text: During 1955–58, he wrote for Mad (his favorite humor magazine), including the feature "Strangely Believe It!" (a parody of Ripley's Believe It or Not! that was a regular feature of his television shows) and Gringo, a board game with ridiculously complicated rules that was renamed Droongo for the television show. Kovacs also wrote the introduction to the 1958 collection Mad For Keeps: A Collection of the Best from Mad Magazine.
  Television guest star
  Kovacs and Edie Adams guest starred on what turned out to be the final episode of The Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show, (syndicated as The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour or We Love Lucy) "Lucy Meets the Moustache", which was in rehearsals during the week of February 28 and filmed on March 3 for an April 1, 1960 network broadcast. "Lucy Meets the Moustache" was the last time Arnaz and Ball worked together and the last time their famous characters appeared in a first-run broadcast.  According to Adams, Ball and Arnaz 'avoided contact and barely talked to each other in rehearsals and in-between scenes'.  Adams also said that they were not told their episode was the last or that the famous couple was to divorce (Ball entered the uncontested divorce request March 4, 1960).
  Kovacs also appeared in roles on other television programs. For General Electric Theater's "I Was a Bloodhound" in 1959, Kovacs played the role of detective Barney Colby, whose extraordinary sense of smell helped him solve many seemingly-impossible cases. Colby was hired by a foreign country to recover its symbol of royalty, a baby elephant, who was being held for ransom.