The life and legacy of the great Ernie Kovacs will be celebrated on April 12 at the Paley Center
Paley Center for Media
25 West 52nd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Tuesday, April 12, $10, 6:30
212-621-6600
www.paleycenter.org
www.erniekovacs.info
Ernie Kovacs was one of television’s earliest pioneers, a comedic innovator who created such all-time-great characters as Percy Dovetonsils, Wolfgang Von Sauerbraten, Matzoh Hepplewhite, Pierre Ragout, and Eugene (the last an endearing tribute to silent film). The cigar-chomping Kovacs’s sketch comedy was way ahead of its time, parodying Madison Ave., classical music, and television itself, all done with a sly wink and a nod. Tragically, the Trenton-born Kovacs died in a car accident in Los Angeles in 1962, just short of his forty-third birthday. In conjunction with the release of The Ernie Kovacs Collection six-DVD box set, which comes with a forty-four-page booklet (including an essay by Jonathan Lethem), the Paley Center for Media will host a panel discussion on April 12 celebrating Kovacs’s genius and legacy, hosted by Keith Olbermann and featuring TV Funhouse animator Robert Smigel, MST3K creator Joel Hodgson, DVD box curator Ben Model, Laugh-In executive producer George Schlatter, and Schlatter’s wife, Jolene Brand Schlatter, who appeared in many Kovacs sketches. If you don’t know much about Kovacs — which would be a tremendous shame, since he’s been an influence in one way or another on at least half of everything you’ve ever laughed at on TV — check out a bunch of his skits on YouTube, especially such classics as “Mack the Knife,” “Kitchen Symphony,” “Mountain Climbing with Dutch Masters Cigars,” and “The Nairobi Trio.”