Reaching a Critical Mass

10

Comedies

 

This chapter examines the history and evolution of the television comedy; a review that would be incomplete without mention of the first surrealist comedian, Ernie Kovacs. During the five years prior to Ernie Kovacs' death in 1962, the televiewing audience could be broken down into three distinct categories: a small group who thought Kovacs was the most original, creative, and iconoclastic figure in the medium; another small group who thought what Kovacs was doing was unadulterated garbage; and the majority who never watched ...