Ernie Kovacs is remembered today as a ground-breaking television comedian. He got credit later in his career in videography as some of his work there was highly influential as well. His career was cut short by a car wreck at the age of 43, which though tragic only cemented his career in that way that an early death seems to in America. He was born and raised in Trenton New Jersey, and that is where his time in radio began.In 1942 after some jibbing from fiends he auditioned for 920 WTTM-AM. He adlibbed jokes while reading the news off the teletype. They hired him. He had graduated from class clown to professional clown. The station had only been on air since that April. He became an announcer, DJ and non-stop prankster. In 1945 he picked up a gig writing a humor column for The Trentonian Newspaper.
He left WTTM-AM for a job at WPTZ-TV in Philadelphia in January of 1950. He started there as co-host a cooking show of all things. It was called "Deadline for Dinner." He later hosted a morning show "Three to Get Ready" at 7:00 AM. It was a bit of news, a bit of comedy, a bit of weather. He dumped water on the weatherman, he ran through restaurants in a gorilla suit...it was a very odd format, very Kovacs actually. That started in November of 1950. By 1951 he was hosting his own shows "It's Time for Ernie," "Ernie in Kovacsland," and later "Kovacs on the Corner." His winning streak came to an end when NBC insisted their morning program "The Today Show" be aired on the station, bumping Kovacs. It was unfair, but it drove Kovacs from Philly to New York. He landed on on WCBS-TV in New York City with a new program "Kovacs Unlimited."
It was in New York that he took some time to return to radio. He was a morning-drive radio personality on WABC-AM. The "Ernie Kovacs Show" debuted May 30th 1955 at 6:00 am and ran to 9:00 pm. It ran Monday through Saturday. The program was sponsored by Horn and Hardart, makers of the Automat.
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Great post. Something that rarely gets discussed is Ernie's radio career, which really is what started the ball rolling. There's an old tale that when Ernie auditioned for WPTZ-TV in Philadelphia, his original job being announcer, that he played them a tape of his announcing a wrestling match for WTTM in which he broke chicken bones into the mic to simulate the sound of the wrestlers' bones breaking. Ernie was very popular as a DJ.
ReplyDeleteSome trivia; when Ernie hosted "Deadline For Dinner" he rechristened it "Dead Lion For Dinner". Or maybe it was "Dead Lion For Lunch". One of those.
Thanks for helping to keep his legacy alive with an informative post!
Ernie Kovacs Dot Net: A Tribute To Television's Original Genius and The Ernie Kovacs Blog
I wish I knew how long he was on WCBS-AM, was he still a morning man there until his death?
ReplyDeleteYour blog is hereby recommended to my readers: http://erniekovacs.blogspot.com/
ReplyDeleteThanks very much Jose. I noticed you also linked to my site in the title of this post; I really appreciate it.
ReplyDeleteThe station where Ernie did the morning show was WABC and he was not there until his death although I can't remember the exact date it ended. On the website I have some recollections from Ed Silverman, who was the overnight news editor and Ernie's announcer. I have the start date listed, which I got from Diana Rico's "Kovacsland: A Biography Of Ernie Kovacs". I don't have a copy with me to check the end date but I believe he did it for a couple of years.
I recently received an email from someone who has an old 33 1/3 transcription disc of Ernie narrating a program about New Jersey State history from around 1948, which I'm assuming may have been on WTTM. Hopefully I'll get to hear that at some point; the only radio clips I've heard of Ernie are from NBC's Monitor and "Stardust" programs. The link leads to a Monitor page where you can hear some clips; many of the "Stardust" clips can be heard at the Paley Center For Media in New York and Los Angeles. The Paley link will take you to the catalog page for a full listing of what they have available.
In 1955 I was in the 7th grade in Denver. I watched EK's early morning show at 7am and swapped sketch bits with my school friends. I have no idea how a Denver station got access to his show if it was local in New York.
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John W
He was syndicated on CBS. His 6:00 AM show probably started at 4:00 AM mountain time. ...unless you'r e remembering wrong, or his time slot shifted a bit... or time zones have changed since 1950!
ReplyDeleteNBC's "The Ernie Kovacs Show" was on nationally in the morning during that time period so that is most likely what you were watching.
ReplyDeleteErnie Kovacs Dot Net: A Tribute To Television's Original Genius and The Ernie Kovacs Blog