Conan O'Brien and the Legacy of Ernie Kovacs

[janeway529]

There's a great article on SplitInsider comparing the work of Ernie
Kovacs to the current-day work of Conan. Pretty interesting stuff.
Link: http://splitsider.com/2012/01/conan-obrien-and-the-legacy-of-ernie-kovacs

Text [Sans Videos]:

On January 19, 1957, Ernie Kovacs did something that had never been
seen before on a major television network. He performed an entire
thirty-minute television special, entitled Eugene, that was completely
silent. The special was based around the eponymous Eugene character,
played by Kovacs, who bumbled around his own self-created world.
Kovacs uses a variety of sight gags and physical comedy, like you
would expect from a mime or clown performer, but also uses the
techniques of television to immerse the audience in the experience. By
doing this Kovacs showcased his willingness to experiment with the
medium of television back when it was still in its infancy. Today
would have been Kovacs’ 93rd birthday and there is no doubt in my mind
that he would still be experimenting with and influencing television
and the Internet if he were still alive.

Flash forward thirty-six years later: on May 15, 2003 at 12:35am.
Conan O’Brien is about to experiment with the medium of television on
his late night talk show on the very same network as Kovacs — NBC.
After a brief introduction, Late Night with Conan O’Brien is
transformed and presented in claymation for the rest of the show that
night. In his willingness to experiment with the medium of television,
from Late Night to his current TBS show, Conan O’Brien links himself
with Ernie Kovacs in that he is both influenced by Kovacs’ work and
continues to evolve and experiment with Kovacs’s ideas. Conan’s
experimental claymation special is similar to Kovacs' silent special
in the sense that it is willing to experiment with a technique not
normally used in late night television; however, that is where the
similarities stop. While Kovac’s was willing to change all of his
sketches in order to heighten the Eugene character and the silent show
premise, Conan’s claymation episode is just an episode of Late Night
that happens to be in claymation. Aside from the obvious visual
changes no other changes were made in the episode to heighten the
aesthetic change.



Kovacs was not only known for his willingness to experiment with the
medium of television, but also for his use of absurd humor and special
effects that were considered groundbreaking when they first appeared
in the late 50s and early 60s. These visual effects were usually
paired with out of sync music in order to further confuse the audience
and make them check their own TVs to see if something was wrong. As
seen in the clip below, Kovacs only explains some of the visual tricks
that are seen, while leaving others completely unexplained. The viewer
can see that Kovacs is trying to make his show an experience filled
with things that people have never seen or heard before on television.


This absurd humor has evolved greatly since the early 60s when Kovacs
took advantage of it, and is especially apparent in Conan O’Brien’s
television shows. Absurdity has always been a staple of Conan’s humor
and many of his bits and sketches are also about making the audience
uncomfortable or providing them with some kind of mutual experience.
This comes in the form of audience plants, strange recurring
characters and, especially, in his taped sketches. This absurdity has
taken its most recent form with a series of sketches about the
magnificent Gravy Boat Lighthouse, which bills itself as a gravy boat
exclusively for crazy people. The clip below shows an evolution of not
just absurdity in humor, but also a huge growth in the use of special
effects. The lady who appears on Kovac’s shoulders in the 1812 clip
seems primitive when compared to the invading Somali pirates who
appear to be driving across the table to attack the gravy boat. It’s
not Avatar, but in comparing it to the early special effects of Kovacs
it might as well be.

Apart from his early use of special effects, absurd humor, and
experimentation, all of which would make any one person notable in the
history of early television, Ernie Kovacs was actually best known for
his series of blackouts accompanied by a German singer’s version of
the song, “Mack the Knife.” These blackouts didn’t actually appear
until near the end of Ernie’s televised life in 1960-late 1961, but it
is easy to understand why they are considered so groundbreaking, and
hard to understand how they are not better known by comedy nerds. They
are mostly sight gags and were never shown twice in any of the Kovacs
specials, which is ridiculous when you find out that the short “car
falling through the floor” blackout cost $15,000 and was done in only
one take. I think it is fair to say that even the most experimental TV
performers in 2012 would think twice about pulling something like this
off, but for Kovacs it was just another joke in a set of jokes.


This series of blackouts eventually evolved into a recurring bit on
Late Night with Conan O’Brien, “New Satellite Channels.” The set up
for this bit was much better explained, maybe even over-explained,
then Kovac’s “Mack The Knife” blackouts and are definitely an
evolution of the Kovacs idea. Each new channel serves as a kind of
blackout, with each more absurd than the last. Unlike Kovacs more
sight-based gags, Conan focuses a lot more on what is said and who is
saying it. Instead of a car falling through the floor or a dark room
literally making a man negative, Conan’s new satellite channels
feature characters with hilarious and memorable catchphrases, like
“Not Cool, Zeus” and the “Hot Sauce Tasting Network.”


One final and equally important contribution that Ernie Kovacs made
was to break the fourth wall and directly interact with the studio
audience. Later, when Kovacs no longer used studio audiences, he
interacted with the audience at home. In addition to the “Mack The
Knife” blackouts this may be the other aspect of Kovacs television
life that he is most well known for. Almost no other show on TV in the
early 50s showed the audience, let alone interacted with them. Kovacs
frequently interacted with them and even involved them in his
sketches, breaking the idea that all of television was a magical pre-
planned place where the audience was completely separate from the
performer. In the clip below, Kovacs even makes a joke for the studio
audience at some home audience viewers’ expense.

The breaking of the fourth wall and interacting with the studio
audience has become a staple of not just current late night
television, but almost all television shows with a studio audience.
Ever since his early days at Late Night, Conan has seemed to feed off
his audience and uses their reactions to adjust his show on the fly.
If you watch any Conan monologue you are sure to see him interact with
the audience if a joke hits or flops and even interact with his
executive producer Jeff Ross. This has taken form most recently with
Conan’s “Audiency Awards,” which singles out various audience members
who look like celebrities or exhibit strange fashion choices. In my
opinion, this is pure Conan O’Brien and is one of the things that has
hooked me to his different late night shows since I started watching
them.

Tragically, Ernie Kovacs televised life was cut short on January 13,
1962 when he died in a freak car accident on his way home. This year
marks the 50th anniversary of his death and whether he is aware of it
or not, Conan O’Brien and his writing staff have served as a fitting
tribute to Kovacs since Conan’s first episode of Late Night in 1993.
Kovacs helped pioneer many techniques that influenced and still are
being elaborated on by Conan and his team of writers on his current
late night TBS talk show. One of Kovac’s own famous lines was,
“nothing in moderation,” and I think if he were alive today he would
be happy to see Conan and his team following this mantra as they
continue to experiment with and evolve the medium of television.