmitted west, filmed on two kinescope machines in 35 mm negative and 16 mm reversal film (the latter for backup protection) in Los Angeles, rushed to film processing, and then transmitted from Los Angeles three hours later for broadcast in the Pacific Time Zone.^[13][14]

In September 1956, NBC began making color "hot kines" of some of its color programs using a lenticular film process which, unlike color negative film, could be processed rapidly using standard black-and-white methods.^[15][16]

Double system method of editing[link]

Even after the introduction of Quadruplex videotape machines in 1956 removed the need for "hot kines", the television networks continued to use kinescopes in the "double system" method of videotape editing. It was impossible to slow or freeze frame a videotape at that time, so the unedited tape would be copied to a kinescope, and edited conventionally. The edited kinescope print was then used to conform the videotape master. More than 300 videotaped network series and specials used this method over a 12-year period, including the fast-paced Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In.^[17]

History continues on the film recorder page.

Alternatives to kinescoping[link]

With the variable quality of Kinescopes, networks looked towards alternative methods to replace them with a higher degree of quality.

Change to 35 mm film broadcasts[link]

Filmed programs were also used in television’s early years, although they were generally considered inferior to the big-production "live" programs because of their lower budgets and loss of immediacy. This, however, was about to change.

In 1951, the stars and producers of the Hollywood-based television series I Love Lucy, Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball, decided to shoot their show directly onto 35 mm film using the three-camera system, instead of broadcasting it live. Normally, a live program originating from Los Angeles (for example, The Frank Sinatra Show) would be performed live in the late afternoon for the Eastern Time Zone, and seen on a kinescope three hours later in the Pacific Time Zone. But as an article in American Cinematographer explained,

In the beginning there was a very definite reason for the decision of Desilu Productions to put I Love Lucy on film instead of doing it live and having kinescope recordings carry it to affiliate outlets of the network. The company was not satisfied with the quality of kinescopes. It saw that film, produced especially for television, was the only means of ensuring top quality pictures on the home receiver as well as ensuring a flawless show.^[18]

The I Love Lucy decision introduced reruns to most of the American television audience, and set a pattern for the syndication of TV shows after their network runs (and later, for first-run airings via syndication) that still continues to this very day.

Electronicam[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

The program director of the short-lived DuMont Television Network, James L. Caddigan, devised an alternative — the Electronicam. In this, all the studio TV cameras had built-in 35 mm film cameras which shared the same optical path. An Electronicam technician threw switches to mark the film footage electronically, identifying the camera "takes" called by the director. The corresponding film segments from the various cameras then were combined by a film editor to duplicate the live program. The 39 syndicated episodes of The Honeymooners were filmed using Electronicam (as well as the daily five minute syndicated series Les Paul & Mary Ford At Home in 1954–55), but with the introduction of a practical videotape recorder only one year away, the Electronicam system never saw widespread use. The DuMont network did not survive into the era of videotape, and in order to gain clearances for its programs, was heavily dependent on kinescopes, which it called teletranscriptions.

Electronovision[link]

Attempts were made for many years to take television images, convert them to film via kinescope, then project them in theaters for paying audiences. In the mid-1960s, Producer/entrepreneur H. William "Bill" Sargent, Jr. used conventional analog Image Orthicon video camera tube units, shooting in the B&W 819-line interlaced 25fps French video standard, using modified high-band quadruplex VTRs to record the signal. The promotors of Electronovision (not to be confused with Electronicam) gave the impression that this was a new system created from scratch, using a high-tech name (and avoiding the word kinescope) to distinguish the process from conventional film photography. Nonetheless, the advances in picture quality were, at the time, a major step ahead. By capturing more than 800 lines of resolution at 25 frame/s, raw tape could be converted to film via kinescope recording with sufficient enhanced resolution to allow big-screen enlargement. The 1960s productions used Marconi image orthicon video cameras, which have a characteristic white "glow" around black objects (and a corresponding black glow around white objects), which was a defect of the pickup. Later vidicon and plumbicon video camera tubes produced much cleaner, more accurate pictures.

Videotape[link]

In 1951, singer Bing Crosby’s company Bing Crosby Enterprises made the first experimental magnetic video recordings; however, the poor picture quality and very high tape speed meant it would be impractical to use. In 1956, Ampex introduced the first commercial Quadruplex videotape recorder,^[11] followed in 1958 by a color model. Offering high quality and instant playback at a much lower cost, Quadruplex tape quickly replaced kinescope as the primary means of recording television broadcasts.^[11]

The last years of the kinescopes[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

The U.S. networks continued to make kinescopes of their daytime dramas (many of which still aired live into the late 1960s)^{[citation needed]} available as late as 1969 for their smaller network affiliates that did not yet have videotape capability but wished to time-shift the network programming. Some of these programs aired up to two weeks after their original dates, particularly in Alaska and Hawaii. Many episodes of programs from the 1960s survive only through kinescoped copies. The last 16 mm kinescopes of television programs ended in the late 1970s, as video tape recorders became more affordable.

In Australia, kinescopes were still being made of some evening news programs as late as 1977, if they were recorded at all.

In later years, film and television producers were often reluctant to include kinescope footage in anthologies, because of the "inferior" quality. While it is true that kinescopes did look inferior to live transmissions in the 1950s, it was due to the industry's technical limitations at that time. Even the best live transmission could look contrasty or hazy by the time it reached the home viewer. Advances in broadcast technology soon allowed for a wider gray scale in black-and-white, and a fuller spectrum of colors, making kinescopes a perfectly viable commodity. This was demonstrated in the feature film Ten from Your Show of Shows, a compilation of Sid Caesar kinescopes released to theaters. Reviewers were astonished at how good the kinescoped image looked on a large screen. Kinescopes have since lost their stigma of inferiority,^{[citation needed]} and are commonly consulted today for archival purposes.

In the U.K., telerecordings continued to be made after the advent of commercial broadcast videotape from 1958 as they possessed several distinct advantages, particularly for overseas program sales. Firstly, they were cheaper,^{[citation needed]} easier to transport and more durable than video. Secondly, they could be used in any country regardless of the television broadcasting standard, which was not true of videotape. Thirdly, the system could be used to make black and white copies of color programs for sale to television stations who were not yet broadcasting in color.

The telerecording system could be of a very high quality, easily reproducing the full detail of the television picture. The only slight disadvantage of the system was that it removed the 'fluid' look of interlaced video and 'filmized' the picture, but this would generally not have made a great deal of difference to the viewing audiences.

The system was largely used for black and white reproduction. Although some color telerecordings were made, they were generally in the minority as by the time color programmes were widely needed for sale, video standards conversion was easier and higher quality and the price of videotape had become much reduced. Before videotape became the exclusive transmission format during the early to mid-1980s, any (color) video recordings used in documentaries or filmed program inserts were usually transferred onto film.

Up until the early 1960s, much of the BBC and British television in general's output was broadcast live, and telerecordings would be used to preserve a programme for repeat showings, which had previously required the entire production being performed live for a second time.

In the 1950s a home telerecording kit was introduced in Britain, allowing enthusiasts to make 16 mm film recordings of television programmes^{[citation needed]}. The major drawback, apart from the short duration of a 16 mm film magazine, was that a large opaque frame had to be placed in front of the TV set in order to block out any stray reflections, making it impossible to watch the set normally while filming. It is not known if any recordings made using this equipment still exist.

British broadcasters used telerecordings for domestic purposes well into the 1960s, with 35 mm being the film gauge usually used as it produced a higher quality result. For overseas sales, 16 mm film would be used, as it was cheaper. Although domestic use of telerecording in the UK for repeat broadcasts dropped off sharply after the move to color in the late 1960s, 16 mm black and white film telerecordings were still being offered for sale by British broadcasters well into the 1970s.

