Using this advertisement or the screening from class as an example, discuss how Ernie Kovacs’ artistic experiments with television sound (or silence), aesthetics, and timing dialogue with growing concerns about television’s noisiness and commercialism?
Both the Ernie Kovacs' show and this short advertisement display his artistic experimentalism. Most noticeable to me, were the pauses he would take as well as the timing of the dialogue. The silences were long and uncomfortable and the pacing of the dialogue was tremendously slow. Yet these experiments with sounds and dialogue came across as awkward, but ultimately added to humor overall. Additionally the setting was simple; at most there were just a few props. Yet the simplicity of the stage allowed the audience to focus on Ernie Kovacs ad well as the props, which he often used to create humor (as seen in the advertisement when he drops the cigars in the water).
ReplyDeleteHowever this experimental humor was not appealing to everyone. Many critics claimed television, especially in shows like the Ernie Kovacs’ Show or those similar, was not beneficial to overall society or it was pure propaganda for companies. Overall, they didn’t see television quite as its own artistic form. However, even in its early days, I believe that television was an art form. An art form very different from anything else of its time, but an art form nonetheless. People like Ernie Kovac’s, and other experimental actors, helped to form the art television in terms of comedy, silence, aesthetics, etc. Even though I did not enjoy the screening or the commercial with Ernie Kovacs, I still accredit him with the development of television as an art.
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ReplyDeleteIn the mid 1950s, consumers began to grow concerned with the “loudness” of television and commercials. In Spigel’s article, loudness refers to both the volume of the commercials in comparison to the programming, and the general content of the ads with people yelling at the viewer. Viewers began to feel berated by their televisions and became irritated. This content became seen as obtrusive and as an invasion into the privacy of the home. When Ernie Kovacs began creating content without the same general volume it caught people’s attention.
ReplyDeleteI think this innovative content was successful for multiple reasons. First, The quietness of the ads served a stark contrast to the loudness of the other ones. This made it a powerful advertising strategy as well as a reprieve that caught people’s attention. Additionally, the fact that these ads and shows were so different from the other ones that it caught people’s attention and they were curious. The oddness made them more memorable. Also, people were seeking more educational material that was worth their time. Kovacs’ material was viewed as art and a welcome diversity in programming. Whereas the loudness of other content was seen as ‘lowbrow’, the artfulness of the silent TV was perceived as the opposite. He took a risk being innovative and exploring the medium and it paid off.
During the 1950s, television viewers began to grow weary of the "loudness" expressed on commercials at the time. The loudness referred to the in-your-face nature of commercials that yelled and upped the volume at viewers. This conflicted with the peaceful and intimate relationships that viewers were attempting to establish in their living rooms in the early ages of TV. Ernie Kovacs, however, took a much more silent approach to his commercials that placed traditional loudness at the brunt of his joke.
ReplyDeleteKovacs stands alone in a pool of water as a mellow, long winded, and hypnotzing voice narrates the allure of the Dutch Master cigar. Half of the commercial is simply an introduction to Ernie Kovacs as his deadpan expression glares into the camera. This plays with the in-your-face space that commercials usually had gone to by negating it wholeheartedly for a more ironic approach. Kovacs' self-reflexive and silent commercial took a stance on commercialism. He even drops the cigars he was advertising into the pool of water. This smart, artistic, and silent commercial is at complete odds with the mainstream commercialism of the time, and shines light on new forms of commercial that did not need to be loud to be effective.
When Ernie Kovacs introduced his Saturday Night Color Carnival, viewers were impressed by the stark contrast to normal television’s repetitive commercialism. In the case of the Dutch Masters clip above, the dialogue of the narrator seems to contradict what we see on the screen. As the narration ends, we would expect to hear an overzealous sales pitch from Ernie. Instead, Ernie utilizes his silence and fumbles around with the cigars until he ends up spilling the whole box in a pool of water, ruining every single cigar. The over exaggeration of clumsiness and unsensible positioning creates tremendous comedic relief and almost insults Dutch Masters by ruining their advertisement on purpose. However, I feel this strategy provides humor to the whole advertisement, allowing viewers to be much more receptive and, ultimately, sells better than any conventional method during that time.
