EK: Well, I don't know what the right technique is. That depends on the individual. It's in the eyes of the beholder. I write everything - and as I write it, I'm watching it on a television screen as I'm watching it, But I'm writing it consciously for the intimacy of a room. It's done - you are now, to use a very trite and tired television expression, you are in someone's home. They will not group laugh. You do not write things that would make a group first of all, I don't have an audience for my shows, I don't believe in that. An audience with free tickets will laugh at the pause, because they've been told, nudgingly, and, after long experience, you are now to laugh. ;And they're trying to be nice, they're fond of the people in the show and they want to show their appreciation and show they're glad to be there, so they'll laugh. They haven't come there to knock it or boo. This is wrong for me. It, first of all, destroys the timing of the show. My show is timed out to, within, like, three seconds, and if I find something plays a little longer I will play it longer [rather] than re-time it. But I don't have it for laughs, I don't leave any space for laughs, and [laughing] sometimes we don't get any, so I'm doing pretty good. But this is not primarily a comedy show, this is more or less an experiment that I'm doing. There is a strong element of comedy that runs through it but it is a unique comedy. I do not say that because what is done in television - it can be done in the theater or on the stage is wrong. I say that my particular affinity for the medium is to make it an electronic one and to use this particular medium for its own intrinsic value and approach. But I don't put it above-nor do I put it below-other forms of comedy. This happens to be mine.

BB: Well, I would guess from your activities in the creative end or the imaginative end of television that this is something that's going to become more important to you, in direction.

EK: It is. It is, and already these shows have produced some great interest in the major studios. There's one major studio, which would be unfair for me to name, whose head has sent a memo to the departmental heads when the show goes on to watch the show that evening because he feels that the technical accomplishments and advancements are worth looking at, which I think is a treme~dous reward for all of us on the show because this is a group of people who- I look at these people, and I don't know how they achieve what they do. The special effects man-I write out things for him and I'm almost ashamed to give it to him, they're just almost impossible, and he just manages to do it. There's one sequence where I've got a turkey - a cooked turkey - and the legs have to go to a samba, the wings are moving to another beat the pepper mill is going to a third beat and at the end of the sequence the wings have to go down tired and dejected, the fluid in the thermometer has to go to the top, and three sardines get out of the can and sway, y'know. And these are the things that he does.

BB: Do you contribute the solutions to these problems?

EK: I offer solutions just to see if I can come close to what he's trying to do, and he'll always figure a better and easier way to do it somehow.

BB: I [understand] you get real enthusiasm from the crew...

EK: It's tremendous.

BB: I get the impression from talking to people in the active working end of television that they wish there were more people like you snd there were more shows like yours.

EK: They like hard things to.do. The men who edit the videotape have a monumental task. I did something recently. And I did make, uh, the most awful request, I did an operation to Stravinsky's "Firebird Suite" And there is a section where I'm cueing the shots as I was going, and the technical director sits to my right. And sometimes when the shots are happening so fast there's nothing to do except tap him for the cues. And there's one series of shots where I would say, in ten seconds, we had to take approximately 21 shots, and that's better than two shots a second. And the cues are going like this --

[Kovacs taps the table rapidly to demonstrate.]

- patting him on the back like that. And they're going along and at one point I stop, and he inadvertently hit one more shot. Which is a disaster, you know, excepting to me, So I go down to videotape afterwards, in the editing room, and I say, "Now, there's one little spot where I went you to take out one eye blink." And they kind of look at me and say, "Oh, come on." And the series of eyes going like this - and it's all close-ups of eyes, I mean, all these shots -and so there's one blink too many. "Well, no body's going to notice." I said, "No, but I will." Y'know? But they're great, these two men are fantastic, these two tape editors are the best I've ever seen.

BB: You were telling me before we went on about a sequence that you just finished working on, and it's still being edited now, about the chapter in the life of a drop of water.

EK: This is the greatest technical thing. When you realize what these men did. There is a film clip that opens on some clouds...this is, uh...I used Prokofiev's

"Lieutenant Kije". We cross-dissolve to a practical cloud which has some fog around Hit, the raindrop comes out of the cloud, we pan with the raindrop, now we must super over the raindrop a tiny, reflected spot of light which we're getting from a crystal which is being lit. We take this in and - now, a series of shots develop from this which are quite remarkable, in their achievement. Then we go from there to a stream. We follow this little dot down the stream, and it passes a bird watches this dot going past like this [does so], and three little skunks march past; but everything's on music, and each thing represents a musical instrument.

[An airplane passes overhead very noisily]

We shot one of those down the other day. They changed the flight pattern over

here.

