Ernie Kovacs, a creative and iconoclastic comedian, pioneered the use of special effects photography in television comedy. On the 50th anniversary of the beginning of television in 1989, People Weekly recognized him as one of television's top-25 stars of all time. During the 1950s, Kovacs's brilliant use of video comedy demonstrated the unique possibilities of television, decades before similar techniques became popular on Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In and the various David Letterman shows. His live shows were characterized by ad-libbed routines, enormous flexibility with the TV camera, experimentation with video effects, complete informality while on camera, and a permissiveness that expanded studio boundaries by allowing viewers to see activity beyond the set.

     His routines frequently parodied other programs and introduced imaginative Kovacsian characters such as the magician Matzo Hepplewhite, Professor Bernie Cosnowski, and Mr. Question Man, whose traits would later be echoed in Johnny Carson's Carnac the Magnificent. The best-known of his creations was the Nairobi Trio, three ape instrumentalists playing "Solfeggio" in a deadpan manner like mechanical monkeys. The high point came when the percussionist turned jerkily to the conductor and bopped him on the head with a xylophone hammer.

     Following a career in radio, Kovacs's transition to television came in 1950, when he simultaneously hosted several programs on NBC's WPTZ in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His first show, Deadline for Dinner, consisted of cooking tips from guest chefs. When a guest did not show, Kovacs did his own recipe for "Eggs Scavok" ("Scavok" being his name spelled backward). In August 1950, he hosted a quiz and fashion program titled Pick Your Ideal, basically a 15- minute promotion for the Ideal Manufacturing Company. In November of that year, he pioneered one of TV's first morning wake-up programs. The unstructured format required improvisational abilities Kovacs had mastered on radio. The daily 90-minute slot was titled 3 To Get Ready. (The number 3 referred to channel 3, or WPTZ).

     Kovacs's off-the-wall style was extremely unorthodox in early television. He approached the medium as something totally new. While his contemporaries were treating TV as an extension of vaudeville stages, Ko­ vacs was expanding the visible confines of the studio. His skits incorporated areas previously considered taboo, including dialogue with the camera crew, the audience, and forays into the studio corridor.

     Impressed with his abilities, NBC network executives scheduled his first network show, It's Time for Ernie, in May 1951. The daily 15-minute broadcast aired from WPTZ, featuring Kovacs and music from a local combo known as the Tony deSimone Trio. In July he received his first prime-time slot as a summer replacement for Kukla, Fran, and Ollie. Ernie in Ko­ vacs/and opened with the music "Oriental Blues" and title cards with cartoon drawings of Ernie. A voice­ over announced: "Ernie in Kovacsland! A short program-it just seems long."

     Early in 1952, Kovacs reappeared on daytime TV as host for Kovacs on the Corner, the last of his shows to originate from Philadelphia. Similar to radio's Allen's Alley, Kovacs strolled along a cartoon-like set and talked to such neighborhood characters as Luigi the Barber, Pete the Cop, Al the Dog, and Little Johnny Merkin, a midget. One program segment allowed a selected audience member to say hello to folks back home. A closed window filled the screen. On the window shade was printed the phrase "Yoo-Hoo Time." When the shade was raised, the excited audience member waved, saying "Yoo-hoo!"

     In April 1952, Kovacs moved to WCBS in New York as host of a local daytime comedy-variety show named Kovacs Unlimited. Known for its parodies of other programs, Kovacs Unlimited can be compared to Saturday Night Live, which resembles it. It was Ko­ vacs's longest-running series out of New York, lasting 21 months.

     In December, CBS aired a new, national Ernie Ko­ vacs Show opposite NBC's Texaco Star Theater with Milton Berle. Kovacs produced and wrote the show himself, and, as with his earlier broadcasts, much of the program was improvised. Unlike other TV comedies, there was no studio audience, nor was canned laughter used. In Kovacs's view, the usefulness of an audience was diminished because they could not see the special effects. Described as his "hallucinatory world," the program featured many ingenious video effects, as though illusion and reality were confused. In his skits, paintings came to life, flames from candles remained suspended in midair, and library books spoke.

     Kovacs reappeared periodically in shows over various networks. In April 1954, the DuMont network's flagship station, WABD in New York, scheduled him as a late-night rival to Steve Allen. NBC aired his show as a daytime comedy premiering in December 1955 and in prime time a year later. Kovacs's final appearances were in a monthly series on ABC during 1961 and 1962. He received an Emmy for the 1961 series sponsored by Dutch-Masters Cigars. Regulars on many of Kovacs's early shows were Edie Adams, who became his second wife; straight-men Trigger Lund and Andy McKay; and the Eddie Hatrak Orchestra.

     The most extraordinary episode in Kovacs's career was the half-hour NBC broadcast, without dialogue, known as the "Silent Show." Seen on January 19, 1957, it was the first prime-time program done entirely in pantomime. Accompanied by only sound effects and music, Kovacs starred as the mute, Chaplinesque "Eu­ gene," a character he earlier developed during the fall of 1956 when hosting The Tonight Show. In 1961 Ko­ vacs and co director Joe Behar received the Directors Guild of America Award for a second version of the program aired over ABC.

     Kovacs was an avant-garde experimenter in a television era governed by norms from earlier entertainment media. In his routines, he pioneered the use of black­ outs, teaser openings, improvisations with everyday objects, matting techniques, synchronization of music and sound with images, and various camera effects including superimpositions, reverse polarity (a switch making positive seem negative), and reverse scanning (flipping images upside down). Several TV documentaries have celebrated his work. These include WNJT's Cards and Cigars: The Trenton in Ernie Kovacs (1980), Showtime Cable's Ernie Kovacs: Television's Original Genius (1982), and ABC's Ernie Kovacs: Be­tween the Laughter (1984). In 1987 he was inducted into the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame.