The Importance Of Being Ernie

It's Ernie Kovacs' birthday. He died in a car accident in 1962, only 42 years old. Probably the greatest innovator in the early days of TV, it's hard to know where his career would have gone if he'd lived. I'd like to see what he'd have done with color, but for all I know, he'd have been forced out of TV and earned his keep as a supporting actor in movies he didn't write.

He did conventional comedy, but he's best remembered, as he should, for what I'd call his genial surrealism.