Continuing our Friday Ernie Kovacs posts, here’s Kovacs most famous routine–The Nairobi Trio performing ‘Solfeggio’. Even if you’ve seen this before–and chances are that you have–it remains weirdly delightful and beyond definition. As always with Kovacs, the ‘meta’ of it all is also fascinating–how did he describe this routine to
Last Friday I decided that we would end every work week from now on (and forever and I mean it) with a little Ernie Kovacs material from his various 1950s and 60s TV specials. (See also last Monday and Wednesday as well for a little Kovacs catch-up). This is a
I get that Ernie Kovacs isn’t for everyone–he was often referred to as ‘The Olive’, code for ‘acquired taste’. Actually I have a friend whose taste I usually am in agreement with who once said that Kovacs comedy was for him ‘like being told oatmeal is dessert’. Nonetheless I love
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwQx8xyGacU In 1959 Larry King–born Lawrence Heiger–was a twenty-six year old Disc Jockey working in Miami. His first broadcast was on May 1, 1957, working as the disc jockey from 9 a.m. to noon. (He also did two afternoon newscasts and a sportscast, for which he was paid $50 a
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwbMr8bK45M YouTube sure takes care of its regular users well. Indeed they resemble nothing so much as the neighborhood ‘pusher’, supplying me with the stuff they know I’ll shoot up hungrily upon first sight. Apropos of yesterday’s post in which I mentioned reading Nick Tosches superb bio of Dean Martin,
Apropos of yesterday’s post on television from the late 1940s, here’s a short and deeply primitive clip of a show from 1947 featuring Jinx Falkenberg and Tex McCreary. Stilted and goofy though it is, it proves my point from yesterday that television programming hasn’t really changed much. I mean, aren’t
‘Shivaree’ was a Los Angeles-based music variety show that ran in syndication from 1965 to 1966. It was created and hosted by KFWB-AM personality Gene Weed, LA’s top nighttime DJ at the time. Although it had only a brief run it attracted an enviable roster of talent, featuring performers such as James Brown, The
Lucille Ball’s post-Desi Arnaz divorce show, ‘The Lucy Show’, ran for six seasons (1962-1968) and had five different title sequences. Was it because of dissatisfaction on the producer/stars part? Or were the title sequence creators so inventive that it seemed a shame not to keep them employed in developing further
Apropos of yesterdays animated TV credit sequences, I went searching for the original ‘I Love Lucy’ animated opening credits. I found it–but, as is often the case with YouTube, I found something even more interesting on my way. It turns out that a pilot episode of ‘I Love Lucy’ was
Apropos of yesterday’s post featuring the lyrics to the theme song of ‘Bewitched’, here is the ‘I Love Lucy’ theme with lyrics sung by Ricky Ricardo himself. The theme was written by two-time Oscar nominee Eliot Daniel. The lyrics were later written by five-time Oscar nominee Harold Adamson for the 1953 episode ‘Lucy’s