Before there were ratings for television shows, when Ernie was doing "Three to Get Ready" on WPTZ in Philadelphia, Ernie asked viewers to send in a postcard.  The station was flooded with them, and that's how Ernie & co. got their first inkling of how popular their wake-up show was.

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Ernie's catchphrase "It's been real" had actually been around for a number of years before he got into TV.  However, many television programs in the early 1950's were shown on film and not broadcast live.  The above title would appear at the end of one of these programs.  Rather than say the show was "live", Kovacs would write "It's been real" on a piece of paper that would turn up at the tail end of a show, somewhere on the set...inside an orange, down a manhole, you name it.