Telerecording was still being used internally at the BBC in the 1980s too, to preserve copies for posterity of programmes which were not necessarily of the highest importance, but which nonetheless their producers wanted to be preserved. If there were no videotape machines available on a given day, then a telerecording would be made. There is evidence to suggest that the children's magazine programme Blue Peter was occasionally being telerecorded as late as 1985. After this point, however, cheap domestic videotape formats such as VHS could more easily be used to keep a back-up reference copy of a programme.

Another occasional use of telerecording into the late 1980s was by documentary makers working in 16 mm film who wished to include a videotape-sourced excerpt in their work, although such use was again rare.

Legacy[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

Kinescopes were intended to be used for immediate rebroadcast, or for an occasional repeat of a prerecorded program; thus, only a small fraction of kinescope recordings remain today. Many television shows are represented by only a handful of episodes, such as with the early television work of comedian Ernie Kovacs, and the original version of Jeopardy! hosted by Art Fleming.

Kinescopes were also used for some live television programs, like Captain Kangaroo, when back-to-back episodes were made in a day for different time zones. As performers never went three times in a day, kinescopes were made for the west coast at a later date.

Technology[link]

NTSC television images are scanned at roughly 60 Hz, with two interlaced fields per frame, displayed at 30 frames per second.

A kinescope must be able to:

1. Convert the 30 frame/s image to 24 frame/s, the standard sound speed of film cameras,
2. Do so in a way so that the image is clear enough to then re-broadcast by means of a film chain back to 30 frame/s.

In kinescoping an NTSC signal, 525 lines are broadcast in one frame. A 35 mm or 16 mm camera exposes one frame of film for every one frame of television (525 lines), and moving a new frame of film into place during the time equivalent of one field of television (131.25 lines). In the British 405-line television system, television ran at 25 frames—or more correctly, 50 fields—per second, so the film camera would also be run at 25 frames per second rather than the cinematic film standard of 24 frames.

Therefore, in order to maintain successful kinescope photography, a camera must expose one frame of film for exactly 1/30th or 1/25th of a second, the time in which one frame of video is transmitted, and move to another frame of film within the small interval of 1/120 of a second. In some instances, this was accomplished through means of an electronic shutter which cuts off the TV image at the end of every set of visible lines.

Most U.S. kinescope situations, however, utilized a mechanical shutter, revolving at 24 revolutions per second. This shutter had a closed angle of 72° and an open angle of 288°, yielding the necessary closed time of 1/120 of a second and open time 1/30 of a second. Using this shutter, in 1 second of video (60 fields equaling 30 frames), 48 television fields (totaling to 24 frames of video) would be captured on 24 frames of film, and 12 additional fields would be omitted as the shutter closed and the film advanced.

Because television is a field rather than frame-based system, however, not all the information in the picture can be retained on film in the same way as it can on videotape. The time taken physically to move the film on by one frame and stop it so that the gate can be opened to expose a new frame of film to the two fields of television picture is much longer than the vertical blanking interval between these fields—so the film is still moving when the start of the next field is being displayed on the television screen. It is not possible to accelerate the film fast enough to get it there in time without destroying the perforations in the film stock—and the larger the film gauge used, the worse the problem becomes.

The problem of adapting the way the image is either displayed or captured on film, to get around the above, was solved in various different ways as time went on—improving the quality of the image.

Shutter bar and banding problems[link]

The 72°/288° shutter and the systematic loss of 12 fields per second were not without its side effects. In going from 30 frame/s to 24 frame/s, the camera photographed part of some fields. The juncture on the film frame where these part-fields met was called a "splice".

If the timing was accurate, the splice was invisible. However, if the camera and television were out of phase, a phenomenon known as "shutter bar" or "banding" took place. If the shutter was slow in closing, overexposure resulted where the part-fields joined and the "shutter bar" took the form of a white line. If the shutter closed too soon, underexposure took place and the line was black. The term "banding" referred to the phenomenon occurring on the screen as two bars.

This obstacle could be overcome by brushing a thin coat of lacquer on the edge of the shutter according to the phasing between the camera shutter and the television impulses.^{[citation needed]}

Suppressed field[link]

A simpler system less prone to breakdown was to suppress one of the two fields in displaying the television picture. This left the time in which the second field was displayed for the film camera to advance the film by one frame, which proved enough. This method was also called 'Skip field' recording.

This method had several disadvantages. In missing out every second field of video, half the information of the picture was lost on such recordings. The resulting film consisted of fewer than 200 lines of picture information and as a result the line structure was very apparent; the missing field information also made movement look very 'jerky'.

Stored field[link]

A development on the suppressed field system was to display the image from one of the fields at a much higher intensity on the television screen during the time when the film gate was closed, and then capture the image as the second field was being displayed. By adjusting the intensity of the first field, it was possible to arrange it so that the luminosity of the phosphor had decayed to exactly match that of the second field, so that the two appeared to be at the same level and the film camera captured both.This method came to be preferred.

Another technique developed by the BBC known as 'spot wobble' involved the addition of an extremely high frequency but low voltage sine wave to the vertical deflection plate of the television screen, which changed the moving 'spot' through which the television picture was displayed into an elongated oval. While this made the image slightly blurred, it removed the visible line structure and resulted in a better image. It also prevented moiré patterns appearing when the resulting film was re-broadcast on television and the lines of the recording did not match the scan lines.

Moye-Mechau film recording[link]

The first successful procedure was to use the Mechau film projector mechanism in reverse. The Mechau system used a synchronised rotating mirror to display each frame of a film in sequence without the need for a gate. When reversed, a high-quality television monitor was set up in place of the projection screen, and unexposed film stock is run through at the point where the lamp was illuminating the film.

This procedure had the advantage of capturing both fields of the frame on a film, but it was difficult to keep the mirrors running at the right speed and all the equipment adjusted correctly, which often resulted in poor quality output. An additional problem was that the whole procedure took place in an open room and it was known for insects to settle on the screen which were then permanently present on the film recording. The Mechau film magazine only held enough for nine minutes so two recorders were needed to run in sequence in order to record anything longer.

Lenses for kinescoping[link]

Lenses did not need a great depth of field, but had to be capable both of producing a very sharp image with high resolution of a flat surface and of doing so at high speed. In order to keep from light fall-off on the perimeter of the lens, a coated lens was preferable. 40 mm or 50 mm lenses were usually used with 16mm in calibrated mounts. Focus was checked by examining a print yielded under a microscope.

Magazines and film length[link]

In order to record half-hour programs without interruption, magazines were designed which accommodated a load of 1,200 feet for 16 mm film. Stations recording on 35 mm utilized 6,000 foot magazines for one hour of continuous recording.

Sound recording[link]

The camera could be equipped with sound recording to place the soundtrack and picture on the same film for single system sound recording. More commonly, the alternative double system, whereby the soundtrack was recorded on an optical recorder or magnetic dubber in sync with the camera, yielded a better quality sound track and greatly facilitated editing.

The kinescope image[link]

Kinescope tubes intended for photographic use were coated with phosphors rich in blue and ultra-violet radiations. This permitted the use of positive type emulsions for photographing in spite of their slow film speeds. The brightness range of kinescope tubes were about 1 to 30.

Kinescope images were capable of great flexibility. The operator could make the image brighter or darker, adjust contrast, width and height, turn left, right or upside down, and positive or negative.

Since kinescopes were able to produce a negative picture, direct positive recordings could be made by simply photographing a negative image on the kinescope tube. When making a negative film, in order for final prints to be in the correct emulsion position, the direction of the image was reversed on the television. This applied only when double system sound was used.

Film stock used[link]

For kinescopes, 16 mm film was the common choice by most studios because of the lower cost of stock and film processing, but in the larger network markets, it was not uncommon to see 35 mm kinescopes, particularly for national rebroadcast. By law, all film supplied to TV stations, both 16 mm and 35 mm had to be on a non-flammable, safety film base.

For U.S. video recording, fine grain positive stock was the most common used because of its low cost and high resolution yield. Of the fine grain stocks, the following were recommended by film manufacturers:

• Ansco: Fine Grain Positive for Television Purposes, for making direct positive recordings with 16 mm kinescope cameras.
• DuPont: Fine Grain Master Positive Film Type 628A (16 mm) and 628B (35 mm). Difference in contrast can be controlled in development.
• Eastman Kodak: Eastman Fine Grain Sound Recording Film, Type 5373 (low-contrast) for negative stock where other prints would be made. Fine Grain Release Positive Film, Type 7302 (high-contrast) for direct positive recordings and single system sound recordings using variable area sound.

Other common issues with kinescopes[link]

Videotape engineer Frederick M. Remley^[19] wrote of kinescope recordings,

Because of the many variables in the combined electronic/photographic process, the quality of such recordings often leaves much to be desired. Defects often encountered in photographic recording include relatively poor image resolution; a compressed brightness range often limited by kinescope display technology to a brightness ratio of about 40:1; nonlinearity of recordings, as exemplified by lack of gradation in both the near-white and near-black portions of the reproduced pictures; and excessive image noise due to film grain and video processing artifacts. The final signal-to-noise ratio is often less than 40 dB, especially in the case of 16 mm film.^[20]

Because each field is sequential in time to the next, a kinescope film frame that captured two interlaced fields at once often showed a ghostly fringe around the edges of moving objects, an artifact not as visible when watching television directly at 50 or 60 fields per second.^[21]

Some kinescopes filmed the television pictures at the same frame rate of 30 full frames^{[citation needed]} per second, resulting in more faithful picture quality than those that recorded at 24 frames per second. The standard was later changed for color TV to 59.94 fields/s. or 29.97 frame/s. when color TV was invented.^{[citation needed][22]}

In the era of early color TV, the chroma information included in the video signal filmed could cause visible artifacts. It was possible to filter the chroma out, but this was not always done. Consequently, the color information was included (but not in color) in the black & white film image. Using modern computing techniques, the color may now be recovered, a process known as color recovery.

In recent years, the BBC has introduced a video process called VidFIRE, which can restore kinescope recordings to their original frame rate by interpolating video fields between the film frames.

Certain performers or production companies would require that a kinescope be made of every television program. Such is the case with performers Jackie Gleason and Milton Berle, for whom nearly complete program archives exist. As Jackie Gleason’s program was broadcast live in New York, the show was kinescoped for later rebroadcast for the West Coast. Per his contract, he would receive one copy of each broadcast,which he kept in his vault, and only released them to the public (on home video) shortly before his death in 1987.

Milton Berle sued NBC late in his life, believing the kinescopes of a major portion of his programs were lost. However, the programs were later found in a warehouse in Los Angeles.

Mark Goodson-Bill Todman Productions, the producers of such TV game shows as What's My Line?, had a significant portion of their output recorded on both videotape and kinescopes. These programs are rebroadcast on the American cable TV’s Game Show Network.

All of the NBC Symphony Orchestra telecasts with Arturo Toscanini, from 1948 to 1952, were preserved on kinescopes and later released on VHS and laser disc by RCA and on DVD by Testament. The original audio from the kinescopes, however, was replaced with high fidelity sound that had been recorded simultaneously either on transcription discs or magnetic tape.

In the mid-90s, Edie Adams, wife of Ernie Kovacs, claimed that so little value was given to the kinescope recordings of the DuMont Television Network that after the network folded in 1956 its entire archive was dumped into upper New York bay. Today however, efforts are made to preserve the few surviving DuMont kinescopes, with the UCLA Film and Television Archive having collected over 300 for preservation.

Telerecordings form an important part of British television heritage, preserving what would otherwise have been lost. Nearly every pre-1960s British television programme in the archives is in the form of a telerecording, along with the vast majority of existing 1960s output. Videotape was expensive and could be wiped and re-used; film was cheaper, smaller, and in practice more durable. Only a very small proportion of British television from the black and white era survives at all; perhaps 5% from the 1953–58 period and 8–10% from the 1960s.

Many recovered programmes, particularly those made by the BBC, have been returned as telerecordings by foreign broadcasters or private film collectors from the 1980s onwards, as the BBC has taken stock of the large gaps in its archive and sought to recover as much of the missing material as possible. Many of these surviving telerecorded programmes, such as episodes of Doctor Who, Steptoe and Son and Till Death Us Do Part continue to be transmitted on satellite television stations such as UKTV Gold, and many such programmes have been released on VHS and DVD.

In late 2008 the BBC transmitted an episode of Dad's Army after the original color had been restored to the only surviving monochrome film recording of Room at the Bottom.

In September 2010, a kinescope of game 7 of the 1960 World Series was found in the wine cellar of Bing Crosby. The game was thought lost forever, but was preserved due to Crosby's superstition about watching the game live. The film was transferred to DVD and is planned to be broadcast on the MLB Network.

Because videotape records at fifty interlaced fields per second and telerecordings at twenty-five progressive frames per second, videotaped programmes that exist now only as telerecordings look more "jerky" than the originals. One solution to this problem is VidFIRE, an electronic process to restore video-type motion.

See also[link]

• Electronovision
• Intermittent mechanism
• VidFIRE

References[link]

External links[link]

• The kinescope page of the TV museum archives
• RCA Kinephoto equipment (early 1950s)
• Device for recording television programs, U.S. patent application, 1945.
• Synchronization of camera and television receiver tubes, U.S. patent application, 1946.
• The 'Total Rewind' museum of Vintage VCRs
• Kinescope ca. 1964 of a program promoting the use of video for television commercial production
• "Telerecording", article from TV Mirror (1955)

Ernie Kovacs
Ernie Kovacs on the set of his television show, 1956.
Birth name	Ernest Edward Kovacs
Born	(1919-01-23)January 23, 1919 Trenton, New Jersey United States
Died	January 13, 1962(1962-01-13) (aged 42) Los Angeles, California United States
Medium	newspaper radio television magazine film
Nationality	Hungarian-American
Years active	1949–1962
Genres	Character comedy Surreal comedy Improvisational comedy Prop comedy Spoof Sketch
Influences	Buster Keaton
Influenced	David Letterman Chevy Chase Craig Ferguson Dan Rowan Dick Martin George Carlin Martin Scorsese James Lipton Jimmy Kimmel
Spouse	Bette Lee Wilcox (1945–1952) (divorced) 2 children Edie Adams (1954–1962) (his death) 1 child
Notable works and roles	Silent Show–Eugene The Nairobi Trio Percy Dovetonsils
Emmy Awards
Emmy 1962 outstanding electronic camera work (posthumously) Academy of Television Arts & Sciences 1988 Television Hall of Fame

Ernie Kovacs (January 23, 1919 – January 13, 1962) was an American comedian and actor.

Kovacs' uninhibited, often ad-libbed, and visually experimental comedic style came to influence numerous television comedy programs for years after his death in an automobile accident. Such iconic and diverse shows as Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, Saturday Night Live, The Uncle Floyd Show, Captain Kangaroo, Sesame Street, The Electric Company, and TV hosts such as David Letterman and Craig Ferguson have been influenced by Kovacs.^[1][2][3][4] Chevy Chase thanked him during his acceptance speech for his Emmy award for SNL.^[5] Chase appeared in the 1982 documentary called Ernie Kovacs: Television's Original Genius, speaking again of the impact Kovacs had on his work.^[6]

On or off screen, Kovacs could be counted on for the unexpected, from having marmosets as pets to wrestling a jaguar on his live Philadelphia television show.^{[7][8][9][10]} When working at WABC (AM) as a morning-drive radio personality and doing a mid-morning television show for NBC, Kovacs disliked eating breakfast alone while his wife was sleeping in after her Broadway performances. His solution was to hire a taxi driver to come into their apartment with his own key and whose job was to make breakfast for them both, then take him to the WABC studios.^[11][12]

While Kovacs and his wife Edie Adams received Emmy nominations for best performances in a comedy series in 1957, his talent was not formally recognized until after his death.^[13] The 1962 Emmy for outstanding electronic camera work and the Directors' Guild award came a short time after his fatal accident.^[14][15] A quarter century later, he was inducted into the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame.^[16] Kovacs also has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his work in television.^[17] In 1986, the Museum of Television & Radio (now the Paley Center for Media) presented an exhibit of Kovacs' work, called The Vision of Ernie Kovacs. The Pulitzer Prize winning television critic, William Henry III wrote for the museum's booklet:^[18]

Kovacs was more than another wide-eyed, self-ingratiating clown. He was television's first significant video artist. He was its first surrealist... its most daring and imaginative writer. He was... television's first and possibly only auteur. And he was a genius. In commercial terms, a genius is any entertainer... who finds a new way to make money. Kovacs never fit that description. Kovacs' genius lay in the realm of art. There, a genius is someone who causes an audience to look at the world in a new way.

