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"Gotta Match!" Lights Up the Trenton City Museum · Jersey Arts Podcast

• 0:54
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: This is Gina Marie Rodriguez, and you're listening to the Jersey Arts Podcast. Today's approach is going to be a bit different. I'm speaking with the Trenton City Museum's curator, Karl Flesch, and together, we're reviewing a few of the pieces on display as part of their current exhibition, "Gotta Match!" I would encourage you to view the photos on JerseyArts.com with us as you listen so that you can join us on this remotely-guided sneak peek of this unique show. Gotta Match! explores the fascinating history of matchbooks, match covers, and ash trays, revealing how these every day objects became miniature works of art, powerful promotional tools, and reflections of American popular culture. The exhibit encourages visitors to compare the glamorous image of smoking promoted in the past with today's understanding of its serious health consequences. I learned a lot during today's conversation, and I'm hoping you will too.
• 0:57
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Stay tuned to learn more about "Gotta Match!" and the upcoming events at the Trenton State Museum.
• 1:02
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: So, Karl, I am so excited to meet you. You are the curator of this upcoming, well, actually, it's happening right now already, the "Gotta Match!" exhibition.
• 1:15
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: And I would love to talk to you a little bit about who you are.
• 1:17
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Who, what's your background?
• 1:20
  Karl Flesch: My name is Karl Flesch.
• 1:21
  Karl Flesch: I was born in Trenton, raised in Hamilton, and I worked in the Trenton area and always loved Trenton history.
• 1:26
  Karl Flesch: And when I retired from the state of New Jersey, I started working or volunteering at the Trenton City Museum on the board.
• 1:32
  Karl Flesch: And today I am the chairman of collections.
• 1:37
  Karl Flesch: And I'm responsible for putting up some collections within the museum to exhibit.
• 1:42
  Karl Flesch: And this is one of my uh exhibits that I just did.
• 1:45
  Karl Flesch: And it opened up on October 10th, and it runs through February 28, 2027.
• 1:52
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: This is an interesting from my perspective.
• 1:54
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I'm not a smoker.
• 1:55
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I don't know anything about ashtrays or matchbooks or really anything affiliated with smoking culture.
• 2:01
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: So I find this really interesting.
• 2:03
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Where did the idea for this exhibition come from?
• 2:07
  Karl Flesch: I really wanted to show a glimpse into trends past through advertising.
• 2:11
  Karl Flesch: And matchbooks and ashtrays was a good example.
• 2:15
  Karl Flesch: And most businesses use that and they're long gone.
• 2:18
  Karl Flesch: So there's a history that we've lost, at least a visual history, also.
• 2:22
  Karl Flesch: Maybe we know some of the verbiage, but not the visual all the time.
• 2:26
  Karl Flesch: And I think every city has this story using matchbooks and ashtrays for advertising.
• 2:32
  Karl Flesch: But what makes Trenton and the exhibit unique is that Trenton was a ceramic center and they made ashtrays, such as Lennox, Lamberton Scammel, Stangle, Pack, and others.
• 2:43
  Karl Flesch: And then there are the visual images of famous people smoking that I show in the exhibit: JFK, Jackie Kennedy, Obama, Einstein, Betty Davis, Lauren Bacall, Audrey Hepburn.
• 2:55
  Karl Flesch: You know, who can forget that long cigarette holder in Breakfast of Tiffany's?
• 2:59
  Karl Flesch: And then there's Tranzone, Ernie Kovacs, where the image of him smoking a cigar was iconic.
• 3:04
  Karl Flesch: He also did some very creative TV advertising for Dutch masters.
• 3:09
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: You know, it's crazy because I I guess I was aware about how important smoking was in our culture and society and pop culture.
• 3:18
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I'm having a flashback to when I was a kid and I used to watch Greece, the musical Greece, and everybody was smoking.
• 3:25
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Everybody was smoking in that movie.
• 3:27
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: So I would go out to the corner store and get candy cigarettes and pretend to smoke all the time.
• 3:34
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: But that tells you just how pervasive it was, you know, throughout society.
• 3:39
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Smoking was such a big deal, and I didn't realize the connection to advertising, which shame on me.
• 3:45
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I guess I, as an adult, probably should have realized that.
• 3:48
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: But I think it's interesting that that's the approach that you took.
• 3:52
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Um, before we start talking about some of the photos that we're highlighting, can you tell me a little bit more about matchbooks, like the history of how they became an advertising marketing source?
