Belated "happy anniversary" to "The Honeymooners"

[bpatrick]

Saw in my local paper this morning that on Oct. 3, 1951,
Jackie Gleason did the first "Honeymooners" sketch on
DuMont's "Cavalcade Of Stars." (I have to question the
date, since Oct. 3 was a Wednesday and "Cavalcade"
was airing on Friday nights at the time, but no matter).
In the first sketch Art Carney played a cop (he was so
funny that the character of Ed Norton was created, and
he began playing Ed about two weeks later), and Pert Kelton
played Alice; Audrey Meadows didn't take over that role until
Gleason moved to CBS in 1952. (Ms. Kelton did go to Miami
to play Alice's mother in 1967, IIRC, and she got off a classic
line about the wedding: "I'm not losing a daughter, I'm gaining
a ton.")

I wish TV Land had added the existing "Honeymooners" to their
schedule (forget the 1966-70 musical comedies with Sheila MacRae
and Jane Kean as Alice and Trixie) the way they did "The Dick Van
Dyke Show." But nonetheless, belated happy anniversary to our
favorite bus driver and sewer worker and their wives.

 

[Corky Marlowe]

Speaking of the color Honeymooners, I remember liking them OK before ever seeing the originals (kind of like how you liked Linda Ronstadt's covers before you got to hear the original versions by Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison, etc). IIRC, those aired about once a month, with the rest of Gleason's shows being his standard variety format. Does anyone have an idea which got better ratings?

 

[bpatrick]

IIRC, the Honeymooners shows got the better ratings, and Gleason
usually did about two of them a month, on alternate weeks. Most,
you may recall, centered on the foursome's trip to Europe, which
Ralph won in a contest sponsored by the Flakey Wakey cereal company.

One note about those late-'60s shows; I've seen pictures from that era,
and Art Carney was paunchier than Gleason, who'd been dieting. There
was something unintentionally funny about that.

 

[wbhist]

IIRC, the Honeymooners shows got the better ratings, and Gleason usually did about two of them a month, on alternate weeks. Most, you may recall, centered on the foursome's trip to Europe, which Ralph won in a contest sponsored by the Flakey Wakey cereal company.

One note about those late-'60s shows; I've seen pictures from that era, and Art Carney was paunchier than Gleason, who'd been dieting. There was something unintentionally funny about that.

The pictures that had Carney appear somewhat heavier than Gleason would've been from after the 1969-70 season which was the last for the weekly Gleason show. Not to mention the famed pic from his 1973 special with Ralph's eyes bulging at a "Plaything" magazine issue (actually a disguised Cosmopolitan from September 1973 with Barbara Minty - the future final wife of Steve McQueen who'd been Gleason's co-star in the 1963 flick Soldier in the Rain - on the cover) as a sideburns-wearing Norton was looking on. Up to then, The Great One was a bit heftier than he'd been in at least the earlier of the 1955-56 Classic 39 shows.

 

[Jazz_Kat]

I miss watching The Honeymooners, we used to able to watch them on WPIX in New York late night Sunday night, but it seems they have replaced them with another show.

 

[anotherguyTN]

This sounds like another time for ME-TV to step in.

I discovered the Honeyooners when I wsa a kid from the color episodes. But after I got to see the 50's version, the color ones don't look all that great to me. There wsa too much time wasted with music.

 

[KeithE4]

This sounds like another time for ME-TV to step in.

I discovered the Honeyooners when I wsa a kid from the color episodes. But after I got to see the 50's version, the color ones don't look all that great to me. There wsa too much time wasted with music.

Making them musicals at first was a disaster, and Shiela McRae was far worse than Audrey Meadows as Alice.

 

[bpatrick]

IIRC, the Honeymooners shows got the better ratings, and Gleason usually did about two of them a month, on alternate weeks. Most, you may recall, centered on the foursome's trip to Europe, which Ralph won in a contest sponsored by the Flakey Wakey cereal company.

One note about those late-'60s shows; I've seen pictures from that era, and Art Carney was paunchier than Gleason, who'd been dieting. There was something unintentionally funny about that.

The pictures that had Carney appear somewhat heavier than Gleason would've been from after the 1969-70 season which was the last for the weekly Gleason show. Not to mention the famed pic from his 1973 special with Ralph's eyes bulging at a "Plaything" magazine issue (actually a disguised Cosmopolitan from September 1973 with Barbara Minty - the future final wife of Steve McQueen who'd been Gleason's co-star in the 1963 flick Soldier in the Rain - on the cover) as a sideburns-wearing Norton was looking on. Up to then, The Great One was a bit heftier than he'd been in at least the earlier of the 1955-56 Classic 39 shows.

I was thinking specifically of the "Plaything" picture, and I still say that Carney looked paunchier than Gleason. There's an article in TV Guide from 1970 in which Gleason describes his diet, which seems to have been heavy on seafood.

 

[wbhist]

I was thinking specifically of the "Plaything" picture, and I still say that Carney looked paunchier than Gleason. There's an article in TV Guide from 1970 in which Gleason describes his diet, which seems to have been heavy on seafood.

Again, the "Plaything" picture was from 1973, but . . . Carney had been "paunchy" since 1966 when the show first went color (and Sheila MacRae first became Alice). Gleason's diet commenced in 1969 as he was making Don't Drink the Water, and by the time of the final 1969-70 season (which saw the Kramdens and Nortons go cross-country after Ralph and Ed won a songwriting contest), he and Carney were pretty much of the same weight. By the time of the 1973 pic, however, Gleason was indeed slightly thinner than Carney.