Johnny Carson, Saturday Night Live, David Letterman, and The Muppet Show all point to one influence most people have never heard of. He invented modern visual television comedy, then died deep in debt as networks erased his master tapes.

This episode traces the wildly imaginative, chaotic, and ultimately tragic life of Ernie Kovacs, television's first true video artist. From a near-fatal bout of pleurisy that forged his fearlessness to his battles with the IRS and the love story that saved his legacy, it reveals how one man hacked a brand-new medium and why his wife Edie Adams literally bought his work back from the trash.

• How surviving pneumonia and pleurisy at age 20 stripped away his fear of the camera
• The optical illusions he pioneered, including the tilted-table milk trick and underwater cigar smoke made with a mouth ...