Ernie Kovacs: Take A Good Look - The Definitive Collection
Studio: Shout! Factory
Oct 25, 2017 Web Exclusive
Ernie Kovacs is a legend among classic television and comedy nerds (and before any of you get touchy about the pejorative, rest assured that this writer handily fits the same profile, so cool it), one of the most visually inventive and self-consciously absurdist early adopters of the TV form. Kovacs’ humor was madcap and subversive, loaded with both ahead-of-the-curve practical effects and deeply silly boundary-pushing which provided a template for everything from The Simpsons to Saturday Night Live to David Letterman. When he died in a tragic car accident in 1962, only 42 years old, he was already recognized as one of his medium’s earliest, and greatest, masters.
In between more critically successful forays in television and film, Kovacs sold out and hosted a quiz show, Take a Good Look, for some quick money. Shout! Factory has compiled that series here in its near-entirety — minus a couple episodes carried off by the sands of time — with a massive 7-disc set. The conceit of the show was that three celebrity guests would try to guess the identity of a couple newsworthy, but not Hollywood-famous, guests every week, basing their guesses on a handful of willfully obtuse video “clues” filmed by Kovacs and his dedicated band of supporting players. Most of the show’s comedy would come from these pre-filmed clues, the style and tone of which prefigure much of what Kovacs had in store for the groundbreaking ABC television specials he’d make shortly thereafter, widely considered the zenith of his truncated career. Those clues, played much more for laughs than for useful information, basically served to turn the then-nascent quiz show enterprise entirely on its head.
Kovacs didn’t walk away from Take a Good Look with too many fond feelings, considering it an embarrassing career low. Too bad, since this set proves that the series was actually extremely entertaining, and nothing to be ashamed of at all. In fact, it’s surprising his feelings towards the show proved so sour, as most of Take a Good Look finds Kovacs apparently relaxed and in good spirits, mercilessly ribbing panelists like Cesar Romero and Zsa Zsa Gabor as they flail in the face of his near-nonsensical hints, not to mention the cigar-puffing glee he would take in stumping them. The clue portions, along with the legendary custom ad spots Kovacs made for primary sponsor Dutch Masters Cigars, afforded Kovacs plenty of room to flex his inventive, wildly satirical muscles.
Some of the transfers on this collection are from damaged masters or other, secondhand sources, and the picture and sound sometimes warbles and flutters. It’s also worth conceding that a portion of the humor has spoiled with time, being decidedly culturally insensitive or otherwise well past its use-by date. Nonetheless, it’s well worth dealing with those shortcomings to get to see this stuff, largely available for the first time since original airing. There are perhaps better places to start for Kovacs neophytes (luckily, Shout! Factory also stocks a collection of the aforementioned ABC specials, a considerably more affordable and concise jump-off point), but both Kovacs fan clubbers and classic TV deep-divers will take much delight in what’s on offer herein.
www.shoutfactory.com/product/ernie-kovacs-take-a-good-look-the-definitive-collection
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