January 31, 2006

Remembering Ernie Kovacs

The funniest TV show I ever saw, bar none, was the comedy of Ernie Kovacs. Ernie was a wacky Magyar, who opened his show with a vibraphone number by the Nairobi Trio, shown below.

Ernie also made famous the inimitable Leona Anderson, whose pseudo-operatic "Rats In My Room" is the all-time non-classic classical music spoof.

Ernie was married to the lovely Edie Adams,
and died too young, at 43, in 1962. But he was funny.

Of course, nowadays you'd be howled down by the PC crowd if you put a bunch of guys in gorilla suits on TV and called them the "Nairobi Trio." You'd be lucky to avoid a fatwa. Buy Danish.

UPDATE: A video of the fabulous three here. Sorry about the ad that precedes it.

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