Tweet slightly OT: Ernie Kovacs DVD box set

"The Ernie Kovacs Collection", a six-disc DVD box set from Shout!Factory is now available for pre-order. The set's 13+ hours of Kovacs programs, sketches and rarities was curated by yours truly; I'd been working on this throughout 2010 and had been asked to keep my trap shut until Shout's press release went wide today.

You can order the set on Amazon et al, but you won't be able to get the 7th bonus disc unless you order direct from Shout's website. Click here to go to Shout!Factory's page for the set.

Thanks, and it's been real

Ben Model
www.erniekovacs.info

Captioning?

I have no idea. If I find out, I'll post. I was involved with finding and selecting programming, but not the rest (artwork, authoring etc).

Ben

Great! Just ordered it from Shout. At some point in the past, I read that some effort was being made to restore some color videotape Kovacs material; anything like that in the set? Thanks.

There is no color Kovacs videotape. The only Kovacs show in color is the 1957 "Silent Show" (a/k/a "Eugene"), which survives in kinescope form. It will be on this set, and in color.

There is no color Kovacs videotape. The only Kovacs show in color is the 1957 "Silent Show" (a/k/a "Eugene"), which survives in kinescope form. It will be on this set, and in color.

Yahoo. Thanks. Any idea if it was one of those lenticular color kinescopes?

From what I understand, the Eugene show was done in either Eastman or Kodachrome (in other words, a monopack film), and that none of the lenticulars survive.

UCLA's description of their restoration says it was from a kodachrome kinnie (for pix) and a B&W kinnie (for audio source). I visited Edie's storage in 2008 and pulled and examined the only 35mm element in the collection and it was not the lenticular of this show. Also found the camera original 16mm of "The Mysterious Knockwurst", which was transferred for this set, and scored by yours truly.

We ran the color show at Cinecon and it was red with a little color left so my guess is that UCLA's version from Joe Behar's family collection is Eastman. In an introduction to the screening, we were told that there is another color kine at UCLA from the same collection but not a Kovacs show; it's a Perry Como Show.

In speaking with a few colleagues today, we were amazed to learn that kodachrome kines were made. It certainly makes sense but we've not heard about this being done.

Well, for a filmed record of a Jan 1957 TV spectacular, it's gonna be what it is. Most people have only heard of the color show, and only the Nov 1961 remake (taped in Oct) has been around for anyone to see. It's still a pretty amazing program.

Ben

Thanks for going slightly off-topic, Ben. This is big news and I just ordered it with the bonus DVD. I'm sure this will be of interest to many of us.

No prob. I figured everyone here is a Kovacs nut. There's some cool stuff I found that I'm pretty sure no one's seen. The TAGL sales film was probably only shown to people at the network or Consolidated Cigars. Maybe. One of the "Tonight!" episodes has the very first trial of the tilted table "Eugene" sketch.

How comprehensive are the DVD sets of YOUR SHOW OF SHOWS. I still have my betamax copies of the 10-tape set that was issued back in the day (as well as a very rare 16mm print of TEN FROM YOUR SHOW OF SHOWS).

How comprehensive are the DVD sets of YOUR SHOW OF SHOWS. I still have my betamax copies of the 10-tape set that was issued back in the day (as well as a very rare 16mm print of TEN FROM YOUR SHOW OF SHOWS).

I have the three 3-disc "Sid Caesar Collection" DVD sets, plus DVD-R copies of my (also Betamax) tapes of some of the compilations that were showing on Comedy Central (or one of its previous names) in 1996. I wonder if the latter are the same as your 10-tape set? At any rate, there are things on my tapes of those showings that aren't on the 3-disc DVD sets. I definitely wouldn't want to be without the DVDs, though. All the segments in TFYSOS are among those in the sets, BTW.

Captioning?

Sorry, no captioning. Budgetary reasons.

Kovacs-mania is beginning to gather steam, as the DVD set's release date (April 19) looms. Be sure to order your copy from Shout Factory's website in order to receive the bonus DVD that includes surviving material from "Tonight!" hosted by Ernie, and more. The extra disc isn't available through Amazon et al.

Here's some press we've gotten already:

Daily Variety
L.A. Times
Chicago Tribune
Paley Center for Media's chief curator blog
Paley Center NY event on April 12
Herald-Review.com

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Geez, I saw that 1961 remake when I was five years old! The images stayed in my mind and only years later did I find out what it actually was. In 1977 PBS ran a lot of Kovacs material, which reintroduced me to his TV shows. And now here we are.

My husband pre-ordered this for me and I can't wait for it to arrive!

Only downside is that my 16mm copy of "It Happened To Ernie" won't be quite as unique as it to be. A small price to pay.

My husband pre-ordered this for me and I can't wait for it to arrive!