• 4:05
  Karl Flesch: Yeah, it's quite interesting because you know today everybody uses disposable lighters.
• 4:09
  Karl Flesch: But before then, matchbooks were the everyday essential and also an ingenious way to advertise.
• 4:14
  Karl Flesch: So the first tin match was invented in 1827.
• 4:18
  Karl Flesch: And in 1892, a Philadelphia patent attorney patented a paper matchbook, creating a convenient compact alternative to wooden match six.
• 4:26
  Karl Flesch: And the matchbook soon found a second-purpose advertising.
• 4:30
  Karl Flesch: And in the 1890s, a company named a company salesman, Henry C.
• 4:34
  Karl Flesch: Trot, helped to pioneer the distribution of matchbooks featuring colorful advertisements for businesses and consuming products.
• 4:43
  Karl Flesch: And from the 1920s to the 20th century, billions of matchbooks circulated through restaurants, hotel bars, shops, and other businesses.
• 4:52
  Karl Flesch: And there were colorful covers that promoted everything from local establishments to loc nationally recognized brands, affordable to produce, and they kept it business names and customers' hands often through all 20 matches.
• 5:05
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: So you had shared a few photos with me of some of the pieces in this exhibit.
• 5:10
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: And one of my favorites is the Turk's Head restaurant matchbook.
• 5:14
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: So can we talk about that a little bit?
• 5:16
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I mean, it's interesting.
• 5:19
  Karl Flesch: It is very interesting.
• 5:19
  Karl Flesch: Well, there's two parts to it.
• 5:21
  Karl Flesch: The name alone, Turk's Head, and a photo of a man wearing a Turk with a long beard is very intriguing.
• 5:27
  Karl Flesch: And the second part of the match that's really interesting and very unique for this one is the matches inside were actually well, the head of the match was the head of a chef wearing a chef's hat, and the base of the stick was a man dressed in a chef's uniform and pants.
• 5:45
  Karl Flesch: Usually, when you open up a match book, it's just plain matches.
• 5:47
  Karl Flesch: This one is very decorative.
• 5:49
  Karl Flesch: So I looked into the history of the Turks Head, and it seems that it was built, it was opened in the 30s and 40s at Broad and Hanover Street in Trenton and was owned by the Pillsbury family, which from Princeton, which also had a Turk's Head restaurant in Princeton at University Place and Nassal Street.
• 6:08
  Karl Flesch: And when the Pillsbury family opened the restaurant during the Great Depression, they choose the name of Turks Head to give the eatery as an historic classic tavern feel.
• 6:18
  Karl Flesch: And it was in the 18th and 19th centuries that Turks Head was one of the most popular names for inns, the stagecoat stops across the Mid-Atlantic region.
• 6:28
  Karl Flesch: So that's really where the word Turks Head comes from.
• 6:31
  Karl Flesch: But it's a very interesting matchbook, again, because the matches themselves have actually figures on each stripe, which is very unusual.
• 6:40
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Back in the day, my father was a smoker.
• 6:41
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: So we did have matchbooks in the house.
• 6:44
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: This was again before lighters were super popular, I guess.
• 6:47
  Karl Flesch: No, they've just disappeared from today's um scene, I think.
• 6:50
  Karl Flesch: Again, it's because we're using the automatic lighters all the time, I believe.
• 6:54
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Yeah.
• 6:55
  Karl Flesch: And I think it was the other day I went to a business and they had um, it was my local restaurant that I go for breakfast every Sunday, and they had matchbooks, which surprised me.
• 7:04
  Karl Flesch: Um, because you it's I used to like to collect them when I went to businesses, restaurants, etc., but you don't see them too often anymore.
• 7:10
  Karl Flesch: Okay, the other matchbook that I highlighted to you was a matchbook from the Davidson Transfer and Switch Company.
• 7:17
  Karl Flesch: And what I found that made this unique was that the um it wasn't just a squared off-edge matchbook, but there was trucks on the back in front of the matchbook that extended beyond um the normal straight line of the match, if you can envision that.
• 7:36
  Karl Flesch: And uh so I looked up the ancestry of the Davidson Company.
• 7:40
  Karl Flesch: It was formed in uh in 1896 in Baltimore, and they grew from simple horses and buggies operation into a massive regional trucking company, and there were terminals across the mid-Atlantic, and Trenton served as a critical intermediate city in the cure core route between Washington and New York City.
