The face had a cartoon-like directness: big mustache, Magic Marker eyebrows, oversize cigar. Yet few TV entertainers were a more intriguing set of contradictions than Ernie Kovacs. A boisterous cutup who relished tacky props and low-down slapstick, yet a closet highbrow who orchestrated comedy to Bartok and Beethoven. A talk-show pioneer, yet the creator of a classic half an hour that included not a single line of dialogue. A TV “star” who never had a network series that lasted more than two seasons, yet who influenced video comedy for the next two decades, from Laugh-In to David Letterman.

Janice Castro April 13, 1992 12:00 AM EDT CHART: NOT AVAILABLE % CREDIT: From a telephone poll of 363 adults with children between 12 and 17 taken for TIME/CNN on March 11-12 by Yankelovich Clancy Shulman. Sampling error is plus or minus 5.1%. CAPTION: Do you worry that your teenager might: Be unable to get a good job as an adult? Contract AIDS? Drink and drive? Use drugs? Get shot at school?

Lee is intrigued by the large red bumps on the back of Jesse's neck, one of which leaks a bit of pus during the examination. "I have some ideas of what Jesse's condition may be, but I can't get past the fact that he has such a severe breakout on the back of his neck," Lee says. "That's pretty rare." Believe it or not, Lee determines the neck bumps are actually "

A recent Consumer Reports investigation struck fear into the hearts of chocolate lovers everywhere. After testing 28 dark chocolate bars, scientists detected the heavy metalslead and cadmium in all of them. For 23 of the chocolate bars, eating just an ounce would put an adult above the daily upper threshold recommended for heavy metals in food by public-health officials in California, which the authors said they chose because it is the most protective standard available.

The owners and some former and present executives of OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma were sued on June 12 by Massachusetts’ attorney general, who alleges the company knowingly misled doctors and consumers about the dangers of its product — something Purdue denied in a statement. This brings to mind an earlier, separate — and revealing — case against the company from more than a decade ago. At a congressional hearing in 2007, a United States attorney was grilled about the Justice Department’s settlement earlier that year with the company over its prescription painkiller, which had become the gateway drug to America’s opioid epidemic.