Early life and career[link]

Kovacs' father Andrew immigrated from Hungary at age 13. He worked as a policeman, restaurateur, and bootlegger; the last so successfully that he moved his wife Mary, and sons Tom and Ernie, into a 20-room mansion in the better part of Trenton.^[19][20]

Though a poor student, Kovacs was influenced deeply by his Trenton Central High School drama teacher, Harold Van Kirk, and received an acting scholarship at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1937 with Mr. Van Kirk's help. The end of Prohibition and the Depression brought hard financial times to the family. When Kovacs began drama school, all he could afford was a fifth floor walk-up apartment on West 74th Street in New York City.^[21][22] During this time, Ernie managed to see a lot of "Grade B" movies (admission was only a dime); many of them were the spark of his routines later on.^[19]

A 1938 local news story shows him as a member of the Prospect Players, not yet sporting his trademark mustache.^[23] Like any aspiring actor, Kovacs used his class vacation time to pursue roles in summer stock companies. While working in Vermont in 1939, he became so seriously ill with pneumonia and pleurisy that his doctors didn't expect him to survive. Over the next year and a half, his comedic talents emerged as he entertained both doctors and patients with his antics during stays at several hospitals.^[24] While hospitalized, he also developed a lifelong love and understanding of classical music through the gift of a radio, which he kept tuned to WQXR. By the time he was released, his parents had separated, and he went back to Trenton, living with his mother in a two-room apartment over a store.^[19][25]

His first paid entertainment work came in 1941, as a disc jockey on Trenton's WTTM radio. Ernie spent the next nine years with WTTM, becoming the station's director of Special Events along the way; in this position he did things like trying to see what it was like to be run over by a train (leaving the tracks at the last minute) and broadcasting from the cockpit of a plane for which he took flying lessons. Kovacs was also involved in local theater; a news clipping from a local paper ran a photo and the news that he was doing some directing for the Trenton Players Guild in early 1941.^[26] The Trentonian, a local weekly newspaper, offered him a column in June 1945; Ernie called it "Kovacs Unlimited".^[19][27]

Start in television[link]

Showing up at NBC's Philadelphia affiliate, WPTZ (now KYW-TV), for an audition wearing a barrel and shorts got him his first television job. Kovacs' first show was Pick Your Ideal, a fashion and promotional program for the Ideal Manufacturing Company. Before long he was also the host of Deadline For Dinner and Now You're Cooking, shows featuring tips from local chefs.^[28] When Kovacs' guest chef did not show up in time to go on the air, Ernie offered a recipe for "Eggs Scavok" (Kovacs spelled backward).^[29][30] They soon led to a show called Three to Get Ready.^[18][29]

Kovacs and Gertrude on 3 To Get Ready, 1951. Gertrude was one of the donations of Kovacs' viewers when he asked them to bring anything they no longer wanted to the WPTZ-TV lobby.

Three to Get Ready was groundbreaking, as the first regularly scheduled early morning (7–9am) show in a major TV market. Prior to this, it had been assumed that no one would watch TV at such an early hour.^[31] While the show was billed as early morning news and weather, Kovacs provided this and more in an original manner. When rain was in the weather forecast, Kovacs would get on a ladder and pour water down on the staff member reading the report.^[29] Goats were auditioned for a local theater performance and tiny women appeared to walk up his arm.^[32][33][34] Kovacs also went outside of the studio for some of his sketches, running through a downtown Philadelphia restaurant in a gorilla suit in one, and looking into a construction pit saying it was deep enough to see to China, when a man in Chinese clothing popped up, said a few words in the language, and ran off.^[29] Since the weekly prop budget for the show was a scant $15, Kovacs once asked his viewers to send unwanted items to Channel 3; they filled the station's lobby.^[29]

The only character no one ever saw inspired more gifts; he was Howard, the World's Strongest Ant. From the time of his WPTZ debut, Howard received over 30,000 gifts from Kovacs' viewers, including a mink lined swimming pool.^[33] Ernie began his Early Eyeball Fraternal & Marching Society (EEFMS) while doing Three to Get Ready. There were membership cards with by-laws and ties; the password was a favorite phrase of Kovacs'-"It's Been Real".^{[28][29][35][36]} Ernie brought the EEFMS to New York in 1952 when he moved to WCBS.^[37][38] The success of Three to Get Ready proved the theory wrong and was one of the factors that led NBC to create The Today Show. WPTZ did not begin broadcasting Today when it premiered on January 14, 1952; network pressure caused the station to drop Three to Get Ready for it at the end of March of that year.^[29][39][40]

In early 1952, Kovacs was also doing a late morning show for WPTZ called Kovacs On the Corner. The show had a Sesame Street feel, as Kovacs would walk through an imaginary neighborhood, talking with various characters such as Pete the Cop (played by Pete Boyle, father of the late actor Peter Boyle) and Luigi the Barber. As with Three to Get Ready, Kovacs did some special segments. "Swap Time" was one of them; viewers could bring their unwanted items to the WPTZ studios to trade them live on the air with Kovacs. Creative control was wrested from Kovacs soon after the show's debut; beginning on January 4, 1952, it ended on March 28, 1952—the same day as Three to Get Ready.^[29][30] Kovacs then moved on to WCBS-TV with a local morning show and a later network one. While both were cancelled, the morning program suffered the same fate as his WPTZ show-the air time being taken by the station's network in 1954.^[41]

Visual humor and characters[link]

At WPTZ, Kovacs began using the ad-libbed and experimental style that would become his reputation, including video effects, superimpositions, reverse polarities and scanning, and quick blackouts. He was also noted for abstraction and carefully timed non sequitur gags and for carefully allowing the so-called fourth wall to be breached.^[33] Kovacs' cameras commonly showed his viewers activity beyond the boundaries of the show set—including crew members and outside the studio itself. Kovacs also liked talking to the off-camera crew and even introduced segments from the studio control room.^[42] Ernie frequently made use of accidents and happenstance, incorporating the unexpected into his shows. One of Kovacs' Philadelphia broadcasts was "enlivened" by a homeless man who sought shelter inside the TV studio; Kovacs invited him onto the set, where he slept for the duration of the telecast, but nonetheless was introduced on camera to the audience as "Sleeping Schwartz." He was once knocked out when a pie in the face still had the plate under it.^[43]

Kovacs' love of spontaneity extended to his crew, who would occasionally play on-air pranks on him to see how he would react.^[44] During one of his NBC shows, Kovacs was appearing as the inept magician Matzoh Heppelwhite. The sketch called for the magician to frequently hit a gong, which was the signal for a sexy female assistant to bring out a bottle and shot glass for a quick snort of alcohol. Stagehands substituted real liquor for the iced tea normally used for the gag. The look on Ernie's face upon taking the first shot was priceless when he realized that he would be called upon to drink a shot of liquor for each successive gong. Kovacs pressed on with the sketch and was quite inebriated by the end of the show.^[45] On another occasion, as "Percy Dovetonsils", he found that his drink contained a live fish.

