Trenton, NJ and surrounding communities
If he hadn’t been killed in a car crash on Jan. 13, 1962, Trenton’s own Ernie Kovacs might still be around to celebrate his 92nd birthday Sunday -- and no doubt marvel at the technology bringing his zany humor to the world now.
Behind the movement are the promoters of a DVD box set called the Ernie Kovacs Collection, which is said to be selling well with the Baby Boomers who remember seeing him in black and white on the foot-square television screens of the early 1950s.
One such Boomer is Terry Gilliam of Monty Python fame, who said one of his strongest memories from growing up in rural Minnesota was seeing Kovacs on a neighbor’s television.
“One night,’’ said Gilliam, the dark god of the surreal “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.’’
For The Trentonian biography on Kovacs go to http://capitalcentury.com/1950.html
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