Ernie Kovacs - Start in Television

Start in Television

Showing up at NBC's Philadelphia affiliate, WPTZ (now KYW-TV), for an audition wearing a barrel and shorts got him his first television job. Kovacs' first show was Pick Your Ideal, a fashion and promotional program for the Ideal Manufacturing Company. Before long he was also the host of Deadline For Dinner and Now You're Cooking, shows featuring tips from local chefs. When Kovacs' guest chef did not show up in time to go on the air, Ernie offered a recipe for "Eggs Scavok" (Kovacs spelled backward). They soon led to a show called Three to Get Ready.

Three to Get Ready was groundbreaking, as the first regularly scheduled early morning (7–9am) show in a major TV market. Prior to this, it had been assumed that no one would watch TV at such an early hour. While the show was billed as early morning news and weather, Kovacs provided this and more in an original manner. When rain was in the weather forecast, Kovacs would get on a ladder and pour water down on the staff member reading the report. Goats were auditioned for a local theater performance and tiny women appeared to walk up his arm. Kovacs also went outside of the studio for some of his sketches, running through a downtown Philadelphia restaurant in a gorilla suit in one, and looking into a construction pit saying it was deep enough to see to China, when a man in Chinese clothing popped up, said a few words in the language, and ran off. Since the weekly prop budget for the show was a scant $15, Kovacs once asked his viewers to send unwanted items to Channel 3; they filled the station's lobby.

The only character no one ever saw inspired more gifts; he was Howard, the World's Strongest Ant. From the time of his WPTZ debut, Howard received over 30,000 gifts from Kovacs' viewers, including a mink lined swimming pool. Ernie began his Early Eyeball Fraternal & Marching Society (EEFMS) while doing Three to Get Ready. There were membership cards with by-laws and ties; the password was a favorite phrase of Kovacs'-"It's Been Real". Ernie brought the EEFMS to New York in 1952 when he moved to WCBS. The success of Three to Get Ready proved the theory wrong and was one of the factors that led NBC to create The Today Show. WPTZ did not begin broadcasting Today when it premiered on January 14, 1952; network pressure caused the station to drop Three to Get Ready for it at the end of March of that year.

In early 1952, Kovacs was also doing a late morning show for WPTZ called Kovacs On the Corner. The show had a Sesame Street feel, as Kovacs would walk through an imaginary neighborhood, talking with various characters such as Pete the Cop (played by Pete Boyle, father of the late actor Peter Boyle) and Luigi the Barber. As with Three to Get Ready, Kovacs did some special segments. "Swap Time" was one of them; viewers could bring their unwanted items to the WPTZ studios to trade them live on the air with Kovacs. Creative control was wrested from Kovacs soon after the show's debut; beginning on January 4, 1952, it ended on March 28, 1952—the same day as Three to Get Ready. Kovacs then moved on to WCBS-TV with a local morning show and a later network one. While both were cancelled, the morning program suffered the same fate as his WPTZ show-the air time being taken by the station's network in 1954.