Kovacs helped develop camera tricks still common almost 50 years after his death, one of which became one of his signature gags. His character Eugene sat at a table to eat his lunch, but as he removed items one at a time from a lunch box, he watched them inexplicably roll down the table into the lap of a man reading a newspaper at the other end. When Kovacs poured milk from a thermos bottle, the stream flowed in a seemingly unusual direction. Never seen on television before, the secret was using a tilted set in front of a camera tilted at the same angle.^[46]

He constantly sought new techniques and used both primitive and improvised ways of creating visual effects that would later be done electronically. One innovative construction involved attaching a kaleidoscope made from a toilet paper roll to a camera lens with cardboard and tape and setting the resulting abstract images to music.^[47] Another was a soup can with both ends removed fitted with angled mirrors. Used on a camera and turning it could put Kovacs seemingly on the ceiling.^[29] An underwater stunt involved Kovacs—an inveterate cigar smoker—sitting in an easy chair, reading his newspaper and somehow smoking his cigar. Removing it from his mouth, Kovacs was able to exhale a puff of white smoke, all while floating underwater. The trick: the "smoke" was a small amount of milk which he filled his mouth with before submerging. Kovacs repeated the effect for a Dutch Masters commercial on his ABC game show, Take a Good Look.^[48]

One of the special effects he employed made it appear as if he was able to look through his assistant, Barbara Loden's, head. The illusion was performed by placing a black patch on Loden's head and standing her against a black background while one studio camera was trained on her. A second one photographed Kovacs, who used the studio monitor to position himself exactly so that his eye would appear to be looking through a hole in her head.^[46]

He also developed such routines as an all-gorilla version of Swan Lake, a poker game set to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, the Silent Show, in which Eugene interacts with the world accompanied solely by music and sound effects, parodies of typical television commercials and movie genres, and various musical segments with everyday items (such as kitchen appliances or office equipment) moving in sync to music.^[49][50] A popular recurring sketch was The Nairobi Trio, three derby-hatted apes miming mechanically and rhythmically to the tune of Robert Maxwell's "Solfeggio".

Kovacs could use extended sketches and mood pieces or quick blackout gags lasting only seconds. Some could be expensive, such as his famous used car salesman routine with a jalopy and a breakaway floor: it cost $12,000 to produce the six-second gag.^[51] He was also one of the first television comedians to use odd fake credits and comments between the legitimate credits and, at times, during his routines.^[52][53]

Kovacs reportedly disliked working in front of a live audience, as was the case with the shows he did for NBC in the 1950s. He found the presence of an audience distracting, and those in the seats frequently did not understand some of the more elaborate visual gags and special effects, which could only be appreciated by watching studio monitors instead of the stage.^[54]

Like many comedians of the era, Kovacs created a rotation of recurring roles. In addition to the silent "Eugene," his most familiar characters were the fey, lisping poet Percy Dovetonsils, and the heavily accented German disc jockey, Wolfgang von Sauerbraten. Mr. Question Man, who answered viewer queries, was a satire on the long-run (1937–56) radio series, The Answer Man. Others included horror show host Auntie Gruesome, bumbling magician Matzoh Heppelwhite, Frenchman Pierre Ragout, and Miklos Molnar, the sardonic Hungarian host of a cooking show.^[55] The Miklos character wasn't always confined to a kitchen; Kovacs performed a parody of The Howdy Doody Show with "Buffalo Miklos" as the host.^[54][56][57] Poet Percy Dovetonsils can also be found playing Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata on a disappearing piano and as a "Master Detective" on the "Private Eye-Private Eye" presentation of the US Steel Hour on CBS March 8, 1961.^[58][59] On the same show, the Nairobi Trio abandons their instruments for a safe cracking job; still with a background of "Solfeggio" but speaking, two of the three appear in an "Outer Space" sketch.^[60][61]

Kovacs being made up for the U.S. Steel Hour "Private Eye-Private Eye" program in 1961. In addition to playing many of his usual cast of characters on the show, Kovacs played a butler (upper right), a skin diver (lower left), and Santa Claus.

Kovacs never hesitated to lampoon those considered institutions of radio and television. He had a late night talk show, The Ernie Kovacs Show, on DuMont Television Network's New York flagship station, WABD, that began in April 1954. Stage, screen, and radio notables often dropped by as guests. Archie Bleyer, head of Cadence Records, came to chat one evening. Bleyer had been the long-time orchestra leader for Arthur Godfrey's radio and television shows. He had been fired by Godfrey the year before along with fellow cast member, Julius La Rosa, when it was discovered Bleyer's record company had a contract with La Rosa without Godfrey's knowledge. Bleyer and Kovacs were shown in split-screen, with Kovacs wearing a red wig, headphones, and playing a ukelele in a Godfrey imitation, while talking with his guest.^[42]

Kovacs' television programs included Three to Get Ready (an early morning program seen on Philadelphia's WPTZ from 1950 through 1952), It's Time for Ernie (1951, his first network series),^[29][62] Ernie in Kovacsland, (a summer replacement show for Kukla, Fran and Ollie, 1951),^[63] The Ernie Kovacs Show (1952–56 on various networks),^[42][53] a twice-a-week job filling in for Steve Allen as host of The Tonight Show on Mondays and Tuesdays (1956–57), and game shows Gamble on Love, One Minute Please,^[7] Time Will Tell (all on DuMont),^[42] and Take a Good Look (1959–61).^[64] Kovacs later publicly accused Allen of stealing material and characters from him and then performing them in only slightly obfuscated form.^{[citation needed]} (For example, Kovacs' "Mr. Question Man" bore a resemblance to Allen's "Answer Man," and later, Johnny Carson's long-running Carnac character.)^[65] Kovacs also had a short stint as a celebrity panelist on What's My Line?, but took his responsibilities less than seriously, often eschewing a legitimate question for the sake of a laugh. An example: Industrialist Henry J. Kaiser, the founder of the automobile company, was the program's "mystery guest." Previous questioning had established that the mystery guest's last name was synonymous with an automobile brand, Kovacs asked, "This may seem like a long shot, sir, but by any chance are you Abraham Lincoln?"—a reference to the Ford Motor Company's brand of luxury automobile.^[66] When Kovacs gave an interview admitting that he was absent from the show when he wanted to go out for dinner on a Sunday, his stint on the panel show was over.^[67]

Kovacs became a regular on NBC Radio's Monitor beginning in late 1958, often using Mr. Question Man in his radio monologues.^[68][69][70]

TV specials[link]

Kovacs slapped the hood of this prop car, sending it down into a hole in the ground, circa 1960–1961.