ReplyDeleteIn regards to the noisiness of television, Kovacs brought a new element of diminishing dialogue and supplementing it with exaggerated sounds and ridiculous antics. This was seen in the Eugene piece during our screening in class. His shoes made a loud squishing noise and flustered the prestigious gentlemen around him. The books on the shelves also made noises that seemed to match the theme of each title. In addition, he made simple tasks, such as setting up a packed lunch, tremendously more difficult in order to humor the audience. This is also seen when he tries to show off the cigars during his commercial, but ultimately spills and ruins the whole box. His combination of exaggerated sounds with failed attempts to complete simple tasks provide a new style of comedy that sheds light on the success of television without excessive sound and sales pitches.
Ernie Kovacs’ style of experimentation countered television’s excessive commercialism and noise. Kovacs never really had a presence as someone who was trying to sell you something, similar to Martha Raye’s mugging to the camera, almost mocking the show’s sponsor. Kovacs defies the convention of 1950s television commercials by simply not saying anything about the product, or how he endorses it. Instead, he remains silent, and fumbles with the cigars and the box until he ironically ruins the product. The advertisement works similarly to a sketch on his show, or to the many fake/parody advertisements in the sketch comedy shows to come in the years after. However, his humor is what sells the product, rather than a direct pitch.
ReplyDeleteTo me, Kovacs experiments with television sound and aesthetics are refreshing to see happening so early in television. One can interpret the word “noise” in a few ways. One way is the actual volume and sounds coming from the television shows, and another way describes something so overused that people don’t really recognize it anymore, it only resembles noise in the background. Kovacs’ style is very surrealist, for example, in the Eugene skit he uses video effects to tilt the frame of the screen. This use of video effects breaks from the convention of the audience having the “best seat in the house” or hyperrealistic aspect of television, as this is not realistic at all. His use of silence breaks from cueing the audience when to laugh at something, or from when they feel like they should be laughing at something. It also showed that shows do not have to have a sound effect for everything that happens onscreen, and Kovacs mocks this with the exaggerated effects or no sound at all. Overall, his style does not tell or indicate to the audience what they should think about what’s going on on the screen, in contrast to other shows we’ve watched in screenings, and this makes his show and style closer to television as art.
In the 1950s, television viewers were starting to get annoyed with the way networks were airing their commercials. The trend at the time was to make the commercials excessively loud to get into people's faces and try to pound the product into their heads. Kovac's commercials had a stark contrast in that they were at a much quieter volume which was more equal to the volume of the programming, and presented the products in an ironic fashion. At the same time, the way Kovac did his commercials were a direct jab at the current style of commercialism, which also made it easier for audiences to relate to and appreciate. The distinct volume comparison and the irony of his advertisements can be seen in the above example, where the narrator has a calmer voice that doesn't command the viewers' attention in a painful way, and also when he drops the cigars into a pool of water, ruining the whole batch.
ReplyDeleteThe commercial above provides a stark contrast to the commercialism we’ve been observing in class in the 1950’s thus far. Firstly, commercialism had embedded itself in a peculiar way into American television. While many TV shows and programs were aiming to create a sense of realism and trust between audiences and characters on television, commercialism often disrupted that sense of solace, coming into people’s homes and trying to sell a product. A sense of ‘loudness’ epitomizes this idea of unwelcome noise in one’s personal, private sphere.
