All because Kovacs was searching for His Lit Cigar and ran into a Light Fixture!

I fully agree!!!

I saw this originally in the early 50s. The reason it is funny in spite of itself is there is a tremendous connection between the guy who gets drummed in the head and the audience. We're all rooting for him, and he seems helpless. Kovaks had an endless supply of material unlike anything previously seen, some of it funnier than the other stuff. He convinced the station to pay for a gag where a new car falls right through the floor.

Now I see where the Colt 45 malt beer came from

@@harrylangdon491 and no one was offended

You do talk to him, Donna. As long as you remember him, he's still around and with you. It seems to me you've got a great sense of humor and a fine head on your shoulders... two things many lack in today's "pandemic" world. Too bad Ernie(& Sid Caesar) aren't making shows still- there's plenty of crazy sh*t to work with, that's for sure!

Intricate is right. I saw an interview with Edie Adams (who was often at the keyboard in the Nairobi Trio sketches) remembering how difficult it was, keeping a running beat count in her head to stay in sync. Ernie was so very creative and was wonderfully absurd.

Frikin Panera on Reed Hartman Rd

Do Re Me Fa Sol La Ti Do Seven Syllables to tell a story of Sound and Vibration equals 3-6-9 Tesla Energy Theory

Mine too!

Jeff Goldblum played Ernie Kovacs! That I gotta see!

@@brandonhendrix7223 He was great! By all means look it up!

@@brandonhendrix7223 I had a hell of a time getting a copy!

I believe she played the piano

@@Alphabytes2022 Jack Lemmon was another.

Funny thing,Peter Tork's Solo in the NBC Special "33 1/3 Revolutions Per Monkee" was a Bach Piece with the same name!

I think one would do better in explaining why this MAY have once been considered, as you state, "the funniest things in the world" and if the skit should be deemed funny and/or deserve merit when contextualized in this linearly unfolding 3rd decade of 21st Century we call the present. From what I have been able to ascertain, The Nairobi Trio skit was never considered outright 'funny' in the post-war, American comedic sense but was celebrated for its unconventional, outlandish utilization of specific, contemporaneous comedic conditionals, colored by the actors' hyper-modern robotic delivery laid atop a rich blend of the then-very modern sounds of a pop-jazz musical arrangement juxtaposed over the centuries old, universally known music solemnization of Solfège, flawlessly blended with what was perhaps the latter half of the 20th Century's most centrally defining, dynamic comedic characteristic of absurdity all delivered through that same period's most centrally-defining, dynamic piece of technology and means of communication of television. Much like Abbott & Costello's skit routine "Who's on First", due to the advent of video documentation., one is able to take fully witness comedy's ever evolving, highly contextual complexion much more so than, say, a dated political cartoon. Comedy has very few essential characteristics, elements, or aspects but is perhaps the most inconstant, forever changing/shifting of human theatrics or communication mediums, modern documentary means supportive of this proposition.

Its genius is in its sheer simplicity !! I find it hilarious !! 😃

It's partly the music, which is inherently funny; the way they are portraying one of those old mechanical, wind-up music boxes with figures that move on top (note even the way he turns his head in short, jerky movements), little details like the baton getting replaced with a banana (they zoom in on his face so that someone can do the switch out of sight of the camera), the blank expression due to wearing a mask, the sighs which deform the mask...the whole sketch is a form of classic "slow burn" physical comedy that goes back to the silent era. Laurel and Hardy did a ton of this - that look of frustration at the camera. Edgar Kennedy is another famous slow burn comedian. It's a kind of slowly building comic tension of frustration. The fact that he can't show the frustration because he's wearing a mask makes it even funnier - just by staring at us (which breaks the fourth wall), you can imagine what he's expressing on his face although the only movement is when the mask is sucked in. The length of time the camera freezes on his face. The way he catches the other guy in the act and they freeze for a long time. And the music gets louder and louder as the tension builds, finally released by breaking the vase over other character's head. It's simple, surreal, and perfectly choreographed. The tension keeps building, but the movement are always slow and controlled. It's the contrast between the two - if they started running around chasing each other, it wouldn't be funny. There, those are the things I could think of.

And Kovacs was in the Middle.

The Prop Cigar was the Dead Giveaway to Edie.

Kept hearing "Jolene Brand" come up in random contexts when I binge-watched all six seasons of Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In. I had to turn to Wikipedia to discover that she was Mrs George Schlatter, and that the Schlatters and the Kovacses were best friends.

So do I, but who' s bragging?

@@6610stix Actually it was usually Edie Adams, Kovacs' wife, or Jolene Brand, one of the actresses on this shows. The third member, the one who hits Kovacs, the middle ape, with the mallets, many times were guest stars on the show. Jack Lemmon and Frank Sinatra both performed as that member of the trio.

@@robertm2000 Thanks, I have no real real personal reference to any of Ernie Kovac's shows or skits. I was born 10 or 15 years too late. My first introduction to Ernie was in the early 80's when one of the cable networks (I'm thinking HBO) did a short documentary on his innovative ground-breaking comedy. I was surprised to find out those Laugh-in skits where famous celebrities would pop their heads through a billboard and say something absurdly hilarious and then just as quickly disappear had it's roots in Ernie Kovac's comedy. Like they say what goes around ......eventually comes back around.

@@6610stix Yes - many of us were privileged to learn of Ernie Kovacs through the internet. My problem was, in the 1950s and 60s when I was growing up my parents were hardcore fundamentalists, and TV was "worldly," so we didn't have one till i was 16! So the early groundbreaking comedy performers were foreign to me, and I was surprised when i found out about Ernie Kovacs, and how much later comedy was descended from what he did. "What goes around ..... eventually comes back around" - what you said is so true. And we are fortunate that it is available to see today!

Colt 45 malt liquor: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/r6hoeM6GzsrGZI0.html

And the frame rate is correct!

If what you mean is, Is this the original that the Chuck E. Cheese band was based on, then yes, probably so.

Nobody can. You either know, or you do not know. Sorry.