In his 11 seasons on Saturday Night Live, Fred Armisen illustrated a special brand of humor sprinkled with his wide-eyed sensibility and a strong dash of music. There really has never been another SNL cast member quite like him.
Now, Armisen will receive a special honor for his career in comedy and entertainment. The Dallas VideoFest will present the Ernie Kovacs Award to 58-year old Armisen on Saturday, Nov. 22, at the Texas Theatre.
Armisen’s initial passion was music, starting his career as a punk rock drummer. He moved from Portland to Chicago in 1988 to join the band Trenchmouth, followed by a gig drumming for the Blue Man Group throughout the 1990s. His transition to comedy began with a short film, Fred Armisen’s Guide to Music and South by Southwest (1998), where he pranked musicians with characters. This led to comedy routines on shows like Late Night with Conan O’Brien, ultimately resulting in him joining Saturday Night Live in 2002. He was a cast member from Season 28 through Season 38.
About Ernie Kovacs
Ernie Kovacs was a pioneering American television comedian whose unique, surreal, and visually experimental style left an indelible mark on the entertainment industry. Active from the dawn of television until his untimely death in 1962, Kovacs distinguished himself by treating the camera and the medium itself as a comic canvas. He pioneered techniques like on-camera visual effects, surrealist blackouts, non-sequitur gags, and deliberately breaking the “fourth wall” to interact with the crew or show the set’s boundaries.
Like Armisen, Kovacs was unique because he saw beyond the broadcast conventions of his time, becoming “television’s first significant video artist,” as noted by critic William Henry III. His comedy was often abstract and spontaneous, giving rise to memorable, unconventional segments like the Nairobi Trio, three trench-coated musicians in gorilla masks.
His legacy is vast, influencing subsequent generations of comedians and shows, including Monty Python’s Flying Circus, Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In, and Saturday Night Live. Kovacs was known for his irreverent wit, once famously quipping about the new medium, “Television: a medium. So called because it is neither rare nor well done.”