• 7:59
  Karl Flesch: And Davidson would haul general commodities, household goods, fresh meats, and refrigerated foods.
• 8:05
  Karl Flesch: And it's heyday during the mid-20th century, the company was famous for its fleet and its trademark advertising slogan, pre-planned moving and sanitized vans.
• 8:15
  Karl Flesch: So there again, there's a picture of the van that's very prominent, the truck, because it extends beyond the normal edge of a matchbook.
• 8:22
  Karl Flesch: But that was very interesting to me.
• 8:24
  Karl Flesch: And that's the only one I've seen like that in our collection.
• 8:27
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Yeah, I'm looking at it right now, and I would be remiss if I didn't remind our listeners to go to our website, jerseyarts.com, so that you can see these photos as well.
• 8:35
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Um, you know, before, of course, you go to the exhibition.
• 8:39
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: But it is fascinating that they decided to make the truck.
• 8:43
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I mean, I guess it's the rear of the truck.
• 8:45
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: It's like the the four rear wheels are kind of backing out of the matchbook.
• 8:50
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: The the end of the room.
• 8:52
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Oh, yeah, in the head.
• 8:53
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Yeah, you're right.
• 8:53
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I don't know how I missed that.
• 8:55
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Yeah, it's very interesting.
• 8:56
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: It is very interesting.
• 8:58
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Uh again, I'm I want to ask you because you briefly mentioned that you used to enjoy collecting these matchbooks.
• 9:06
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Is that part of what led to this exhibition that you already had this, I guess, this interest in uh collecting?
• 9:14
  Speaker: Well, I did have some.
• 9:16
  Speaker: Um they were not on my mind because I didn't know how many I had.
• 9:20
  Speaker: And I turned out maybe I had about 10 or 12 from Trenton.
• 9:23
  Speaker: I had lots more from all over the world, the country.
• 9:26
  Speaker: But what prompted me here was there was a a Trenton um enthusiast, Anthony Tempesta, who does not live in the city.
• 9:34
  Speaker: He lives, I believe, in Virginia, who was showing on Facebook his matchbook collection of Trenton matchbooks.
• 9:41
  Speaker: And it was through that vision of seeing his matchbooks that I thought, hmm, there's an idea for an exhibit.
• 9:47
  Speaker: He has a lot of Trenton matchbooks that I could use.
• 9:50
  Speaker: So that was the impetus of me getting into this uh exhibit.
• 9:53
  Speaker: And uh the exhibit does not only show his matches, he had given us about 50 of them.
• 9:58
  Speaker: The Trenton City Library, Trentoniana Division gave us about 20, loaned us about 20.
• 10:04
  Speaker: And there's various other people, including myself and Richard Williger and Nancy Lane, I'm sorry, Sally Lane, who contributed to the exhibit.
• 10:13
  Speaker: Then I thought, well, gee, you know, as trays go along with that, both advertising-wise for Trenton and other things.
• 10:21
  Speaker: And also, uh, you know, when you have a match book and smoke, you have to have an ashtray usually.
• 10:27
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Absolutely.
• 10:28
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I mean, I'm only learning through you about the companies that were based in Trenton making these things.
• 10:33
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: So I already I'm fascinated.
• 10:35
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: But let's let's talk a little bit about those ashtrays as well.
• 10:44
  Karl Flesch: So as you know, as a cigarette smoking spread in the 19th century, ashtrays evolved from simple bowls into specialized objects with notches for cigarettes and spaces for pipe smokers.
• 10:54
  Karl Flesch: And by the 1920s and 1930s, the Art Deco ashtrays featured geometric forms, chrome, bronze, and bold ornamentation.
• 11:04
  Karl Flesch: And then after World War II, mid-century modern designs embraced organic and atomic shapes with colorful glazes, art glasses, and new materials.
• 11:13
  Karl Flesch: So ashtrays were everywhere in homes, offices, restaurants, hotels, automobiles, public spaces, and including airplanes.
• 11:21
  Karl Flesch: And then businesses recognized their value as miniature billboards, producing them with company names, logos, and slogans, hotel, restaurants, taverns, airlines, tourist attractions, and civic organizations, distributed ashtrays as advertising and souvenirs.
• 11:37
  Karl Flesch: That's the history of how that happened.
• 11:39
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I have to tell you, of the photos that you've shown me, because this is all I can work with right now, my favorite is the cobalt blue.
• 11:46
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Um, do you mind if we start with that one?
• 11:50
  Speaker: That's fine.
