Alert correspondent Jamie Axtell was in the audience at the Paley Center in New York and sends this report:

Well, “It’s Been Real: The Life and Legacy of Ernie Kovacs” was great fun to attend. On a personal note, Joel was extremely kind and gracious to me. He even shooed away an overly intrusive fanboy out of the way so that he could take a picture with me. I told him, “Sampo sent me,” and his response was, “He sent you here to kill me?”

The event lasted 2 hours. The highlight of the evening was a 17-minute montage of Kovacs’ funniest and most visually clever moments. At one point in the program, Joel had removed his shoes and, with characteristic humility, remarked that they were Kovacs’, but he himself was not capable of shining them. (Of course, since his shoes were suede, he wouldn’t’ve been able to get much of a sheen on them.) Ever the wordsmith, Joel also coined the term “Kovacsian,” which fellow panelist Robert Smigel (the creator of Triumph the Insult Comic Dog) suggested was an impressive-sounding word that could get you laid. In attendance were Richard Foos, CEO of Shout! Factory and co-founder of Rhino Entertainment, and Lauren Hutton, whom moderator Keith Olbermann called upon during the Q&A session.

Of everyone on the panel, Joel received the most enthusiastic ovation at the end of the evening.

Thanks, Jamie!

My old pal David Bianculli (who regularly fills in for Terry Gross on NPR’s “Fresh Air” ) also was in the audience, and wrote about it on his blog.