He also did several television specials, including the famous Silent Show (1957), featuring his character, Eugene, the first all-pantomime prime-time network program. After the break-up of the Dean Martin--Jerry Lewis partnership, NBC offered Lewis the opportunity to host his own 90-minute color TV special. Lewis opted to take only 60 minutes, leaving the network 30 minutes to fill; no one wanted this time slot, but Kovacs was willing to have it.^[71] The program contained no spoken dialogue and contained only sound effects and music.^[72] Starring Kovacs as the mute, Chaplinlike character "Eugene," the program contained surreal sight gags.^[73] Kovacs developed the Eugene character during the fall of 1956 when hosting the Tonight Show. Expectations were high for the Lewis program, but it was Kovacs' special that received the most attention; Kovacs received his first movie offer, had a cover story in Life, and received the Sylvania Award that year.^[18] In 1961, Kovacs and his co-director, Joe Behar, were recipients of the Directors Guild of America Award for a second version of this program over the ABC network.^[30]

A series of monthly half-hour specials for ABC in 1961–62 is often considered his best television work. Shot on videotape using new editing and special effects techniques, it won a 1962 Emmy Award.^[14] Kovacs and co-director Behar also won the Directors Guild of America award for an Ernie Kovacs Special based on the earlier silent "Eugene" program. Kovacs' last ABC special was aired posthumously, on January 23, 1962.^[15] What made Kovacs unique may also have been what made him a hard sell to television viewers used to situation comedies and variety shows. Having a cult following at best, Kovacs rarely had a highly rated show. His friend Jack Lemmon was once quoted as saying that no one ever understood Kovacs' work because "he was always 15 years ahead of everyone else."^{[citation needed]}

"The existence of these separate shows is testament to both the success and failure of Ernie Kovacs," says the Museum of Broadcast Communications. "A brilliant and innovative entertainer, he was a failure as a popular program host; praised by critics, he was avoided by viewers... The Ernie Kovacs shows were products of the time when television was in its infancy and experimentation was acceptable. It is doubtful that Ernie Kovacs would find a place on television today. He was too zany, too unrestrained, too undisciplined. Perhaps Jack Gould of The New York Times said it best for Ernie Kovacs: 'The fun was in trying'."^[74]

Other shows had greater success while using elements of Kovacs' style. Laugh-In producer George Schlatter was married to actress Jolene Brand, who had appeared in Kovacs' comic troupes over the years and had been a frequent participant in his pioneering sketches. Laugh-In made frequent use of the quick blackout gags and surreal humor that marked many Kovacs projects. Another link was a young NBC staffer, Bill Wendell, Kovacs' usual announcer and sometimes a sketch participant. From 1980–95, Wendell was the announcer for David Letterman, whose show and style of humor were greatly influenced by Kovacs.^[44]

The Music Man[link]

Kovacs loved music and its humor possibilities; he was also known for his eclectic musical taste. His main theme song was called "Oriental Blues" by Jack Newlon, which borrows heavily from "Rialto Ripples", a quirky piano number by George Gershwin. The rendition most often heard was a piano-driven trio version, but for his primetime show in 1956, music director Harry Sosnik presented a full-blown big band version.

The German song "Die Moritat von Mackie Messer" from The Threepenny Opera (later anglicized to the well-known "Mack the Knife"), frequently underscored his blackout routines. Robert Maxwell's "Solfeggio" became associated closely enough with the derby-hatted apes that it became better known among Kovacs admirers as "The Song of the Nairobi Trio."

An unusual treatment of "Sentimental Journey", by Mexican bandleader Juan García Esquivel, accompanied video of an empty office in which various items (pencil sharpeners, water coolers, wall clocks) come to life in rhythm with the music, a variation on several famous animations of a decade earlier.^[52] The original three-minute presentation was outlined by Kovacs in a four-page, single-spaced memo to his staff. The perfectionist Kovacs can be seen by reading it, as he describes in minute detail what had to be done and how to do it. The memo ends with this: "I don't know how the hell you're going to get this done by Sunday--but 'rots of ruck." (signed) "Ernie (with love)".^[75] Kovacs also made careful use of the shrill singer Leona Anderson—who had somewhat less than a classical (or even listenable) voice, by some estimations—in comic vignettes.^[76]

Kovacs used classical music as background for silent sketches or abstract visual routines, including "Concerto for Orchestra", by Béla Bartók; music from the opera "The Love of Three Oranges", by Sergei Prokofiev; the finale of Igor Stravinsky's suite "The Firebird"; and Richard Strauss' "Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks". He may have been best known for using Haydn's "String Quartet, Opus 3, Number 5" (the "Serenade," actually composed by Roman Hoffstetter), which was used in a series of 1960-61 commercials he created and videotaped for his sponsor, Dutch Masters.

For the show of May 22, 1959, Kovacs On Music, Kovacs began by saying, "I have never really understood classical music, so I would like to take this opportunity to explain it to others." Presented in the form of the gorilla version of Swan Lake which differed from the usual performance only in the persona of the dancers, giant paper clips moving to music and other sketches, Ernie's offerings showed his instinct for the classics and made them more comprehensible to his viewers.^{[49][19][54][77]}

He also served as host on a jazz LP to benefit the American Cancer Society in 1957, Listening to Jazz with Ernie Kovacs. It was a 15-minute recording featuring some of the giants of the art, including pianists Jimmy Yancey and Bunk Johnson, soprano saxophonist Sidney Bechet, guitarist Django Reinhardt, composer/pianist/bandleader Duke Ellington and longtime Ellington trumpeter Cootie Williams. Both the Library of Congress and the National Library of Canada have copies of this recording in their collections.^[78]

In print[link]

Kovacs wrote a novel, Zoomar: A Sophisticated Novel about Love and TV (Doubleday, 1957), based on television pioneer Pat Weaver; it took Kovacs only 13 days to write.^[79][80] In a 1960 interview, Edie Adams related that the novel was written after Kovacs' experiences with network television while he was preparing to air the Silent Show.^[81] The 1961 British edition was retitled T.V. Medium Rare by its London based publisher, Transworld.

While he worked on several other book projects, Kovacs' only other published title was How to Talk at Gin, published posthumously in 1962. He intended part of the book's proceeds to benefit Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.^[82] During 1955–58, he wrote for Mad (his favorite humor magazine), including the feature "Strangely Believe It!" (a parody of Ripley's Believe It or Not! that was a regular feature on his TV shows) and "Gringo," a board game with ridiculously complicated rules that was renamed "Droongo" for the TV show.^[83] Kovacs also wrote the introduction to the 1958 collection Mad For Keeps: A Collection of the Best from Mad Magazine.

Television guest star[link]

Kovacs as Barney Colby, the super detective, 1959.

Kovacs and Edie Adams were the guest stars on the final installment of the one-hour I Love Lucy format, known in network airings as The Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show and in syndication as The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour. Kovacs and Adams appeared in the episode, "Lucy Meets the Moustache," which filmed March 2 and aired April 1, 1960. It was the last time Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz appeared together before the breakup of their marriage. According to Adams, Lucy and Desi barely talked to each other in between scenes, and divorce proceedings began March 3, the day after the show's filming.^[84]

Kovacs also appeared in roles on other television programs. For General Electric Theater's "I Was a Bloodhound" in 1959, Kovacs played the role of detective Barney Colby, whose extraordinary sense of smell helped him solve many seemingly impossible cases. Colby was hired by a foreign country to recover their symbol of royalty, a baby elephant, who was being held for ransom.^[85][86]

Films[link]

Kovacs found Hollywood success as a character actor, often typecast as a swarthy military officer (almost always a "Captain" of some sort) in such films as Operation Mad Ball, Wake Me When It's Over, and Our Man in Havana.^[87] He garnered critical acclaim for roles such as the perennially inebriated writer in Bell, Book and Candle and as the cartoonishly evil head of a railroad company (who resembled Orson Welles' title character in Citizen Kane) in It Happened to Jane, where he had his head shaved and his remaining hair dyed grey for the role.^[88][89] In 1960, he played the off center base commander Charlie Stark in the comedy Wake Me When its Over. His own personal favorite was said to have been the offbeat Five Golden Hours (1961), in which he portrayed a larcenous professional mourner who meets his match in a professional widow played by Cyd Charisse. Kovacs' last film, Sail a Crooked Ship, was released shortly before his death.^[90]

Kovacs had been chosen to appear as Melville Crump in Stanley Kramer's star-packed comedy It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, with Adams portraying his wife, Monica Crump. After his death, the role went to comedian Sid Caesar. Kovacs had also been slated to appear with Jack Lemmon and Kim Novak in The Notorious Landlady but was posthumously replaced by Fred Astaire.