• 11:50
  Speaker: So there are two pieces that I gave you, and they're both, although I gave you three, but the two are from the New York uh 1939 World's Fair.
• 11:58
  Speaker: And the cobalt blue was for the Alentine Valentine Inn at the fair, and it was a facility that seated 2,000 people.
• 12:06
  Speaker: The main dining room had held 1,000 guests alongside a large bar restaurant area, which there was also entertainment.
• 12:13
  Speaker: And the venue would serve regional specialties from across the U.S.
• 12:16
  Speaker: paired with Valentine beer and an extensive wine and beverage list.
• 12:20
  Speaker: And the estray from the fair is a highly sought-after piece of Tabakiana and fairground memorabilia.
• 12:27
  Speaker: They were not souvenirs, but actually used as the Valentine Inn at the fair, and they were made by Scambles, Lamberton, China, and Trenton.
• 12:35
  Speaker: And they're known for manufacturing a heavy-duty restaurant wear and railroad dining car, China.
• 12:42
  Speaker: So this is really a heavy piece of ceramic ashtray.
• 12:46
  Speaker: And they were found in rich cobalt blue, which is the example we have with white lettering, but there was also white glazed variants with blue lettering, which I have not seen.
• 12:55
  Speaker: And the front face features an embossed design of Valentine's famous interlocking three rings logo representing purity, body, and flavor.
• 13:06
  Speaker: And there's a back stamp to it.
• 13:08
  Speaker: I'm not sure whether I share that with you, but it shows extensive styles, backmark reading, Valentine in New York World's Fair, Peter Valentine, threefold test, one drink for purity, another for body, another for flavor.
• 13:23
  Speaker: So it's a great piece.
• 13:24
  Speaker: It's so cool.
• 13:26
  Speaker: People who collect ashtrays and people who collect uh World's Fair number of billions.
• 13:31
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Yeah, I what's funny is I can look at this and tell that it's heavy without having come anywhere near it.
• 13:38
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: But what what struck me about it is I I guess you called it the interlocking rings, but to me it looks like the the triquetcha from the show charmed, which I was obsessed with when I was a kid.
• 13:48
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Um so I was like, ooh, it's like a witch's uh witch.
• 13:52
  Karl Flesch: Well if you look closely to the interlocking rings, there's also a groove where you would place a matchbook.
• 13:57
  Karl Flesch: Oh yes.
• 13:59
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Oh, I love this one.
• 14:00
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: See, there's a reason I wanted to start with this one.
• 14:02
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I do hope folks are visiting the website so you can see what I'm talking about.
• 14:07
  Karl Flesch: So the other piece is um a piece from the World's Fair, also, which is a cigarette holder, which was made by Lennox.
• 14:14
  Karl Flesch: So it's a small, it looks like a small cup that's maybe about four inches high, circular, of course.
• 14:20
  Karl Flesch: And it's in Lennox's traditional bone china look.
• 14:24
  Karl Flesch: And on it is embossed uh the symbols of the fair, the the trion and the perisphere.
• 14:32
  Karl Flesch: And on the back is an eagle, and I believe there's probably 13 stars going around the base.
• 14:37
  Karl Flesch: So this was an art deco piece that was made for the Oberton store, which was located on Fifth Avenue and 39th Street, which sold fine china, porcelain, silverware, crystal, decorative gifts, and small luxury home furnishing.
• 14:51
  Karl Flesch: So it was a luxury piece, um, a little overpriced, I guess, probably for the typical everyday souvenir.
• 14:57
  Karl Flesch: And they also made Lennox also made cigarette boxes of a similar design with the pylon and perisphere on the cover on the top of the box.
• 15:07
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I feel like I grew up with Lennox collections.
• 15:10
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Like, I mean, I didn't, but my grandmother always had uh Lennox in the house.
• 15:16
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: The China.
• 15:16
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Yeah.
• 15:17
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Yeah.
• 15:19
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: So I I don't know.
• 15:20
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I guess this whole thing is bringing a lot of nostalgia up for me, which is fun.
• 15:26
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I don't always get that.
• 15:27
  Karl Flesch: The third piece that I shared with you, the Earth Tray, is from the Stevens Hotel in Chicago.
• 15:32
  Karl Flesch: It's a square-based green, maybe five by five inches square with a rectangular, I mean I'm sorry, square column, like a candlestick column, um, with uh the image of, well, the logo of the Stevens Hotel on it.
• 15:49
  Karl Flesch: It also says the Stevens.
