After all these years, I still miss Ernie Kovacs

Ernie Kovac's Nairobi Trio skit was my favorite of all his shenigans. ---BBB

The Nairobi Trio photo:
http://www.tvacres.com/images/nairobi_trio.jpg

The Nairobi Trio was a skit Ernie Kovacs performed several times for his TV shows. It combined many existing concepts and visuals in a new and novel way, and is probably the first comedy bit people think about when Kovacs' name is mentioned.

People in gorilla suits have always been a comedy staple. The notion of well-known or predictable music pieces gone awry has long been practiced by artists as diverse as Stan Freberg, Spike Jones or P.D.Q. Bach. The "slow burn" of one character annoying another resulting in eventual retaliation was not new. But the combination of all those ingredients, combined with impeccable timing, produced a unique and memorable result.

It was a live-action version of a child's animatronic wind-up music box, performed to the tune "Solfeggio." Allegedly, when Kovacs first heard a recording of the tune, he immediately came up with a mental image of what would become The Nairobi Trio: three gorillas (wearing derby hats and long overcoats) mechanically miming to the music like wind-up toys. In the middle sat the "head gorilla," always played by Kovacs (with a cigar, of course), conducting with a baton or (sometimes) a banana. To the viewer's left another gorilla stood, holding two oversized timpani mallets. (The identity of this ape varied, but among Kovacs' celebrity friends both Jack Lemmon and Frank Sinatra are known to have performed in the skit.) And seated at screen right at a piano was a female simian (often Kovacs' wife, Edie Adams), robotically thumping up and down on the keys.

It would be almost impossible to describe the action in words, but the basic schtick involves the gorilla with the mallets, who repeatedly uses the center gorilla's (Kovacs') head as a drum at the end of every phrase, punctuating a sharp "ba-da-BUM" bongo riff. Every repeat brings a slightly changed and escalated response from the victim, as he tries to anticipate the mallet assault and outwit the perpetrator. Ultimately staring him down, he is eventually distracted by the third gorilla (who heretofore has been an innocent bystander...er..."bysitter") for one final konk, moving him to smash a prop vase over the percussionist's head.

Like much of Kovacs' work, one has to see it to truly appreciate it. It is astounding to see the variety of reactions he is able to convey within the confines of a rubber gorilla mask.

The bit was repeated several times over the course of Kovacs' career. The definitive version is probably the last, performed for one of Ernie's 1960's ABC specials shortly before his untimely death. The combination of a bigger budget, videotape, and the luxury of retakes helped him to perfect the timing of the sketch.

The Nairobi Trio has entered popular culture beyond the television screen. A popular New Zealand jazz group adopted the name. And when writer Jim Knipfel wrote an account of his six-month stay in a psychiatric ward, he titled the book Quitting the Nairobi Trio (and used a picture of Kovacs in simian drag on the cover).

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