Personal life[link]

First marriage[link]

Kovacs and his first wife, Bette Wilcox, were married on August 13, 1945. When the marriage ended, he fought for custody of their children, Elizabeth ("Bette") and Kip Raleigh ("Kippie"). The court awarded Kovacs full custody upon determining that his former wife was mentally unstable.^[91] The decision was extremely unusual at the time, setting a legal precedent. Wilcox subsequently kidnapped the children, taking them to Florida.^[92] After a long and expensive search, Kovacs regained custody. These events were portrayed in the 1984 film, Ernie Kovacs: Between the Laughter, which earned an Emmy Award nomination for its writer, April Smith.^{[93][94][95][96]}

Kovacs' first wife made a legal attempt to gain custody of her two daughters shortly after his death. She began August 2, 1962 by claiming $500,000 was her share of Kovacs' estate and charging her ex-husband had abducted the girls in 1955; Kovacs was granted legal custody of his daughters in 1952.^[91][97] On August 30, she filed an affidavit claiming Edie was "unfit" to care for the girls.^[98] Both Bette and Kippie testified they wanted to stay with Edie.^{[99][100][101]} Kippie's testimony was very emotional; in it she referred to Edie as "Mommy" and her birth mother as "the other lady."^[102] Upon hearing the verdict that the girls would remain in their home, Edie Adams broke down, saying, "This is what Ernie would have wanted. Now I can smile." Bette Kovacs' reaction was, "I'm so happy I can hardly express myself.", after learning she and her sister would not need to leave Edie.^[103]

Second marriage[link]

Kovacs and his second wife, Edie Adams, met in 1951 when she was hired to work on his WPTZ show, Three To Get Ready.^[29] Her appearance on Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts caught the eye of Kovacs' producer, and he asked her to audition for the program. A classically trained singer, she was able to perform only three popular songs. Edie said later, "I sang them all during the audition, and if they had asked to hear another, I never would have made it." ^[13][105] Quoting Kovacs, "I wish I could say I was the big shot that hired her, but it was my show in name only--the producer had all the say. Later on I did have something to say and I said it, 'Let's get married.'" ^[18][21]

After the couple's first date, Kovacs proceeded to buy a Jaguar, telling Adams he wanted to take her out in style. He was seriously taken with the beautiful and talented young woman, courting her with imagination and flair.^[7][22] Kovacs' attempts to win Adams' heart included hiring a mariachi band to serenade her backstage at the Broadway musical she was performing in and the sudden gift of a diamond engagement ring, telling her to wear it until she made up her mind.^[54] Ernie continued this romantic quest after the show went out of town.^[106]

Adams booked a six week European cruise which she hoped would let her make up her mind whether or not to marry Kovacs. After only three days away and many long-distance calls, she cut short her trip and returned to say "yes".^[19][22] They eloped and were married on September 12, 1954 in Mexico City.^[13] The ceremony was presided over by former New York City mayor William O'Dwyer and was performed in Spanish, which neither Kovacs nor Adams understood; O'Dwyer had to prompt each of them to say "Sí" at the "I do" portion of the vows.^[22][107] Adams, who had a very middle class upbringing in suburban New Jersey, was smitten by Kovacs' quirky ways; the couple remained together until his death. (Adams later said about Kovacs, "He treated me like a little girl, and I loved it—Women's Lib be damned!")^[22]

Adams also supported Kovacs' struggle to reclaim his two older children after the kidnapping by their mother. She also was a regular partner on his television shows. Kovacs usually introduced or addressed her in a businesslike way, as "Edith Adams". Adams was usually willing to do anything he envisioned, whether it was singing seriously, performing impersonations (including a well-regarded impression of Marilyn Monroe), or taking a pie in the face or a pratfall if and when needed. The couple had one daughter, Mia Susan Kovacs, born June 20, 1959.^[108][109]

Kovacs and his family shared a 16 room apartment in Manhattan on Central Park West that seemed perfect until Ernie went to California for his first movie role in Operation Mad Ball.^[46] The experience of the totally different, laid-back lifestyle of Hollywood made a big impression on him.^[110] He realized he was working far too much in New York; in California he would be able to work fewer hours, do just as well or better, and have more time for Edie and his daughters. At the time he was working most of the time and sleeping about two or three hours a night.^[12] When he was telling his girls a bedtime story and found himself thinking of writing it up instead, Ernie realized it was time for a change. Kovacs moved his family there in 1957, after Edie finished Li'l Abner on Broadway.^[79][111]

Death[link]

Kovacs was killed in an automobile accident in Los Angeles in the early morning hours of January 13, 1962. Kovacs, who had worked for much of the evening, met Adams at a baby shower given by Billy Wilder for Milton Berle and his wife, who had recently adopted a three-year-old boy. The couple left the party in separate cars.^[112] After a light southern California rainstorm, Kovacs lost control of his Chevrolet Corvair station wagon while turning fast, and crashed into a power pole at the corner of Beverly Glen and Santa Monica Boulevards. He was thrown halfway out the passenger side, dying almost instantly from chest and head injuries.^[113]

He may have lost control of the car while trying to light a cigar. A photographer managed to arrive moments later, and images of Kovacs in death appeared in newspapers across the United States.^[114][115] An unlit cigar lay on the pavement, inches from his outstretched arm.^[116] Years later, in a documentary about Kovacs, Edie Adams described telephoning the police impatiently when she learned of the crash. An official cupped his hand over the receiver, saying to a colleague, "It's Mrs. Kovacs, he's on his way to the coroner - what should I tell her?" With that, Edie Adams's fears were confirmed, and she became inconsolable. Jack Lemmon, who also attended the Berle party, identified Kovacs' body at the morgue when Adams was too distraught to do so.^[112]

After attending funerals for Hollywood friends, Kovacs had expressed his wishes to Adams that any funeral services for him be kept simple.^[82] In keeping with her husband's request, Adams made arrangements for Presbyterian services held at the Beverly Hills Community Presbyterian Church.^[117] The active pallbearers were Jack Lemmon, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Billy Wilder, Mervyn Leroy, and Joe Mikolas. Ernie's father, Andrew, and brother, Tom, served as honorary pallbearers.^[118] Among those in attendance were George Burns, Groucho Marx, Edward G. Robinson, Kirk Douglas, Jack Benny, James Stewart, Charlton Heston, Buster Keaton, and Milton Berle.^[119] While there was no typical Hollywood-type eulogy, the church's pastor paid tribute to Kovacs, adding that he once summed up his life in two sentences: "I was born in Trenton, N. J. in 1919 to a Hungarian couple. I've been smoking cigars ever since." ^[120]

Kovacs is buried in Forest Lawn-Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles. His epitaph reads, "Nothing in moderation—We all loved him."^[121] Only one of Kovacs' three children survives: his eldest, Elizabeth, from his first marriage. Kippie, his second daughter, died on July 28, 2001 at the age of 52, after a long illness and a lifetime of poor health.^[122] Kippie and her husband, Bill Lancaster (1947–1997), a screenwriter and the son of actor Burt Lancaster, are the parents of Kovacs' only grandchild, Keigh Lancaster.^{[123][124][125]} His only child with Edie Adams, Mia Susan, was killed on May 8, 1982, also in an automobile accident.^[126] Mia and Kippie are buried close to their father; when Edie died in 2008, she was buried between Mia and Kippie.^[127]

Tax evasion[link]

A frequent critic of the U.S. tax system, Kovacs owed the IRS several hundred thousand dollars in back taxes, thanks to his simple refusal to pay the bulk of them. Up to 90% of his earnings were garnished as a result.^[128] His long battles with the IRS inspired Kovacs to tie up his money in a convoluted series of paper corporations in the U.S. and Canada. He would give them bizarre names, such as "The Bazooka Dooka Hicka Hocka Hookah Company" to thumb his nose at the government.^[108] In 1961, Kovacs was served with a $75,000 lien for back taxes; that same day he bought the California Racquet Club with the apparent hope of being able to use it as a tax write-off.^[129] The property had mortgages at the time of purchase which were later paid by Edie Adams.^[130][131]