And from here it goes to a larger stream, and then we see a waterfall, it's a gigantic waterfall, and [then we see] machinery working, and it's all going to this great music, and then we, uh, cross-dissolve to a kitchen, and out of the faucet it's coming, on the beat, into a pot to a stove, where everything lights, and as we going into the kettle on the stove, we match-dissolve to the interior of the kettle and show the water boiling, and the bubbles are comiong up, the boiling is done on the beat. And then this little drop of water comes out. Then we pour from the kettle into a teacup and the drop pours from the cup -- from the kettle into the cup, and then is thrown into the sink, and we follow it going down the drain. Now when you take and superimpose a little reflected light going through the trap underneath the sink, this means that somebody has got a ponderous camera who is focused at nothing but a little tiny dot, and is moving his camera to take this dot precisely through this thing. And the next thing we see is below the city street. It's a sidewalk and a big main, and this drop of water has to come up through here and down through here, and people are cued in to coincide with various musical instruments. Now we take this thing - and now we have to take this little dot and follow it down the map of this city street up to the edge of the river. Cut to the river, show a drain and the water drop has to come out of the drain, ..it is picked up into the lady's clothing [that], she's washing and a bird comes in and has to sip up this super drop, and then we have to follow this bird out in the sky and cross-dissolve back into the clouds.

And, uh, I had Sam Goldwyn up here one night, he's… he's a very dear friend of ours and a wonderful man, and he watched the show, and he said, uh, we did an office sequence where the ink was squirting from a pen, and the things are all working, the dial telephone is dialing by itself and the receivers and everything. And he said, "How long did it take you to shoot this?" I said, "We worked quite a long time on this, Sam. We worked all day." And he said, "It would take me one year." And he's right, because if you really put this into filmmaking it'd take you a year. Plus the fact that this is not post-scored. We could do this in a third of a day if we were post-score it. Take the shots and add the music, But we are shooting against the music, therefore everything has to be on time.

BB: Is part of the reason for the lesser time needed the fact that it's being done with electronic equipment...?

[A fly buzzes around Bellman]

EK: The flies haven't seen a stranger for so long, they know when somebody's from out of town. They're trying to find the airport.

BB: I look like one. Um... is it because of electronic equipment...

[Kovacs does a bit avoiding the fly while trying to light his cigar]

BB: [same question]...electronic equipment that a lot of this type of thing is possible? Could you do the same thing on film?

EK: Mmm. [implying "yes", with cigar in mouth] Much easier. Much easier, and one third the time.

BB: How many shows are you doing in this current series of specials?

EK: About six, I believe. But I don't know how many I'11 be able to do, only because I have exhausted each budget, which is to include the above and below-the-line, and I have exhausted it on below-the-line, therefore the above-the-line has been coming from me. And while I-being a Hungarian I have a philanthropic nature in part, I pat dogs and cats, bet that's as far as I like to go. I don't want to subsidize an industry at this age.

BB: You are getting your kicks, obviously from the show.

EK: I have never enjoyed anything in my life so much as I am.

BB: Which brings up an interesting point. You hear a lot of criticism directed to sponsors when you're dealing with performers. Obviously you are not getting much interference from your sponsor in this series. How do you achieve this?

EK: Well, one, by not knocking it and two, by a gentleman's agreement, which consists of their saying that "you do these shows, and we will not interfere with you." And when a moment does arrive that there is the little toe sneaking in the door I keep reminding them of our original conversation and they say, "By gosh, you're right," and so far we've been lucky. They have had one complaint, which is becoming rather profound, and that is that they feel that I should be seen more on camera on the show, and I don't feel that I should. And we are kind of, right now, knocking heads on the subject to the point where it may lead to disaster (laughing). But I just don't feel that is is the nature of the show for me to be in front of the camera. It is more of it's nature to be - I keep telling them - that I'm representing myself back of the camera, and every once in a while they settle on it. But then, as soon as I leave them and they talk among themselves, then they go back to their original thoughts.

BB: So much for television, for the moment. You've done some excellent work in films, and I understand you got to know Alec Guiness quite well, in "Our Man in Havana".

EK: Very good friend.

BB: Is this going to lead to further work between the two of you?

EK: Well, I gave Alec a treatment of something I had written, and he really fell in love with it. He said that he'd love to do this...he's always had this kind of a thing in mind., And right now we are in the process of one of these contractual processes. He is involved with a major studio, and see if we can substitute this picture with one of the four he owes them, and so forth. If that can be worked out, then we will do this.

BB: What part would you play in this - I don't mean in the acting...

EK: I would just write it, produce it, direct it. I won't be in it at all.. Which is what my hope is, that if I can finally convince the movie executives out here, as I've convinced the public, that I'm not an actor, and that I can do what I'd like.

BB: One aside from your own career, I know of no actor more difficult to classify in my mind than Guiness because he's always playing-he's always living the role that he plays.

EK: Yes, he is.

BB: What kind of person he would be as a person, what is he like off--

EK: This is a man with a greatest sense of humor, the sharpest sense of humor. No one ever knows it because he mumbles these little things under his breath. And when he was out here last, doing "A Majority of One" with Mervyn -no LeRoy, he would be up to the house many; times with other guests and he has such a wonderful way of throwing away a line, and no one is laughing but my wife and myself alone. And we love these little tiny things, they're better than innuendoes, and more subtle.

