This routine may look easy ans simplistic but according to Jack Lemon (the one with the drumsticks) this piece was VERY difficult! The timing had to be just right!
I saw this originally in the early 50s. The reason it is funny in spite of itself is there is a tremendous connection between the guy who gets drummed in the head and the audience. We're all rooting for him, and he seems helpless. Kovaks had an endless supply of material unlike anything previously seen, some of it funnier than the other stuff. He convinced the station to pay for a gag where a new car falls right through the floor.
Legend has it, back in the day real famous jazz muscians would plead with Ernie to do guest shots as the Nairobi trio and he would grant them their wishes, and the muscians would donate the scale payments to charity!
I've been a fan of Ernie Kovacs' work for as long as I can remember, even though he died so tragically 2 1/2 years before I was even born. It was my dad and my older brother who introduced me to his television work, insisting that I watch a Public Television special about his revolutionary comedy show. The Nairobi Trio was the first of this sketches to capture my imagination - it fascinated me to think that something so simple could be so intricate. The timing was perfect... I wish either that he was still alive and well or that I could go back in time and talk to him about comedy, creativity, or anything else. He's one of my creative influences and a hero.
You do talk to him, Donna. As long as you remember him, he's still around and with you. It seems to me you've got a great sense of humor and a fine head on your shoulders... two things many lack in today's "pandemic" world. Too bad Ernie(& Sid Caesar) aren't making shows still- there's plenty of crazy sh*t to work with, that's for sure!
Intricate is right. I saw an interview with Edie Adams (who was often at the keyboard in the Nairobi Trio sketches) remembering how difficult it was, keeping a running beat count in her head to stay in sync. Ernie was so very creative and was wonderfully absurd.
He had another skit that included a Hungarian (or some other Slavic language) version of “The Tennessee Waltz.” And of course, there was a very dreary-sounding original recording in German of Kafka’s “Mack the Knife” that he put to something resembling an oscilloscope.
I think one would do better in explaining why this MAY have once been considered, as you state, "the funniest things in the world" and if the skit should be deemed funny and/or deserve merit when contextualized in this linearly unfolding 3rd decade of 21st Century we call the present. From what I have been able to ascertain, The Nairobi Trio skit was never considered outright 'funny' in the post-war, American comedic sense but was celebrated for its unconventional, outlandish utilization of specific, contemporaneous comedic conditionals, colored by the actors' hyper-modern robotic delivery laid atop a rich blend of the then-very modern sounds of a pop-jazz musical arrangement juxtaposed over the centuries old, universally known music solemnization of Solfège, flawlessly blended with what was perhaps the latter half of the 20th Century's most centrally defining, dynamic comedic characteristic of absurdity all delivered through that same period's most centrally-defining, dynamic piece of technology and means of communication of television. Much like Abbott & Costello's skit routine "Who's on First", due to the advent of video documentation., one is able to take fully witness comedy's ever evolving, highly contextual complexion much more so than, say, a dated political cartoon. Comedy has very few essential characteristics, elements, or aspects but is perhaps the most inconstant, forever changing/shifting of human theatrics or communication mediums, modern documentary means supportive of this proposition.
It's partly the music, which is inherently funny; the way they are portraying one of those old mechanical, wind-up music boxes with figures that move on top (note even the way he turns his head in short, jerky movements), little details like the baton getting replaced with a banana (they zoom in on his face so that someone can do the switch out of sight of the camera), the blank expression due to wearing a mask, the sighs which deform the mask...the whole sketch is a form of classic "slow burn" physical comedy that goes back to the silent era. Laurel and Hardy did a ton of this - that look of frustration at the camera. Edgar Kennedy is another famous slow burn comedian. It's a kind of slowly building comic tension of frustration. The fact that he can't show the frustration because he's wearing a mask makes it even funnier - just by staring at us (which breaks the fourth wall), you can imagine what he's expressing on his face although the only movement is when the mask is sucked in. The length of time the camera freezes on his face. The way he catches the other guy in the act and they freeze for a long time. And the music gets louder and louder as the tension builds, finally released by breaking the vase over other character's head. It's simple, surreal, and perfectly choreographed. The tension keeps building, but the movement are always slow and controlled. It's the contrast between the two - if they started running around chasing each other, it wouldn't be funny. There, those are the things I could think of.