His tax woes also affected Kovacs' career, forcing him to take any offered work to pay off his debt.^[54][132] This included the ABC game show Take a Good Look, appearances on variety shows such as NBC's The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford, and some of his less memorable movie roles. He also filmed an unaired 1962 pilot episode for a proposed CBS series, Medicine Man (co-starring Buster Keaton, pilot episode titled "A Pony For Chris"). Kovacs' role was that of Dr. P. Crookshank, a traveling medicine salesman in the 1870s selling Mother McGreevy's Wizard Juice, also known as "man's best friend in a bottle".^[82] This was quietly abandoned after his death, which occurred the day after filming some scenes for the pilot in Griffith Park. CBS initially intended to air the show as part of a summer replacement program, The Comedy Spot, but decided against it due to issues with Kovacs' estate.^[133] The pilot is part of the public collection of the Paley Center for Media.^[134][135]

Adams, who married and divorced twice after Kovacs' death, refused help from celebrity friends who planned a benefit for the purpose.^{[82][136][137][138]} Saying "I can take care of my own children," and being determined to accept offers only from those who wanted to hire her for her talents, Edie managed to pay off all of Ernie's debts.^[13][131]

Some of the issues regarding Kovacs' tax problems were still unresolved years after his death. Ernie had purchased two insurance policies in 1951; his mother was named as the primary beneficiary of them. The IRS placed a lien against them both for their cash value in 1961. To stop the actions being taken against her, Mary Kovacs had to go to Federal court. In early 1966 their ruling resolved the issue, with the last sentence of the document reading: "Prima facie, it looks as if, within the limits of discretion permitted the government by the relevant statutes, an injustice is being done Mary Kovacs."^[139]

Lost and surviving work[link]

Most of Kovacs' early television work was done live and has survived only in the form of a very few short film clips or kinescopes. Some videotapes of his ABC specials were preserved; others, such as his quirky game show, Take a Good Look, exist only in short videotape segments.^[48] After his death, Edie Adams discovered not only that her husband owed ABC a lot of money, but also that some networks were systematically erasing and reusing tapes of Kovacs' shows or literally dumping the kinescopes and videotapes in New York Bay. She succeeded in buying the rights to the surviving footage and tapes with the proceeds from Kovacs' insurance policy and with her own earnings after Kovacs' IRS debts were paid.^[136][137] Most of Kovacs' salvaged work is available to researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles Library's Department of Special Collections, and there is also some material available at both locations of the Paley Center for Media.^{[128][140][141]}

"The first time I was made aware of the willful destruction of videotapes was in 1962, after the sudden death of my husband, Ernie Kovacs. He had been working on two shows for ABC here in Hollywood. "Three months after his death, several members of his ABC crew came to see me at home and asked if I couldn't do something about the fact that ABC was using the wall of Kovacs's master tapes as used tape to tape over the news, the weather, public service blurbs, or anything, to recoup some of the moneys owed to them by Ernie."

"So, I called up my lawyer and told him to use the modest insurance policy to pay them off and buy back the 12-foot wall of Kovacs' tapes they were "saving money" by using. In all, about 40 hours was there, and by the time it was transferred to my storage facility, only 15 hours of it showed up."

"In the earlier '70's, the Dumont network was being bought by another company, and the lawyers were in heavy negotiation as to who would be responsible for the library of the Dumont shows currently being stored at the facility, who would bear the expense of storing them in a temperature controlled facility, take care of the copyright renewal, et cetera."

"One of the lawyers doing the bargaining said that he could "take care of it" in a "fair manner," and he did take care of it. At 2 a.m., the next morning, he had three huge semis back up to the loading dock at ABC, filled them all with stored kinescopes and 2" videotapes, drove them to a waiting barge in New Jersey, took them out on the water, made a right at the Statue of Liberty and dumped them in the Upper New York Bay. Very neat. No problem."

–Edie Adams, National Film Preservation Board testimony, 1996

The 1984 television movie, Ernie Kovacs: Between the Laughter, helped return Kovacs to the public eye, though the focus was on his bid to retrieve his kidnapped children instead of his professional life. Edie Adams appeared in a cameo in this film, playing Mae West; it was one of the impressions she performed in shows with Kovacs.^{[93][142][143]} Telecasts of edited compilations of some of his work by PBS (station WTTW, Chicago) under the title The Best of Ernie Kovacs in 1977, inspired the film.^[144] These broadcasts are still available in a five volume VHS or two disc DVD set (released in 1992 and 2000 respectively); since these are out of print copies usually have to be acquired used. The DVD set features extras that are not in the VHS set. The series, which was narrated by Ernie's close friend Jack Lemmon, was distributed by Kultur Films (formerly White Star Video).

In the early 1990s, The Comedy Channel broadcast a series of Kovacs' shows under the generic title of The Ernie Kovacs Show. The package included both the ABC specials and some of his 1950s shows from NBC. By 2008, there were no broadcast, cable, or satellite channels airing any of Kovacs' television work, other than his panel appearances on What's My Line? on the Game Show Network.

On April 19, 2011 Shout! Factory released The Ernie Kovacs Collection, six DVDs with over 13 hours of material spanning Kovacs' television career. The company's website also offers an extra disc with material from Tonight! and The Ernie Kovacs Show, as well as a rare color kinescope of the complete 30-minute, 1957 NBC color broadcast featuring "Eugene".^[145]

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Adams, Edie (1990). Sing a Pretty Song: The "Offbeat" Life of Edie Adams, Including the Ernie Kovacs Years. William Morrow, ISBN 0-688-07341-7
• Barker, David Brian (1982). "Every Moment's a Gift": Ernie Kovacs in Hollywood, 1957–1962, a Master's Thesis. Available for viewing at the library at the University of Texas at Austin.
• Rico, Diana (1990). Kovacsland: A Biography of Ernie Kovacs. Harcourt, Brace & Jovanovich, ISBN 0-15-147294-7
• Walley, David (1975). Nothing in Moderation. Drake Publishers (ISBN 0-87749-738-9). Reprinted as The Ernie Kovacs Phile by David Walley, Bolder Books, 1978 and Fireside/Simon & Schuster, 1987 (ISBN 0-918282-06-3).

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Ernie Kovacs

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Ernie Kovacs

• The Official Ernie Kovacs Website
• Ernie Kovacs Dot Net: A Tribute To Television's Original Genius
• Kovacsland Online! - the Ernie Kovacs website
• List of Kovacs' 16 articles for MAD Magazine

Watch[link]

• The Jack Benny Program with Ernie Kovacs as guest at the Internet Archive
• Operation Mad Ball Trailer (1957) at the Internet Archive

Monty Python (sometimes known as The Pythons)^[2][3] was a British surreal comedy group who created Monty Python's Flying Circus, a British television comedy sketch show that first aired on the BBC on 5 October 1969. Forty-five episodes were made over four series. The Python phenomenon developed from the television series into something larger in scope and impact, spawning touring stage shows, films, numerous albums, several books and a stage musical as well as launching the members to individual stardom. The group's influence on comedy has been compared to The Beatles' influence on music.^[4][5]

The television series, broadcast by the BBC from 1969 to 1974, was conceived, written and performed by members Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin. Loosely structured as a sketch show, but with an innovative stream-of-consciousness approach (aided by Gilliam's animation), it pushed the boundaries of what was acceptable in style and content.^[6][7] A self-contained comedy team responsible for both writing and performing their work, the Pythons' creative control allowed them to experiment with form and content, discarding rules of television comedy. Their influence on British comedy has been apparent for years, while in North America it has coloured the work of cult performers from the early editions of Saturday Night Live through to more recent absurdist trends in television comedy. "Pythonesque" has entered the English lexicon as a result.

In a 2005 UK poll to find The Comedian's Comedian, three of the six Pythons members were voted by fellow comedians and comedy insiders to be among the top 50 greatest comedians ever: Cleese at #2, Idle at #21, and Palin at #30.^[8]