Last Friday, I attended a centennial retrospective of Ernie Kovacs, whose visual humor inspired many TV shows. From what I saw, his style of humor was somewhat of an influence on The Monkees, since they used speeded up photography, non sequitors and breaking the fourth wall to name a few.

Anyone think The Monkees had an Ernie Kovacs influence?

I think the Marx Brothers had a strong influence on them, too. However, even though Groucho was still living at the time, I never heard of him commenting on it in any way!

The show was 90% influenced by The Beatles and Richard Lester and 10% everyone else. Lester was the one who pioneered that zany 1960s style of editing and surreal humor that was used by both movies and TV shows at the time (What's New Pussycat, Casino Royale, Laugh In, Monty Python). It's so weird how no one wants to credit Lester anymore.

This isn't to say that Lester wasn't influenced himself by The Marx Brother and other sources. There was a movie called Hellzapoppin from the 1940s and madcap comedies like The Girl Can't Help It and Seven Year Itch that was inspired by Tex Avery cartoons. But it's very strange and frustrating to me how history seems to want to gloss over him. I don't know why. He was American, even though he did British movies. It's okay. We can like him :lol

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Lester himself seems to have been a Kovacs devotee. Guardian article:

As a young man in his native America, Lester had been a fan of the silent film star Buster Keaton and of the television comedian Ernie Kovacs, so he believes his interest in anarchic comedy was as much due to an American tradition as to a ready understanding of quirky British humour.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/jul/06/beatles-richard-lester-hard-days-night-restored

Vanity Fair:

Working on a set opposite The Ernie Kovacs Show, Lester fell in love with the anarchic comic. Kovacs, with his dark moustache, his Cuban cigars big as smoke stacks, and a voice like burnt toast, was a local legend before taking off for Hollywood. “I thought he was wonderful—his live television shows were brilliant,” says Lester.

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2014/07/a-hard-days-night-making-of