Only downside is that my 16mm copy of "It Happened To Ernie" won't be quite as unique as it to be. A small price to pay.

Well, it wasn't really that unigue. I have one, and know of at least two other collectors who have it.

This ia a long awaited and needed set, and it's great that Kovacs is once again getting attention that he richly deserves.

RICHARD M ROBERTS

These shows were screened in my country. But I have ordered this set from Amazon because Shout Factory do not export so I miss out. They also have some series where the later series are only available direct from them and not the likes of Amazon. I would certainly have ordered direct if they did not have this policy.

Kudos to all those involved in the making of this wonderful set.


Edie Adams was indeed the best thing that ever happened to Ernie and
we all owe a debt of eternal gratitude to a lady who understood the rare gift
that Ernie has left us.

Even when the idiot suits at NBC did not.

Thanks! The rave revues continue to come in for the set every day, and anyone who preordered from Shout seems to have gotten their copies of the set by now. Kovacsmania begins this week...

Ben (who curated the set)

Got mine! Going to dive into it this weekend.

The only thing missing from this wonderful set, IMHO ...would be some documentation about
the state of the Kovacs masters and the effort that was involved to bring them to home video.

Thanks again to Ben Model and all those involved in this wonderful set.

Gershwin's "Rialto Ripples" will always mean Ernie to me.

There simply wasn't room in the booklet for this. I had a word-count to adhere to and tried when I could to mention little tidbits about what survives and what doesn't.

In a nutshell, I can tell you that Edie has masters of the surviving shows in a variety of formats in an archival storage facility in CA, which I visited a few years ago when I began research on the project. Some material -- scripts, and audio transcription discs of live shows from 1953-55 (no kines survive) -- are on deposit at UCLA. Some kines were transferred expressly for this project, some transfers that were used were made in the early 90s and some were done 5-10 years ago.

What I'm hoping people will turn up in closets, attics, trunks at Michigan flea markets, etc are kinescopes of Ernie's daily morning shows and weekly evening show for CBS (1953-55) and of the Dumont show (1954-55), as those are the years with the biggest gap in extant 16mm.

Ben
www.erniekovacs.info

[Mike Gebert]

Is there any reason to believe kines were even made of such things?

I was working a while back on a project about a daytime TV show from that era, but I assumed (and never found any evidence that I was wrong) that no copies had ever been made, by the nature of the program.

Is there any reason to believe kines were even made of such things?

I was working a while back on a project about a daytime TV show from that era, but I assumed (and never found any evidence that I was wrong) that no copies had ever been made, by the nature of the program.

Before the network lines were run across the country, programs were filmed to send to the stations out west. Not sure when the lines were established, but I think it was around '53.

There are a few kines of the Dumont show at UCLA, donated by Barry Shear. Most of these were dumped in the Hudson River by Metromedia, along with other kines of Soupy Sales etc.

The CBS shows might have been kinescoped, at least from time to time. There is only one surviving "Kovacs Unlimited" and it's on the DVD set, from March 1953. It's such an arbitrary date since the show ran from 1952-54, I'd imagine it wasn't the only time it was kine'd. Plus the live evening show Ernie did for CBS for 4 months in 1953 aired Tuesdays at 8pm, against Berle on NBC (gee, I wonder who got better ratings?), and it'd had to have been kinnied to be shown to the west coast. None of those have turned up. Yet.

Ben

[Mike Gebert]

Before the network lines were run across the country, programs were filmed to send to the stations out west. Not sure when the lines were established, but I think it was around '53

.

Ah, good point. Mine was a local Chicago program, so it wouldn't have had a reason to be recorded.

The New York/Chicago coaxial cable was opened in January 1949 and the coast-to-coast link was established in September 1951.

The one TV program whose kinescoping practices I really know about is "What's My Line?", thanks to the access that some researchers (not me) have had to Gil Fates' week-by-week log of the show. Kinescopes were made of every broadcast from the show's debut in February 1950, but CBS destroyed most of them up until July 1952; only about a dozen remain from those first 2 1/2 years. Other Goodson-Todman games from that time have similar patterns: the first few episodes of "I've Got a Secret" in the summer of '52 are missing, and surviving episodes of "Beat the Clock" and "The Name's the Same" also begin around July/August 1952. That doesn't mean earlier episodes were never kinescoped; rather it means that Goodson and Todman became more conscientious about saving their (primetime) broadcasts around the middle of '52.

Furthermore, there was already a strong precedent in the networks' radio chains: NBC opened a transcription bureau in 1935 and CBS did so in 1938 (but as with TV, the fact that recordings were made in no way guaranteed that they'd be preserved). See this useful page from LOC:
http://www.loc.gov/rr/record/recnbc.html

-Harold