I love how the gorilla breathes in out of frustration. Kinda creepy but very funny at the same time. Then gets fooled by the syncopated piano player ! lol ! 🤣
Ernie originally taped this as a "clue" for "TAKE A GOOD LOOK" in 1960. That meant Edie wasn't involved, as she was a panelist, and wasn't supposed to know anything about the "clues" in advance. I believe Jolene Brand is one of the three..........
Kept hearing "Jolene Brand" come up in random contexts when I binge-watched all six seasons of Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In. I had to turn to Wikipedia to discover that she was Mrs George Schlatter, and that the Schlatters and the Kovacses were best friends.
@@6610stix Actually it was usually Edie Adams, Kovacs' wife, or Jolene Brand, one of the actresses on this shows. The third member, the one who hits Kovacs, the middle ape, with the mallets, many times were guest stars on the show. Jack Lemmon and Frank Sinatra both performed as that member of the trio.
@@robertm2000 Thanks, I have no real real personal reference to any of Ernie Kovac's shows or skits. I was born 10 or 15 years too late. My first introduction to Ernie was in the early 80's when one of the cable networks (I'm thinking HBO) did a short documentary on his innovative ground-breaking comedy. I was surprised to find out those Laugh-in skits where famous celebrities would pop their heads through a billboard and say something absurdly hilarious and then just as quickly disappear had it's roots in Ernie Kovac's comedy. Like they say what goes around ......eventually comes back around.
@@6610stix Yes - many of us were privileged to learn of Ernie Kovacs through the internet. My problem was, in the 1950s and 60s when I was growing up my parents were hardcore fundamentalists, and TV was "worldly," so we didn't have one till i was 16! So the early groundbreaking comedy performers were foreign to me, and I was surprised when i found out about Ernie Kovacs, and how much later comedy was descended from what he did. "What goes around ..... eventually comes back around" - what you said is so true. And we are fortunate that it is available to see today!
I saw this when it was originally broadcast. I laughed then, I laugh now.
AND I know every note, move and look.
God bless Ernie .
In the 70s as a kid I watched them on Public Television.
Everything stopped in our house when the Nairobi Trio came on. I look at it now and think how little it took to entertain us kids.
This routine may look easy ans simplistic but according to Jack Lemon (the one with the drumsticks) this piece was VERY difficult! The timing had to be just right!
An example of one of those things that SHOULDN'T be funny, but for some reason IT IS really, really funny! Pure silliness!
I saw this originally in the early 50s. The reason it is funny in spite of itself is there is a tremendous connection between the guy who gets drummed in the head and the audience. We're all rooting for him, and he seems helpless. Kovaks had an endless supply of material unlike anything previously seen, some of it funnier than the other stuff. He convinced the station to pay for a gag where a new car falls right through the floor.
Now I see where the Colt 45 malt beer came from
@@harrylangdon491 and no one was offended
Legend has it, back in the day real famous jazz muscians would plead with Ernie to do guest shots as the Nairobi trio and he would grant them their wishes, and the muscians would donate the scale payments to charity!
Edie Adams says at one time Milton Berle, Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon and Frank Sinatra did it.
I’ve been laughing at this since before I was born!
First time I saw this, I thought it was eerie.
As a kid I went crazy over this. Still do. World lost great comic genius when Kovacs died in car crash.
All because Kovacs was searching for His Lit Cigar and ran into a Light Fixture!
I fully agree!!!
My father showed me this about 20 years ago and I still think fondly of all the laughs
I've been a fan of Ernie Kovacs' work for as long as I can remember, even though he died so tragically 2 1/2 years before I was even born. It was my dad and my older brother who introduced me to his television work, insisting that I watch a Public Television special about his revolutionary comedy show. The Nairobi Trio was the first of this sketches to capture my imagination - it fascinated me to think that something so simple could be so intricate. The timing was perfect... I wish either that he was still alive and well or that I could go back in time and talk to him about comedy, creativity, or anything else. He's one of my creative influences and a hero.
You do talk to him, Donna. As long as you remember him, he's still around and with you. It seems to me you've got a great sense of humor and a fine head on your shoulders... two things many lack in today's "pandemic" world. Too bad Ernie(& Sid Caesar) aren't making shows still- there's plenty of crazy sh*t to work with, that's for sure!
Intricate is right. I saw an interview with Edie Adams (who was often at the keyboard in the Nairobi Trio sketches) remembering how difficult it was, keeping a running beat count in her head to stay in sync. Ernie was so very creative and was wonderfully absurd.
Frikin Panera on Reed Hartman Rd
I was 8 years old and thought this routine was hilarious! Still do! Ernie Kovacs was a comedy genius. Got me too soon. ❤
Correction: Gone too soon! ❤
It’s crazy that I still know the words to all of this.
