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Randy Hodgins and Steve McLellan’s lifelong love of comedy was kindled when they met more than 40 years ago in graduate school in Seattle. While managing family and professional work responsibilities, they hosted a one hour comedy radio program on Saturday mornings for 10 years on a small radio station in Olympia, WA and also co-authored two books on northwest popular culture – Seattle on Film (1995) and Wet and Wired (2000). Stuck at home during the early days of the pandemic with hundreds of comedy albums, cassettes and CD’s gathering dust on their shelves, they launched Laugh Tracks Legends of Comedy in May 2020, a weekly mini-program featuring a different comedy icon, with biographical bits and a nice slice of the comedy that made them famous. From standup stars, to stellar sketch teams, to novelty music maestros -- they are all part of our Legends.
Episodes
Tuesday Jul 18, 2023
Tuesday Jul 18, 2023
Say the name "Ernie Kovacs" today and you may well be met with a quizzical look. But say "the video art pioneer who inspired SNL, Python, Laugh In, and MST3K among many others" and you'll be in business! Smart-ass adlibs, odd ball musical acts, and numerous (and sometimes surreal) camera tricks that we take for granted today were all part of Ernie's toolkit, and he was ubiquitous on 1950s tv. He also became a superb character actor and sketch comic, and - not surprisingly -- he was an early inductee into the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame. Find more clips below and thanks for sharing our shows!
Want more Ernie?
Ernie had a gift for improv and his early talk shows take full advantage. This clip catches some of Ernie's best for NBC, including a great bit with a malfunctioning camera (it starts about 5:40 in). https://youtu.be/GSH8L2zmtaM
We like to say "all comedy is derivative" -- in the best way of course! You can see that premise in action here with Ernie's "Mr. Question Man" -- the foundation for Steve Allen's Answer Man and Johnny Carson's Carnac. https://youtu.be/Tz_C4ZEwFm4
Ernie was also a fine character actor with a standout role in Bell, Book and Candle among his highlights. But he couldn't stop being Ernie as seen in this faux trailer for his first film role in Operation Mad Ball. https://youtu.be/QuVhvH4NHNc
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