Talk:Ernie Kovacs/Archive 1

Archive 1

Lincoln

I added a clarification on the Lincoln automobile. This may seem very redundant to readers in the USA, but not all Wikipedia users are from the USA. -- 201.78.233.162 01:27, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

"Haydn, Op. 3, No. 5"

The reference link points to a page that states that Op.3, No. 5 is not by Haydn, but rather by Pater Roman Hofstetter. Op. 33, on the other hand, is definitely by Haydn. I'm changing this. RogerLustig 03:53, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

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The Silent Show

Concerning this:

"He also did several TV specials, including the famous "Silent Show" in 1959"

according to the Museum of Broadcast Communications, the date was January 19 of 1957.

http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/K/htmlK/KovacsErnie/kovacsErnie.htm

Age at death

His birth is listed as 1919 and death in 1962. Yet the article states that he died before his "53rd" birthday. If the dates are correct, he would have been only 42(ten days short of his 43rd birthday). Qphilo 01:23, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for File:Ernie milktable.jpg

File:Ernie milktable.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

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BetacommandBot (talk) 06:51, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for File:Ernieandbill.jpg

File:Ernieandbill.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

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If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 06:51, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for File:Ernieandedie.jpg

File:Ernieandedie.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

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If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 06:52, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for File:Matzoh.jpg

File:Matzoh.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

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BetacommandBot (talk) 16:59, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for File:Kovacsmontage.jpg

File:Kovacsmontage.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

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If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 22:45, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Solfeggio

"Robert Maxwell's "Solfeggio" became so associated with the infamous derby-hatted apes that it became better known simply as "The Song of the Nairobi Trio"." -- Solfeggio links to Solfege: "a way of assigning syllables to degrees or steps of the diatonic scale." Correct when referring to "Robert Maxwell's 'Solfeggio'", or not? -- 201.78.233.162 00:49, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, both terms refer to singing a melody using do-re-mi-etc. syllables for the appropriate notes, as is done in the Maxwell piece. StanislavJ 01:32, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Why is there a request for clarification in one of the "Solfeggio" references? It's clearly marked below that. Shoudl the reference to Robert Maxwell be moved up? At least the clarification not should be removed.Ruidh (talk) 23:47, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Good suggestion — that clarifies it indeed. However, I removed the wikilinks to Solfeggio (and to Three to Get Ready) because they are not articles about the song (or the show). Michael Bednarek (talk) 01:45, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Internet Archive-Creative Commons License

Public domain license

Internet Archive-Jack Benny Show-Ernie Kovacs guest

"This movie is part of the collection: Classic TV."

Internet Archive-Kovacs on the Corner 1952

"This movie is part of the collection: Classic TV."

Internet Archive Classic TV

"public domain classic TV shows"
We hope (talk) 18:10, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Notes

• Kovacs is sometimes credited with saying, "Television: a medium, so-called because it is neither rare nor well done," but the actual quip originated with radio legend Fred Allen on the premiere of Tallulah Bankhead's radio variety program, The Big Show, on 5 November 1950: "You know, television is a new medium, and I have discovered why it's called a medium—because nothing is well done."
• Kovacs frequently played gin with other entertainment friends such as Jack Lemmon, who called Kovacs and Walter Matthau two of the worst card players he had ever known.
• Although Kovacs was a longtime spokesman for Dutch Masters cigars (resulting in some of the most creative and humorous commercials of the time), in real life, Ernie only smoked expensive Havana cigars, as many as 20 per day at a cost of $2.00 each (approximately $18 apiece in 2008 prices).
• The day he died, he met Julian Koenig to discuss his job as spokesman for Dutch Masters. He dropped off Koenig at the airport and then went to the party at Berle's house. Koenig found out the next morning when he arrived in New York that Kovacs had been killed.
• Ernie was a night owl and insomniac, surviving on no more than 3 or 4 hours sleep at night, and often much less than that (sometimes no sleep at all if a good card game was in progress). He credited frequent steambaths, followed by a cold swim underwater in a pool, for invigorating him and keeping him going when his energy lagged.  Done We hope (talk) 14:37, 16 October 2010 (UTC)
• Kovacs had some success in radio. He was morning man at WABC, New York City in 1955.  Done We hope (talk) 14:37, 16 October 2010 (UTC)
• Kovacs is also the subject of a play, The Importance of Being Ernie by multimedia artist Sean Sanczel.

Copying these here until they can be sorted out and worked into the article's text.

We hope (talk) 01:13, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Relative?