What a comic genius! He was way ahead of his time! One of my idols!
Kovacs, a genius of comedy. I recall this skit as a kid. That and Percy Dovetonsils. Pure gold! 😆
When the middle chimp turns quickly to the other it's kinda creepy when the key changes in the music and he catches him. lol
i was too young to ever see the kovacs show....but i believe that from time to time, ed sullivan had the nairobi trio on
this bit i remember
Still funny after all these years. Critics be damned!
It's like a live version of "The Far Side" set to quirky music.
He had another skit that included a Hungarian (or some other Slavic language) version of “The Tennessee Waltz.” And of course, there was a very dreary-sounding original recording in German of Kafka’s “Mack the Knife” that he put to something resembling an oscilloscope.
@@JBM425 Mack the Knife was by Kurt Weill. The recording may have been sung by Hildegard Knef, IIRC.
this would go viral if kids had access to this today lol
NO! The BLM's would go into cardiac arrest if they saw this!
SOLFEGGIO! Solfege is the art of singing pitches using the "do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-ti-do" syllables. That's all the lyrics are, and how it got its title.
Do Re Me Fa Sol La Ti Do
Seven Syllables to tell a story of Sound and Vibration equals 3-6-9 Tesla Energy Theory
Used to watch Ernie all the time. Jeff Goldblum did a very good Ernie in the movie they made about his life.
Jeff Goldblum played Ernie Kovacs! That I gotta see!
@@brandonhendrix7223 He was great! By all means look it up!
@@brandonhendrix7223 I had a hell of a time getting a copy!
My late father thought this was the funniest thing he'd ever seen
Mine too!
Izzy love's The Nairobi Trio 🎸 💘 Enjoy 1960.
From L to R,
Jack Lemmon
Ernie Kovacs
Edie Adams
Thanks to the newly recently aired Verizon FIOS ad, The Nairobi Trio is enjoying a newfound revival :)
memories!!
I REMEMBER THIS IT WAS SO CRAZY ,NOTHING LIKE IT .....OUTTASIGHT
Kovacs was in the middle with the cigar
Thanks for posting this; brings back great enjoyment from my childhood. Just FYI, the spelling is "solfeggio."
Funny thing,Peter Tork's Solo in the NBC Special "33 1/3 Revolutions Per Monkee" was a Bach Piece with the same name!
Ernie Kovac's wife Edie Adams is one of the three.
I believe she played the piano
@@Alphabytes2022 Jack Lemmon was another.
The Verizon half house ad brought me here.
I seem to remember a TV commercial from the 70's that use song though the lyrics weren't used and the temple was a bit slower.
Colt 45 malt liquor:
ua-cam.com/video/yB8EkUidb4Y/v-deo.html
The originals Queens of the Stone Ages
I still can't get this right
Can someone please explain to me why this is one of the funniest things in the world? For the life of me, I can't.
I think one would do better in explaining why this MAY have once been considered, as you state, "the funniest things in the world" and if the skit should be deemed funny and/or deserve merit when contextualized in this linearly unfolding 3rd decade of 21st Century we call the present. From what I have been able to ascertain, The Nairobi Trio skit was never considered outright 'funny' in the post-war, American comedic sense but was celebrated for its unconventional, outlandish utilization of specific, contemporaneous comedic conditionals, colored by the actors' hyper-modern robotic delivery laid atop a rich blend of the then-very modern sounds of a pop-jazz musical arrangement juxtaposed over the centuries old, universally known music solemnization of Solfège, flawlessly blended with what was perhaps the latter half of the 20th Century's most centrally defining, dynamic comedic characteristic of absurdity all delivered through that same period's most centrally-defining, dynamic piece of technology and means of communication of television. Much like Abbott & Costello's skit routine "Who's on First", due to the advent of video documentation., one is able to take fully witness comedy's ever evolving, highly contextual complexion much more so than, say, a dated political cartoon. Comedy has very few essential characteristics, elements, or aspects but is perhaps the most inconstant, forever changing/shifting of human theatrics or communication mediums, modern documentary means supportive of this proposition.
