FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday August 1, 2017

ERNIE KOVACS: TAKE A GOOD LOOK – THE DEFINITIVE COLLECTION TO BE RELEASED BY SHOUT! FACTORY ON OCTOBER 17, 2017

All 49 Existing Episodes Of This Truly Offbeat Game Show

From Television’s Original Genius, Fully Restored and Digitized by the Library of Congress, Largely Unseen For 60 Years!

Los Angeles, CA – Shout! Factory has announced the October 17, 2017, release of a spectacular new 7-DVD box set, Ernie Kovacs: Take A Good Look – The Definitive Collection, in collaboration with Ediad Productions, Inc. With the exception of a handful of episodes, this show has been largely unseen for the last 60 years. The set is available now for pre-order on Shoutfactory.com (includes an exclusive bonus disc) and Amazon.com.

Ernie Kovacs was a consummate comedian, influencing TV funnymen such as Johnny Carson, David Letterman, Jim Henson, Pee-wee Herman, Billy Crystal, as well as Monty Python and Saturday Night Live. Take A Good Look is Ernie’s aphoristic “if a tree falls in the woods” answer to the panel quiz show. Ernie turns the secret guest show formula on its ear and almost inverts it. In Take A Good Look, it is the host who gives the panel hints about the secret guest’s identity and in the form of surreal sight gags, blackouts and sketches. The clues only really make sense if you know who the guest is, to begin with. Throughout the series’ run, different approaches were taken to address this.  Early on in season one, Ernie himself has trouble explaining the show’s formula to the home audience. Throughout the show’s two seasons, panelists periodically complain to Ernie that the clues don’t make sense; there’s one show where Hans Conried protests, “Please, Ernie … tell them it’s rigged!” 

All in all, it is Ernie who seems to be enjoying the game the most, making these crazy blackouts as well as the commercials for Dutch Masters cigars. You watch the episodes of this game show and wonder “Did this really air on network television?” 

Airing October 22, 1959 to July 21, 1960, and October 27, 1960 to March 16, 1961 on ABC, Take A Good Look hosted an eclectic mix of guest stars, such as his then wife, performer Edie Adams, Writer/Director Carl Reiner, the glamorous Zsa Zsa Gabor, comedian Mort Sahl, Our Gang’s Jean Darling, chess world champion Bobby Fischer, Major League Baseball’s Rogers Hornsby, White House Butler Alonzo Fields, Los Angeles Dodgers Chuck Essegian and Don Drysdale, Hawaiian Congressman Daniel Inouye, Miss America 1959 Mary Ann Mobley, several Olympic athletes, and many more.

The Library of Congress, who acquired the entire collection of the Ernie Kovacs and Edie Adams in 2015, has digitized, restored and preserved the material contained within this DVD set.  In all, that is more than 20 hours of additional rare Kovacs material that fans have been clamoring for more than 60 years.

The first 1,000 orders of Ernie Kovacs: Take A Good Look – The Definitive Collection from ShoutFactory.com will include an exclusive bonus disc containing Private Eye, Private Eye, a delicious sketch comedy starring Ernie Kovacs and Edie Adams (www.edieadams.com),  lampooning the detective shows that filled the airwaves at the time. Featured are some of Kovacs’ most iconic creations, including Percy Dovetonsils as a Sherlock Holmes character and the Nairobi Trio as safecrackers. Ernie and Edie are supported by Hans Conried, Pat Carroll, and Kovacs stalwart Peter Hanley, and the show was produced by Max Liebman (Your Show of Shows). The show aired as part of the U.S. Steel Hour and hasn’t been seen by the public since its original broadcast in 1961!

Ernie Kovacs: Take A Good Look – The Definitive Collection joins Shout! Factory’s first-rate Kovacs catalog, which includes The Ernie Kovacs Collection, the first-ever comprehensive collection of Kovacs’ work–encompassing the full breadth of existing material, from his local Philadelphia morning shows in the early 1950’s and national evening shows to the ABC prime time specials in the early 1960’s that cemented his legend. It also includes The Ernie Kovacs Collection Volume 2, which includes more than 9 hours of previously unreleased & rare classic television content, and The ABC Specials, also from 1961, the final year of his life, which show Kovacs at the peak of his creative experimentation with the medium, featuring many of his comic masterpieces and iconic set pieces. Five of these programs are presented here in complete uncut form, along with many of his celebrated — and delightfully offbeat — commercials for Dutch Masters cigars.

About Ediad Productions, Inc.

Formed by the late entertainer & Muriel Cigar girl Edie Adams and currently run by her son Joshua Mills, Ediad Productions is home to what is likely one of the largest independent archive of early American television in existence. With more than 150 half-hours of content from legendary comedian Ernie Kovacs as well as two seasons of Edie Adams’ prime time variety show from the mid-1960’s, Ediad Productions is a treasure trove of classic popular entertainment. Titles in the archive include, The Ernie Kovacs Show, Ernie in Kovacsland, Take A Good Look (clues), the Kovacs specials for ABC, The Edie Adams Show, Here’s Edie! And much more. Ediad Productions is the go-to archive for television, digital & mobile entertainment content and is based in Los Angeles, California.

About Shout! Factory

Shout! Factory, LLC is a diversified multi-platform media company devoted to producing, uncovering, preserving and revitalizing the very best of pop culture. Founders Richard Foos, Bob Emmer and Garson Foos have spent their entire careers sharing their music, television and film favorites with discerning consumers the world over. Shout! Factory’s entertainment offerings serve up feature films, classic and contemporary TV series, animation, live music and comedy specials. In addition, Shout! Factory maintains a vast entertainment distribution network which delivers culturally relevant programming, movie and audio content to all the leading digital service providers in North America and across multiple platforms. Shout! Factory owns and operates Shout! Factory Productions, Scream Factory, Shout! Factory Kids, Shout! Factory Films, Mystery Science Theater 3000, Timeless Media Group and Shout! Factory TV. These riches are the result of a creative acquisition mandate that has established the company as a hotbed of cultural preservation and commercial reinvention. Shout! Factory is based in Los Angeles, California. For more on Shout! Factory, visit shoutfactory.com.

For more information please contact:

Lauren Blum
Assoc. VP, Publicity
Shout! Factory
310.979.5604
lblum@shoutfactory.com

&

Joshua Mills
It’s Alive! Media
323.464.6314
Josh@itsalivemedia.com

&

Henri Bollinger
Henri Bollinger Public Relations
818.784-0567
Henri@bollingerpr.com