There is a cinematographer named Ernie Kovacs, listed at IMDB. if anyone has knowledge of a possible connection between them (perhaps a grandson or nephew), i think that would be notable.(mercurywoodrose)66.80.6.163 (talk) 18:37, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Request for Comment

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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I have removed several links per WP:ELNO on this page only to have them re-added by Taglman so I'm asking for additional opinions. The links that I believe should be removed are:

• Ernie Kovacs blog - an unofficial blog written by what appears to be a fan and not a recognized authority
• MySpace - an unofficial MySpace page that appears to be created/maintained by a fan
• Twitter - an unverified Twitter account which I highly doubt Mr. Kovacs is using to tweet

The article already links to Kovacs' official site and two different fansites. I think including those links and those links only is more than sufficient and follows our external link policy. Pinkadelica^♣ 19:05, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I added these back in:

• Ernie Kovacs blog - The blog is maintained by Al Quagliata and Ben Model. Mr. Model is affiliated with the Kovacs estate and has curated the most recent video release of Kovacs work to be released in April 2011; he also runs the website www.erniekovacs.info which was, for the most part, the original Ernie Kovacs website on the internet. According to Mr. Quagliata's site, www.erniekovacs.net, he started out writing for Mr. Model's site. In addition, both sites are linked at http://www.erniekovacs.com/links.php, the site run by Edie Adams son, Josh Mills. This is the official site of the estate. Please look at this; these sites are all recognized, in fact they are the top three links on that page; The links page at erniekovacs.com refers to Mr. Model as "Kovacs archivist". In addition the main page at www.erniekovacs.net explains these affiliations.

• MySpace - This is the estate's official myspace page. Visit erniekovacs.com and you will find a link to it on the bottom. I updated this from the original myspace link which was an offshoot of erniekovacs.net

• Twitter - "an unverified Twitter account which I highly doubt Mr. Kovacs is using to tweet"

Yes, considering he's been deceased for nearly 50 years. This is the twitter site run by Ernie's estate and any updates that are going on are posted there, eg, new videos, festivals, articles etc. Once again, a link to this can be found on the bottom of www.erniekovacs.com, the site run by the estate. Taglman (talk) 19:33, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Hey, I saw the listing at RfC. My two cents: WP:ELNO seems pretty clear on this issue, and I think the links should be excluded. None of them add anything of encyclopedic value. --Coemgenus 19:50, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

There's not any question that all three external links should be removed as WP:ELNO.

1) Where they not commercial and fan site, they have trivial encyclopedic information that doesn't seem to add to the long and well-rounded Wikipedia article.

2) As a rule, blogs and MySpace are disallowed. An exception for MySpace, for example, is a musician who has no other official page. That isn't the case here.

3) Either of the two above reasons is completely sufficient to have the links removed. But also, for the sake of "larger lessons learned", I don't remember offhand discussion about the validity of an "official" page being in the hands of a business. My gut is this is actually contrary to the goal of an unbiased encyclopedia. I.e., who owns the business rights to a subject, to some, unverified extent is really not the business of Wikipedia. We assume that a personal MySpace account is in the control of the living individual. (In fact, there's a case successfully argued in Wiki that the living individual was not in control of their "official" site, and was therefore allowed an additional external link to MySpace.) When an official site is a business writing about itself, then there are legal and pragmatic consequences to lying on that page. But there's nothing much to stop the estate of a famous person lying through its teeth about how important that person was to increase their revenues. My suggestion then, is that external links to "official sites" be disallowed when a business (or group of fans) is representing a person who is dead by proxy. 98.210.208.107 (talk) 13:08, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

I can see your point on the MySpace page; it doesn't really add anything. But what I think needs to be understood here is that Ernie Kovacs was a pioneer in his field and the people that are his fans are eager for any new information about him regarding projects that are planned or that have come to fruition. The blog provides that information to them; it's not just some feckless fan site and the info comes from folks who are directly involved. And while I agree with you that there is nothing to prevent an estate from lying to increase revenue I highly doubt that is the case here; there's no question Ernie Kovacs was an important pioneer and there is such a dearth of available material that interested parties, who are a niche, actively seek it out without assistance from any business entity. I also don't see how the article, which is good, is better than sites that are intimately involved with the work. I think they all add something in total. Taglman (talk) 14:36, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Pioneer or not, the fact of the matter remains that these three links do not meet Wikipedia's standards for inclusion and that is the problem here. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia first and foremost. Its job is to provide information about the subject at hand, not to link to various sites that may or may not provide additional information about the subject. That is what Google or other various search engines are for. Unless another reason besides WP:ILIKEIT is provided why these three links should be above the rules or unless the community decides they are exempt (which doesn't seem to be the case so far), the links need to be removed. Pinkadelica^♣ 19:49, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

The links should be removed. The fact that 'people that are his fans are eager for any new information about him regarding projects that are planned or that have come to fruition' would justify their inclusion on a fan site, which this is not - Wikipedia's goal is to produce a quality encyclopaedia. TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 01:15, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

This RfC has run for thirty days so I'm closing it. Far as I can tell, consensus seems to be in favor of removing the links to Twitter, MySpace and the blog which I will be doing shortly. Pinkadelica^♣ 18:56, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Grandfathers

So Keigh Lancaster's grandfathers were Burt Lancaster and Ernie Kovacs! That's quite a combination of genes. StellarStand (talk) 03:26, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Influence on Monty Python?