• 15:50
  Karl Flesch: And the top is a hold for a candlestick.
• 15:53
  Karl Flesch: And behind it is a groove that you would insert a matchbook.
• 15:57
  Karl Flesch: So the estray was used at the hotel's upscale restaurants and lounges and guest suites during the late 1920s and 30s.
• 16:06
  Karl Flesch: And the center column was designed to hold a standard taper candle, which provided intimate low-light ambience for dining tables and bar counters.
• 16:16
  Karl Flesch: And it's interesting to note that this hotel today, it was opened as the largest uh hotel in the world in 1927, and it's a Hilton hotel today.
• 16:26
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: That's actually a really clever idea because it I guess it serves a dual purpose, right?
• 16:30
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Because you could just light your cigarette with the candle.
• 16:32
  Karl Flesch: You could.
• 16:32
  Karl Flesch: It's kind of like a fire hazard in my mind.
• 16:35
  Karl Flesch: I mean, but yeah, I guess people do have candles today in their houses.
• 16:39
  Karl Flesch: I mean, that's what you would do.
• 16:40
  Karl Flesch: I mean, it's just like a candlestick holder, but the base would be the ashtray and the cigarette holder.
• 16:45
  Karl Flesch: I mean the matchbook holder.
• 16:47
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Well, I'm envisioning it, you know, in a in a fancy restaurant, like you said.
• 16:50
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: And if it's the centerpiece, it makes sense that I could see all of these people sitting around the table just instead of using the matchbooks, they'd just go, Oh, there it is.
• 16:57
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I'm gonna use the candle.
• 16:59
  Karl Flesch: Yeah, yeah.
• 17:00
  Karl Flesch: Richard Willinger, who was the co-coordinator, who helped me again set up the exhibit, he's exhibiting his an ad of his uncle as the Marlborough man.
• 17:10
  Karl Flesch: And that was his uncle M.
• 17:12
  Karl Flesch: Arthur Hammer, 1913 to 1978, who was an attorney from New York City, and he was spotted on a fire island and asked to model for the the ad.
• 17:22
  Karl Flesch: And that was the only um time he did, that was really the only ad that was done using him.
• 17:27
  Karl Flesch: Like I think the Marlband Marlboro man probably still exists through today in advertising for Marlboros.
• 17:34
  Karl Flesch: And then the other piece uh is for me, it's a heavy square glass ashtray, very plain, that was used by my mother.
• 17:40
  Karl Flesch: And she smoked Chesterfields until I was about seven years old, and she went stopped cold turkey after learning that her brother-in-law had a cancer scare.
• 17:50
  Karl Flesch: And he was such a heavy smoker that he would wake up in the middle of the night and smoke.
• 17:54
  Karl Flesch: And I remember my mother carrying this ashtray everywhere wherever she went, and she would use it, I guess, and clean it out and put it back into her handbag to take it home.
• 18:03
  Karl Flesch: So I think that was very unusual.
• 18:05
  Karl Flesch: I don't know why I wish I could ask her why she did that, but that ashtray went with her everywhere in her bag.
• 18:11
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: As someone who often carries a handbag, I can imagine the weight of that thing.
• 18:15
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: That must have been.
• 18:17
  Karl Flesch: It was not a pretty purse.
• 18:18
  Karl Flesch: It was pretty big.
• 18:19
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Oh my gosh, yeah.
• 18:20
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: It must have been killing her shoulder though with that extra weight.
• 18:23
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Let's move on to the exhibition itself and the events that you have affiliated with it, because I want to make sure that people aren't just looking at our website, but that they are actually visiting the exhibition as well.
• 18:37
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: So talk to me about how to get there and and how they can enjoy every aspect of this.
• 18:43
  Karl Flesch: Well, the the museum is located in Trenton in the Cadwalader, which is the largest park in Trenton, designed by Olmsted.
• 18:51
  Karl Flesch: And it's an old mansion, Ellarslie Mansion, in the center of the park, and it's open three days, uh, Thursday through Saturday, noon till four, and on Sunday from one to four.
• 19:04
  Karl Flesch: And that's how you can get there.
• 19:06
  Karl Flesch: We have a lot of exhibits, I mean, events coming up with this event exhibit, and it's highlighting Trenton-born Ernie Kovacs, again, one of the smokers with the cigars, who was for Trenton and one of Trenton's greatest comedy innovators, known for his off-beat humor, visual experimentation, and unconventional approach to entertainment.