Its genius is in its sheer simplicity !! I find it hilarious !! 😃
It's partly the music, which is inherently funny; the way they are portraying one of those old mechanical, wind-up music boxes with figures that move on top (note even the way he turns his head in short, jerky movements), little details like the baton getting replaced with a banana (they zoom in on his face so that someone can do the switch out of sight of the camera), the blank expression due to wearing a mask, the sighs which deform the mask...the whole sketch is a form of classic "slow burn" physical comedy that goes back to the silent era. Laurel and Hardy did a ton of this - that look of frustration at the camera. Edgar Kennedy is another famous slow burn comedian. It's a kind of slowly building comic tension of frustration. The fact that he can't show the frustration because he's wearing a mask makes it even funnier - just by staring at us (which breaks the fourth wall), you can imagine what he's expressing on his face although the only movement is when the mask is sucked in. The length of time the camera freezes on his face. The way he catches the other guy in the act and they freeze for a long time. And the music gets louder and louder as the tension builds, finally released by breaking the vase over other character's head.
It's simple, surreal, and perfectly choreographed. The tension keeps building, but the movement are always slow and controlled. It's the contrast between the two - if they started running around chasing each other, it wouldn't be funny.
There, those are the things I could think of.
You have my sympathies.
I love how the gorilla breathes in out of frustration. Kinda creepy but very funny at the same time. Then gets fooled by the syncopated piano player ! lol ! 🤣
Ernie originally taped this as a "clue" for "TAKE A GOOD LOOK" in 1960. That meant Edie wasn't involved, as she was a panelist, and wasn't supposed to know anything about the "clues" in advance. I believe Jolene Brand is one of the three..........
And Kovacs was in the Middle.
The Prop Cigar was the Dead Giveaway to Edie.
Kept hearing "Jolene Brand" come up in random contexts when I binge-watched all six seasons of Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In. I had to turn to Wikipedia to discover that she was Mrs George Schlatter, and that the Schlatters and the Kovacses were best friends.
I think it pre-dated “Take a Good Look.”
True. Ernie usually performed that routine live on various NBC programs, but this was the first time it was produced on videotape (for ABC).
Jack Lemmon Plays the piano
So do I, but who' s bragging?
@@6610stix Actually it was usually Edie Adams, Kovacs' wife, or Jolene
Brand, one of the actresses on this shows. The third member, the one who hits Kovacs, the middle ape, with the mallets, many times were guest stars on the show. Jack Lemmon and Frank Sinatra both performed as that member of the trio.
@@robertm2000 Thanks, I have no real real personal reference to any of Ernie Kovac's shows or skits.
I was born 10 or 15 years too late. My first introduction to Ernie was in the early 80's when one
of the cable networks (I'm thinking HBO) did a short documentary on his innovative ground-breaking comedy.
I was surprised to find out those Laugh-in skits where famous celebrities would pop their heads through a
billboard and say something absurdly hilarious and then just as quickly disappear had it's roots in Ernie Kovac's comedy.
Like they say what goes around ......eventually comes back around.
@@6610stix Yes - many of us were privileged to learn of Ernie Kovacs through the internet. My problem was, in the 1950s and 60s when I was growing up my parents were hardcore fundamentalists, and TV was "worldly," so we didn't have one till i was 16! So the early groundbreaking comedy performers were foreign to me, and I was surprised when i found out about Ernie Kovacs, and how much later comedy was descended from what he did. "What goes around ..... eventually comes back around" - what you said is so true. And we are fortunate that it is available to see today!
I never saw this.
Went from a Long Carrot to a 1/2 eaten Banana!
Solfeggio music scales
They don't make'em like that any more -- more's the pity.
This isn't the original track.
Or, if it is, it's been heavily processed.
The original is better.
This video quality is aces.
And the frame rate is correct!
Is this the old version of those animals from chuckie cheese that has a certain time to perform? Just being curious.
If what you mean is, Is this the original that the Chuck E. Cheese band was based on, then yes, probably so.
Deliciously r a c i s t!
Jack lemmon said he was one of the monkeys many times
I don't know but this is some weird sh**😂🎉
Jack lemon on piano
Edie Adams on piano.
@@ZenArcher9091 ok I know he is in one of the three skits I know of. Would you know which one?
@@darrellminx5459 with the mallets.
@@ZenArcher9091 thank you very much 👍
started out with lemon on the drum sticks
but they used to switch out the characters
so what one would be clinton , biden or obama
THEY ARE ALL YOUR MOTHER
@@thewkovacs316 we ain't family ! that monkey ain't no relation to me !
Please tell me what is funny about this...
Nobody can. You either know, or you do not know. Sorry.
Terible 😢
Kovac's wife on the concertina
Stuff like this makes me think "Of course the internet turned out the way it is. This madness is INHERENT to humanity"