To the rescue of those who feel that television hasn't enough culture comes Ernie Kovacs, star of ABC's Take A Good Look. Assissted by his wife Edie Adams, Ernie offers some formats that might be defined as "cracked egghead." If the networks ignore this call to culture, don't blame Ernie and Edie. They tried.
Mr. Kovacs is a staunch advocate of a less stuffy approach to the arts, including taxidermy. He has accordingly devised a tv series with a human approach to the great masterpieces. The episode above is titled 'Now, Say "Gorgonzola." ' Irving Gauguin, postimpressionist, is at work in his Montmartre (Iowa) studio. Gauguin's impressions of posts are, of course, treasured from the Uffizi Galleries in Florence to the Florence Galleries in Uffizi. Here he coaxes a shy smile from the only model available to struggling painters of his period--a Mrs. Charles Monalisa, his landlady. What gives Irving's achievement its lasting significance is that at this time he was six months behind in his rent. Soon thereafter Mr. Monalisa was found mysteriously drowned in a tube of burnt umber, the only clue being a half-smoked cigar near the body. Irving married the widow and they made a fortune peddling canned laughter.
Mr. Baxter Revisited is the title of a series in which literature is made so simple that even authors can understand it. Here Ann Thataway, the host's wife and mother of his two sons, Simon and Schuster, offers a 17th-century penholder to Will Travelspeare, a male Elizabethan. With this final quill he writes, 'Exeunt,' which means, 'They're gone.' Travelspeare penned some of the theater's noblest tragedies, including the time the popcorn machine blew up at the Emerald in Boise. He wrote 'Hamlet, Prince of Den Mothers,' 'The Turn of the Shrew' and 'MacHeath the Knife.' He is also one of the few poets who have managed English verse with Roman numerals. In this scene, he begins the last act (V) of 'King Henry IV, Part II.' History records that it was completed in time for dinner, or about VII:XV P.M.
As a more candid documentary, the Kovacs recommend a series called Good Evening, Ed. Here, playwright Miller Arthur and his movie-star wife are captured in the spirit and in the flesh by Ed Marrow, a bony reporter. Mr. Arthur is the author of such psychoanalytical studies as 'Death of the Iceman' and 'All My Sons Are Boys.' About his wife, little has been known except the dimensions of her shoulder blades, the color of her irises and her unpublished Master's thesis on the Pittsburgh backfield. The look of satisfaction (left) and joy (right) on their faces shows how they reacted when Marrow, striving for the unrehearsed realism pioneered by Balph Redwards, wheeled his live cameras into position exactly one hour earlier than the ecstatic couple had expected.
Shosta & Kovich, an ancient vaudeville act, present an educational musical series in four movements, imcluding allegro and partly egro. Note how carefully Kovich labels each ingredient of the modern orchestra. On the air, he proceeds to mix up the ingredients and his audience. He also expounds his theory that Beethoven's symphonies actually were written by a modern artists-and-repertoire man named Mitch Bacon who couldn't stand publicity. Note the baton Kovich is using as a pointer and the one he is smoking. This is a concession to show business -- they are schticks, or easily identifiable trademarks, costing three for 19 cents. Shosta, of course, long ago won musical eminence by becoming the first musicologist to flash to the world the score of Tchaikovsky's '1812 Overture': 18-12.