• 19:27
  Karl Flesch: He was also a cigar smoker, making him a fitting addition to the Gotta Match exhibit.
• 19:32
  Karl Flesch: So to start things off, we're gonna be showing December 5th, the movie Bell Book and Candle, on Saturday, December 5th at 5 p.m.
• 19:41
  Karl Flesch: We have two other events.
• 19:42
  Karl Flesch: We have two speakers coming, two well-known speakers, I think.
• 19:45
  Karl Flesch: And the first one is gonna be Ben Modell.
• 19:47
  Karl Flesch: He's gonna be giving a talk on Ernie Kovacs, cards, cigars, and Trenton.
• 19:51
  Karl Flesch: And that'll be on January 23rd.
• 19:54
  Karl Flesch: So Ben Modell is a prominent silent film accomplist, historian, and archivist who serves as the official archivist for the Ernie Kovacs and Edie Adams Television Collections.
• 20:04
  Karl Flesch: And in this capacity, he manages, preserves, and promotes surreal legacy of the pioneering television comedian Ernie Kovacs and his wife, actress Edie Adams.
• 20:14
  Karl Flesch: So if you come to the talk, you hear the story of Ernie Kovacs growing up in Trenton and his rise to start him along the way to Hollywood, and you'll see clips from cigar cards and cigars, Trenton and Ernie Kovacs, as well as other Trenton-related Kovacs video and audio.
• 20:30
  Karl Flesch: So please put that on your calendar.
• 20:32
  Karl Flesch: And then the last event we're having is one that's going to be given by David Biancoy.
• 20:37
  Karl Flesch: David Biancooli is an acclaimed television critic, author, and professor of television and film at Rowan University.
• 20:43
  Karl Flesch: He's also the television critic of NPR's Fresh Air since the national pro since the program's national debut in 1987.
• 20:51
  Karl Flesch: And he's the founder and editor of TV Worth Watching, a television critic since 1975.
• 20:57
  Karl Flesch: So his talk is going to be about how Ernie Kovacs transformed a traditional commercial into an inventive and often hilarious part of television legacy.
• 21:07
  Karl Flesch: And uh cigar in hand became one of Ernie Kovacs' most recognizable trademarks, contributing to the irreverent and unconventional image that made him a television original.
• 21:18
  Karl Flesch: And you'll get to see how Kovacs used advertising as an extensive entertainment through his memorable Dutch master commercials, and David will show some pre-1970 TV cigarette ads as well.
• 21:29
  Karl Flesch: So there's your chance to get to see some old C TV cigarette ads.
• 21:33
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: This is so cool.
• 21:35
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I'm just fascinated by the idea behind it because it's not something my mind would come up with, even though I did grow up with you know a dad who was a smoker and I've seen these things throughout my life, but I hadn't considered them as art until this conversation.
• 21:51
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: And you are very right.
• 21:53
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: This is absolutely very artistic, these pieces.
• 21:56
  Karl Flesch: Well, you have to come to the exhibit to see over a hundred matchbooks and matchbook covers, which again is the art besides the advertising of the trend businesses.
• 22:04
  Karl Flesch: And the ashtrays.
• 22:05
  Karl Flesch: I mean, the ashtray ashtrays are works of art in themselves, and they also have advertising.
• 22:09
  Karl Flesch: Some do.
• 22:10
  Karl Flesch: Some are just, you know, regular ashtrays that people would buy, but not really advertising since they were made to Trenton.
• 22:17
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Well, thank you so much, Karl, for taking the time.
• 22:18
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: I'm really excited about this about this exhibition, and I hope that everybody makes their way to Trenton.
• 22:24
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Uh, you've got some time, because this is going through February, correct?
• 22:27
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: So get yourselves out there.
• 22:29
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: In the meanwhile, you can see these images on jerseyarts.com, the ones that we've spoken about today.
• 22:35
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: And hopefully you'll see the rest of the exhibition and the events that are coming up very soon.
• 22:40
  Karl Flesch: Thank you, Gina, and thank you, Jersey Arts, for doing the interview with me.
• 22:43
  Karl Flesch: I really appreciate it.
• 22:44
  Karl Flesch: Thank you.
• 22:54
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: Now interview for February 28th.
• 22:56
  Gina Marie Rodriguez: The upcoming exhibition is "Ernie Kovacs, the Man Behind the Cigar," which will open on December 5th, and from alongside "Gotta Match!" through February 28th.