BB: Do you want to talk at all about the plot or type of story this might be that you're working on?

EK: Yes, it has its unfortunate aspects, Bill, in that some 2 or 3 years ago I submitted an idea to Columbia to do the story of a man called Eugene, who lived in a world of amplifications both of sight and sound, not of fantasy because this is frequent practical a motion picture industry. But his world is over-amplified. For instance, he walks past a motion picture theater, and on the thing, you see the marquee saying, "See Worlds at War, Worlds Collide, Space!" so forth, so forth and the usher-we see the usher reaching for the door. it's the break of the first show, and the audience comes out, and it consists of Martians, real Martians, and they've been in there watching the picture in Times Square. And this is the kind of thing that he lives in - this world, and when he becomes an usher, he's an usher and there's a western on. And there's a horse that makes a spectacular leap, and he hears wild applause in the audience, and he goes to caution the person and it's another horse, sitting ~ there watching the picture, and he just touches the horse on the shoulder, and the horse looks at him and stops [demonstrates the take]x. And it will be that kind of a picture. It will have a story, it has a story line, and so forth. But he never speaks, either through something that happens audibly at the time, or something that prevents him from speaking, but it's just the fact that he just never gets around to it.

BB: Do you have a working title here?

EK: Yes, it's called "Eugene". The opening shot is in Carnegie Hall, with a 35mm lens showing the entire symphony orchestra. They're doing a Wagnerian piece. Alec is the cymbalist, he's waiting for his cue, and as he is cued he crashes the cymbals together, and the inertia of the upward movement pushes him completely through the ~ floor, and through the hole in the floor come the credits.

BB: I understand that nine of the top-selling one hundred long playing albums today are by comics, most of them monologists. This seems to me to be a feat. which you could do especially well if you put your mind to it. Do you have any desire to do some album?

EK: I have. I'm doing an album of poems, that I have writtenfor a character called Percy Dovetonsils who has a rather effete personality, and who has a lisp. And in fact, the title is called "Perthy Dovetonthilth Thpeakth." That is the title of the album. And he does poetry on thought while falling off the empire State Building, and that kind of thing. And some pertinent comments on Caesar being assassinated. That kind of poems, and that kind of poetry - it would be that type of thing. I personally don't approve of the joke albums, and I don't listen to them. I have a lot of friends that make them, and I'm very fond of all these people, but I will no longer listen to theirs than I will listen to mine. I happen to be a bug on music and I have in there [indicates room off the patio on which they are sitting] about 6 to 7 thousand classical albums, and there are one...two...three - three complete stereo systems in the house which can feed either or all parts of the house including this pool area. And the children have each, their stereo systems. And we love music. And I see no television, really, at all.

BB: You struck a responsive chord in me earlier we were talking about music on television, because I think that something happens on television when you look at the orchestra maybe the trombone player is bald, and the sound of the trombone is one of the most romantic things.

EK: It is.

BB: I don't' think that music has to be done necessarily with humor on television. I think you can go a lot further than that.

EK: Well, I've done some very serious - I've taken Bartok's "Concerto for Orchestra", and I've had a girl of questionable reputation under a street lamp, and a clown sitting in the gutter, with a poster in-between them, saying "The Circus", and the same clown in on the circus, now what I've done is pan from one to the other as the music was playing, and then finally, and then you get the feeling that there is a kind of unrequited attention on the part of the clown towards the young lady, because we go to the poster, I have the poster cry, instead of the clown. And, uh, it was quite effective and we had almost five thousand letters on this piece, and people do not know Bartok or have never heard Bartok had as much appreciation as those who said "What a wonderful thing to do [to] Bartok."

BB: Ernie, as one of the more creative people involved in the entertainment side of television, I'm sure you have some pretty strong feelings on its developments at this time. What do you think is its biggest lack, and what would you like to see happen to it?

EK: I'm mulling over and relishing the word "creative"; that's always a misnomer, but it's always great to hear.

I -- I don't know if there is a lack of any specific -- There is possibly an abundance in the wrong direction, rather than a specific lack, I think. This is nothing that is coming as earth-shattering news or a bulletin that will interrupt any of your regularly scheduled programs, but we are catering to anything which will grab a large audience. And we will put on - I don't mean to knock them, but I certainly don't mean to praise them - a "give-away" show. Which I don't really feel is enlightening us or taking advantage of possibly one of the greatest inventions of all times, the television tube. One will put this on, and its main value is in seeing a couple being interviewed, a woman or a man whom we will never see again as long as we live, and her contribution to our day's enlightenment is the fact that "No, I've never bowled," or "My husband, John, plays badminton." And this you take home and kind of mull it over for the evening and this you've assimilated. And for this little thing you watch her win a washer, which is mentioned by product name, which pays for the washer to the program. I don't feel that these great minds who conceived this most fantastic form of communication, that anyone dreamed, that this is what they were sitting in a hot cellar or a hot lab for for hours.