ReplyDeleteHowever, Ernie Kovac’s ad above does very much the opposite. The narrator is gentle in his delivery and dialogue, lulling the audience into calmer mood. The focus is very much on relating to the audience rather than fooling them. The cigars, the product of this ad, are barely mentioned in this ad until the very end. Instead, the narrator creates a humorous setting for Ernie to run with. When the ad introduces Ernie in soft tones it goes as far as to tell the audience what he is selling. This sense of transparency is also foreign to an audience that was constantly being bombarded by blatant commercials. As Ernie finally begins to act in the ad, the camera focuses his clumsy, funny movements as he drops the cigars. This is a moment in which the audience can laugh, relax and relate to the character on their screen.
This approach was definitely less invasive than the loud commercials of it’s time. Furthermore, the absence of dialogue on Ernie’s end actually made the audience pay attention more as they waited for him to speak up. This absence of noise is just as impactful, even not moreso, than the actual presence of overwhelming noise. This concept of ‘less is more’ is also present in the direction of the ad. The focus is simply on Bernie, the cigars and the water. These three main pinots keeps the audience focused on the simplicity of the commercial and ultimately, the product and character.
Reiterating on the above comments (since we are all writing about the same thing from the same sources) television commercials had become rather obtrusive to the television experience. Long winded and time consuming sections were taken up on not only product placement but promotional explanation. Any flow in the programming was disrupted with, say, Maxwell House Coffee such as in our screening of Mama.
ReplyDeleteErnie Kovacs made a point of exaggerating the description of the season to parody the extended product descriptions that had become so disliked while only allowing a very short period of time to even name the product in question. His goal in this is clearly comedy and the product is just a tool rather than a proper focal point. Another example of this is his western shootout scenes I saw linked to the above video. Here’s a shorter version:
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With the goal being to generate unique and interesting content rather than pander to the sponsors and their ads, the shots were creatively done. One even included shooting the scene through the hat that was shot by a bullet to both show the advertisement and hold audience attention. This made for a superior ad. since it generated interest while also showing off the company.
Both Ernie Kovacs' show and the commercial above demonstrate monumental experiments with sound, aesthetics, and dialogue timing. Firstly, Kovacs use of juxtaposition between individual segments served an impressive comedic purpose. For example, the serious woman who got a pie in her face, followed by an act, followed by another serious woman we thought would get pied in the face as well, but instead sung a beautiful opera piece, keeping us on edge at all times. This gave his show a certain pacing not before seen in variety shows. In addition, Kovacs was able to "show not tell" in his scene where the man's small movements were accompanied by large sounds. We for the first time were able to experience a scene solely through action, again portraying a new comedic style. In the commercial, both the long silence and lack of movement for the majority of the scene served to create a tension only to be broken with the surprise of the cigars falling in water. Again, subtle physical humor was the only tool used to portray the idea in a comedic fashion.
ReplyDeleteAlthough this humor proves innovative for the time, concerns grew around the idea that commercials were too "loud" in comparison to programming. According to Spigel, "loudness" refers to both visual content and noise in comparison to regular programming. He argues that this creates somewhat of an invasive environment for viewers, where they are attacked by the intensity of ad content. However, Kovacs' show was able to appeal to an audience regardless of initial critique by some viewers.
I had a very well written out answer for this blog post, but the website decided to not post it for some reason. And as I look now, it did the same thing for my answer last week. So that is just lovely. Great website. Anyways, now an abridged version of my answer. "The Ernie Kovacs Show" used in lots of its sketches in response to the commercialism and noise that television was making at the time. The clip makes fun of commercials because of how Kovacs doesn't say anything, but instead drops a box of cigars into the water. The commercial continues as normal with the slogan. This mocks commercialism by making it seem absurd. In the show aired in class, he has an entire skit dedicated to silence where he's the only one who make any noise in a silent world. He represents TV while the rest of the people represent viewers. He can't help but make loud noises with every little thing he does, mocking television with how it disrupts peoples' lives with noise and commercials. His other skits play with timing and aesthetics by having a pie thrown in the face of a singer as she starts singing. Then later when she sings again, no pie is thrown. She simply sings while going through a very well-designed set. It plays with audiences expectations and presents them with something moving when they expected just noise like another pie.
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