Given that Kovacs is largely unknown outside the US (despite a number of prominent Hollywood movie roles), it seems extremely unlikely that he had any influence at all on Monty Python (indeed, the Pythons have always claimed The Goons/Spike Millgan as their biggest influence.) It is not clear whether the citation shown applies to just Letterman or all acts listed. Even if it does, there must be doubts over its accuracy. Mrstonky (talk) 14:16, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree - the article cited to justify the list of acts “influenced” is obviously an opinion piece, and not researched to provide evidence from the acts themselves. It may be the case, but as Mrstonky says, the case for foreign comedians such as the Pythons (and even "Max Headroom”, given it originated in the U.K., albeit with America-born, Canada-raised Matt Frewer in the rôle) having been influenced is highly tenuous. Jock123 (talk) 14:13, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't think anyone would argue that Kovacs' comedy shows had a direct impact on the Pythons. However he almost certainly must have had some influence on the young Richard Lester, since both worked in the Philadelphia TV market in the early 1950s. Lester of course would go on to make several touchstones of 1960s British comedy that would certainly have an influence on Monty Python, including the The Running Jumping & Standing Still Film, A Hard Day's Night, and Help! In that way, it probably can be argued that Kovacs had an indirect influence on the Pythons through Lester. Atomic rom (talk) 15:20, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

"One of my strongest memories as a kid growing or not-growing up in the countryside of Minnesota was having to go to our neighbor's house to watch television. I had no idea that the Nameless God of Surreal Humor was hunting me down. I felt happy with the ......world as it was. But, one night that dark god coaxed the neighbors into switching the TV to The Ernie Kovacs Show. I was ambushed. Knocked sideways into a world where the bizarre and the daft and the preposterous all lived happily alongside wisdom, wit and perception. I had never experienced anything so visually absurd and inventive. It was sublime. It hurt. I was 11 years old. Was this some new form of child abuse? If it was, it was one of the most momentous things that ever happened to me. Ernie Kovacs scarred me for life. Thankfully, I've never recovered." - Terry Gilliam

Mark Lincoln (talk) 17:41, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

Influenced "Laff-In" and "Turn On"

One night while watching Rowan and Martin's Laff-in, the two host comedians dedicated a segment to Ernie Kovacs. It was considered a well deserved tribute. Years later, I happen to meet Donald Stewart Jr., who was a occational junior writer for Mr. Kovacs. Most of Stewart's ideas were applied in many of the famous "Blackout Scenes", under the theme music of "Mack The Knife", whom was sung by Mr. Wilder himself. According to Stewart, Weeks before Kovacs untimely death, Kovacs was seriously looking into creating a one hour comedy TV Show, and wanted Stewart to be one of his main comedy writers for that show. The comedy show was a "Laff-In" type format, from which George Schlatter would take and refine into "Laff-In". With the success of "Laff-In", Both Stewart and Schlatter collaborated together and created a comedy TV Show called "Turn On". Unfortunately it only aired once... it was too much ahead of it's time. Years later, the "Turn-On" format was refined and tried again. Successfully under the name "Saturday Night Live". Aedwardmoch (talk) 17:49, 26 October 2009 (UTC)AedwardmochAedwardmoch (talk) 17:49, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Years later, I happen to meet Donald Stewart Jr. ... According to Stewart ...

And is this personal insight published anywhere? If not, it's original research (again - I've asked you before to stop adding this kind of stuff). Gordonofcartoon (talk) 13:26, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

George Schlatter, producer of "Rowan and Martin's Laugh In, is married to Jolene Brand, who was regular on the Ernie Kovacs Specials and once appeared on "Take a Good Look." George Schlatter and Jolene Brand were interviewed for "The Ernie Kovacs Collection." (Disk 1) (Shout Factory, 2011, shout factory.com) In the interview they discuss working with Kovacs and his influence upon Laugh In. Mark Lincoln (talk) 17:57, 25 October 2015 (UTC)