Ernie Kovacs Guestbook

Thank you for taking the time to check out the Ernie Kovacs Guestbook. We started this page because we were getting so many emails with fantastic memories of Ernie Kovacs and Edie Adams since the launch of his site that we decided to share them with you all. If you have a favorite memory of Ernie, his show, meeting him, meeting Edie or how a friend or parent or relative exposed you to Kovacs – we want to hear it!

Thanks – Erniekovacs.com

Click Here to Sign the Guestbook :
Viewing messages 1 to 25.

PATRICIA

If you like good clean comedy then you have to love Ernie Kovacs. The man's talent was so ahead of it's time. Just thinking about Ernie makes me smile!

April 7, 2012 - Florida

Stacey

I had never heard of Ernie Kovacs before today but i have now researched him and come to find he was a very funny man! We were tearing up our kitchen floor and came across many old newspapers and on the front page of one was a very graphic picture of his automobile accident dated jan 13th 1962.

March 5, 2012 - PA

R Ponstingle

Thanks

January 21, 2012 - North Olmste, Ohio - USA

Frank Zukas

The only show of Ernie's that i saw when he was alive was around late 1961 on friday night on ABC. I became a big fan. Just a few weeks later he was killed in the car crash. I remember my father called from work and told me about it, I was only 8 yrs. old at the time. A very big loss, if he had lived he would have made the world a brighter place.

December 28, 2011

Jay Hunt

I first learned of Ernie Kovacs through his articles in MAD in the 1950s. We didn't get many of his TV appearances on Canadian TV so I missed them on the first go around. I was next aware of him though his influence on George Slatter's Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In show in the '60s. I finally got to see him on the PBS Best Of Ernie Kovacs series, Now thanks to the efforts of Edie Adams in assembling his work,we have his work being kept alive on DVD, YouTube and web sites like this one. I hope to see lots more volumes of the Ernie Kovacs Collection in the future. I especially like The Nairobi Trio, Miklos Molnar, Auntie Gruesome, Matzoh Hepplewaite and Percy Dovetonsils.

Keep up the good work.

November 18, 2011 - Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Hu Lundberg

Was it 1959? I was a kid in the Iowa countryside wondering what that squiggly line was on the tv.the one with the song that sort of sounded like Bobby Darin's thing on the radio. And those visuals that kept coming and going away.stuff that had me rolling on the floor. But without Ernie & his oscilloscope, "The Threepenny Opera" would probably be unknown to me! And his commercials.do they still make Dutch Masters.with Ernie on the box?

June 28, 2011 - Norwalk, IA

Mark Dillman

I was 8 years old when Ernie died. My Dad liked to watch Ernie and I would watch with him. I distinctly remember seeing the final ABC show shortly after Ernie died. I recall it was shown without commercial interruption. I've always remembered the Nairobi Trio and a very short piece showing house of cards causing a table to collapse. I always watched the PBS series in 1977. The DVD set (seven discs) is great.

June 14, 2011 - Topeka, KS

Neil McNally

Here's hoping for a Volume 2!

June 7, 2011 - Los Angeles

Jim Saylor

First memory of Ernie Kovacs was in North To Alaska back in the 1960's, and on I Love Lucy. Have been a fan ever since.

May 15, 2011 - Prescott Valley, AZ. USA

Fran Miano

Am old enough to remember seeing Take a Good Look and the videotaped Kovacs Special with Eugene, when they were first broadcast, but I've been a Kovacs fanatic since the PBS series in the 1970s. Watching all the DVDs in the new set reminded me what a genius he was (and made think how ahead-of-his-time he probably would still be if fate hadn't, sadly, stepped in).

May 9, 2011 - Astoria, NY

John Hammes

Somewhere up there, in a celestial T.V. control booth, Ernie is deadpanning "Almost fifty years, the definitive video collection,I am amazed this could happen so QUICKLY". This collection is a feast for famished fans! A great new website, a great "new" DVD collection. This is indeed a happy day in Kovacsland. The spirit and comedy of Ernie Kovacs makes a bad day good, and a good day even better! Cheers to everyone for making this happen, and for making it real!

May 4, 2011 - Athens, Georgia

Jim

I am 66 years old and as a kid I can't remember when I wasn't crazy about Ernie Kovacs. I remember seeing him doing the Tonight Show on NBC, and I know I had watched him before that. I would have enjoyed just watching him read the phone book. He was great to watch and I idolized him - apparently more than I knew. When he died I was 16 years old and a senior in high school. It hit me hard. I was depressed for at least a month, and I was a long time getting over it. (Did I ever?) The new Ernie Kovacs Collection is so over due. It's fantastic, and I'll treasure it forever. My only complaint is that I bought the 6 disk collection. I knew nothing about the 7 disk collection (containing a bonus disk) offered by SHOUT! until after I received my set. I have e-mailed SHOUT! directly to see if they will sell the bonus disk separately. We'll see. In the meantime it's great watching this wonderful man again after a half century. He still comes across TV as being a great guy and a good friend. It's been real.

April 28, 2011 - Des Moines, IA

stephen pomes

In the spring of 1977 -- April I think -- I saw an episode of the PBS retrospective of Ernie Kovacs' work. While it may be an exaggeration to say that my worldview was transformed by this experience, it would only be a slight exaggertion. As a teenager, I was a regular viewer of "Saturday Night Live," but I instantly saw the lineage between Kovacs' work and the later work by the SNL cast members and writers. Chevy Chase's article in "TV Guide" that spring confirmed what I suspected.

I received the Kovacs DVD set today, and I expect that I'll have a flood of memories again and perhaps shed a few tears. Kovacs' early death in 1962 robbed the world of his creative genius, and this fact continues to sadden me. Nevertheless, we can thank Edie Adams for her foresight in preserving the kinescopes and videotapes and thereby preserving his legacy of genius.

April 18, 2011 - Kenner, Louisiana

Roberto

I remember like it was yesterday. I was just a kid and had just sat down to eat something and watch TV. I was changing the channels (and manually, btw, it was still the seventies) and stopped on PBS. I remember seeing this couple dancing with slow music. The camera slowly panned under them as I noticed they were dancing on a glass floor. After the four walls fell in that same sketch, I remembered I just stopped eating and couldn't take my eyes off this amazing comedian the announcer was calling, Ernie Kovacs.
A few years ago, I showed my (then) 5yr old boy an EK show. He said, "Dad.who IS this guy!?"

April 16, 2011 - Chicago

Thomas E. Rusnack

A TRUE GENIUS. One of my favorites.

April 15, 2011 - Connellsville, PA 15425

Wayne Slepcevich

introduced to Ernie back home in Chicago thru the WTTW/PBS ABC specials they ran.was fascinated then, and still am today at the genius of the man.always excited to see new footage, and this new DVD set from Shout will be a welcome addition to my Kovacs library!

April 14, 2011 - Pittsburgh, PA

Jeff Niesel

Big fan!

March 16, 2011 - Cleveland, OH

Ron Evry

Ernie is my Hero.

Check out my Facebook group devoted to him. Sorry, can't post the URL here.

March 11, 2011 - Virginia

Jeff Sultanof

Because I was a young boy in the early sixties, I remember seeing and hearing Kovacs. I was too young to have seen his ABC specials, but I remember clearly seeing some of his work a few years after he tragically died. Every once in awhile a clip of his would be shown, and I wondered whether his work had survived the periodic disposal of kinescopes and video tapes by stations and networks. The PBS series was a revelation, and I watched it whenever it was on. I have the previous Kovacs collection on White Star, and some episodes of "Take a Good Look" have also circulated.

As far as I'm concerned, Kovacs was one of those visionaries who grabbed on to the medium of television with hands and feet, and with a "what-the-hell, nobody else knows more than I do" attitude (and television was so young nobody did), he shared his off-the-wall view of life on all of us. Like an old vaudeville comic, he was so fast that if a joke died, another one would come up faster. His television work must be considered art, as much of it is as fresh, funny and thought-provoking as when he created it. Much of it is still way ahead of its time, stretching the limits of what the medium could do back then. His music parodies have never been equaled, and he probably exposed more people to Bartok than any performer or conductor.

He is irreplaceable, and it is so good to have this new set coming out so that we can have more of his genius.

March 11, 2011 - Paterson, New Jersy

Barbara Bassett

I've loved Ernie since the first time I saw him - and that was during the PBS tribute in the 70s. I hope he's always celebrated and remembered for his accomplishments and his "to hell with them" attitude. We need more Ernie's today!

March 8, 2011 - Sacramento, CA

Danny Willis

At the risk of over-stating the importance of something, the importance
of a properly produced "Ernie Kovacs"
DVD collection cannot be over-stated!

I've always believed that the reason Ernie is primarily revered and remembered by two basic groups (die-hard historians and TV watchers who lived through the period) is the lack of availability of his work. I've been into the history of broadcasting all my life (Ernie died one day before my first birthday), and I NEVER saw any of Ernie's shows until the PBS series of the 1970's, which got me hooked. Since then, his work has been virtually unobtainable except to the already initiated who were persistent enough to track it down in video catalogs, the Museum of Broadcasting, etc.

I am optimistic that this new set along with the interest it will generate will bring about a renewed appreciation for Ernie's artistry among EVERYBODY interested in video art, including the YouTube generation. Hats off to all involved, including the late great Edie Adams , for getting this ball rolling. It's long overdue, but worth the wait.

March 5, 2011 - Not in the world.

Tom Degan

Can you imagine a world without Ernie Kovacs? So help me J. Walter Puppybreath I can't. Who would have ever dreamed that a work of are could be created within the confines of an ugly glass tube? The term "video art" would not even come into being until four years after Ernie died. In this realm the man was a pioneer.

As a kid I wanted to be a film maker. It never occurred to me that anything particularly beautiful could be created via the medium of videotape. Then in the summer of 1977 PBS ran the series "The Best of Ernie Kovacs" and my life was changed forever. Today I am a video artist thanks to Ernie.

And now congress wants to kill PBS.

Tom Degan

February 22, 2011 - Goshen, New York

Rob Foster

Thank you for reviving this site, and providing yet another great destination for those in need of an online Ernie fix!

February 22, 2011 - Monterey

Al Quagliata

EK fans everywhere are happy to have this new site. Thanks for putting it up!

February 22, 2011 - United States

Jordan Fields

I first became aware of Kovacs in the 70's when PBS aired his ABC Specials. I was only 12, but I knew weird when I saw it, and it was certainly unlike anything else I'd ever seen. Now that I know a little more about television history (and now that I've been exposed to 30 more years of tv mediocrity), my appreciation for his ambitions and achievments has only grown. By the way, I recently read his novel "Zoomar," which is an excellent satire of the tv/ad business back then. It's the original "Mad Men."

February 18, 2011 - Los Angeles