"The Honeymooners" Classic 39 One at a Time (Episode-by-Episode Thread)

"Christmas" may be the most perfect of the Classic 39. It doesn't really feature a real out and out argument but it shows Ralph's insecurities and personality perfectly: like a child wanting to peek at his gift, buying a "cheap" gift only to have the neighbor get one, pawning his prized bowling ball to buy a "nice" gift for Alice. This is tradition to watch it Christmas Eve in my house, doesn't matter what time just as long as I watch it. Ralph's love for Alice really shines, and his speech at the end really puts the whole holiday season in perspective. I love this episode! I keep hoping CBS will air it at the holidays, I would love to see it back on network TV.

 

Seems inevitable that this will be the next classic CBS series to get the "colorized for Christmas" treatment. It's nice for "The Honeymooners", or "The Andy Griffith Show" or "I Love Lucy" to broaden their audience, but there's still something about colorization that makes me quite uncomfortable.

 

Nitpick: Gleason's timing was just a hair off for his second encounter with the rat trap. And wouldn't that likely break some fingers rather than cause a little momentary distress?

 

Don't even get me started on the colorizing factor!!! Yes, broaden the audience but ... can't we salute the originals and keep as they were intended to be seen??? I guess it is for the holidays so I can give it pass based on that, but ... we don't colorize the Kansas scenes in The Wizard of Oz so I don't want my classic TV done that way, either!

 

I don't quite see the point of colorizing vintage material, or the appeal. So long as what's being shown is sensitively restored, presenting things so it doesn't look old in the bad sense, where is the issue with the black & white? How does faking color add to anyone's enjoyment of anything? No matter how skillfully it might be done, it's still presenting something that raw, original materials don't exist for to create, leaving something fake to watch. That's a detraction, not an enhancement.

 

They already did the "attract attention via colorization" bit back in the 80s, when "The Adoption" was aired as a colorized "special".

The "Andy Griffith" colorized Christmas special was the highest-rated show of the night last Christmas. Regardless of whether colorization is a novelty that attracts repeat viewers or a necessity that keeps new, younger viewers (who eschew B&W like the plague) from running away, the numbers mean we're going to get more of it. And what show sits with "Lucy" and "Andy" on the CBS Mt. Rushmore of classic TV? I'll give you one guess and you won't even have to say "hummina, hummina, hummina" before you answer.

 

The tops of the top as far as sitcoms go, for me anyway, all were CBS shows. Is it a coincidence that at one time it was the Tiffany Network?

 

ANDY GRIFFITH colorized aired two Christmases ago. This past December they did two colorized DICK VAN DYKE shows, though neither was a Christmas show.

 

Thanks for the correction. I haven't seen any of them, hence it all being a little hazy for me. My interest in network TV in 2017 doesn't extend beyond the NFL and NBA.

 

I'd forgotten the curtain closing until I watched Ray's Youtube share. Something seemed a little off to me yesterday about the curtain, so I watched it again today. This didn't seem like stage curtains I'm accustomed to. These looked more like the Kramdens' (lightweight) missing curtains than a heavy theater curtain. It also appeared to be a single step in front of Alice and Ralph, so I figured this was a fake curtain used just for this episode's false finish. Then I remembered the photo posted by MLutthans and boy was I wrong! The set was that close to the edge of the stage and audience and that truly was the stage curtain that Gleason "pushed" open.

 

I missed the posting of Something Fishy and will watch it soon.


"This control room shot is not from Dumont’s 67th Street Telecenter, but the photo owner, Ward Bennett thinks this is either
at the Adelphi Theater, where the ‘Honemooners’ was shot, or at the Wannamaker’s studio. Shown here, Frank Carr on left
standing up talking on telephone, Hal Bowden sitting right of Frank, Paul Mirasola seated far right, and Ken Gieman, the
person who was the Electonicam operator, is in the Audio Room."

That photo is from this online source.

Hal Bowden is also mentioned in a book entitled The Forgotten Network: Dumont and the Birth of American Television by David Weinstein, but I can't find a complete copy of this book online so I don't know what his job was with Dumont, the Adelphi, or the Honeymooners.

 

Bowden is identified as the stage manager in "The Official Honeymooners Treasury".

 

Episode 12 - "Something Fishy"

A bottle of Jamesons, a friend, and I watched this together. It is our "unamanous" opinion that this was funny as hell! And while one of my audience mates is one of those feminine types out to rob us of our freedom, we were brothers under the same pelt.

Norton's limber physicality is always a silly pleasure and ping pong was a game just made for Carney's broad-brushed hilarity. We also enjoyed that Gleason kept a share of great lines and bits for himself in Fishy. The raccoon meeting was a hoot! Both of us loved the escalation of the argument (and its volume) between Alice and Ralph and my girlfriend noted that Trixie was finally an assertive character, too. She wondered how anyone could leave a car on a Brooklyn street with its top down overnight (even in 1955!) and laughed like hell when the wives emerged to prove her point. Me? I'm glad there was a Muldoon in the lodge.

Two fists up!

 

Not to jump ahead to future episodes, but maybe to peek ahead just a little ... I hope that before you and your friend opened the Jamesons that you told everyone to "clear the field" so some men could do some drinking.

 

I like "Uncle Leo" 's fluff in the Christmas episode: "Where's Ral-Alice?"

 

One of the greatest scenes of the 39. Utterly brilliant.

 

This always bothered me for some reason. He pulls away, and then, snap! Just part of the charm of the show.
Those ratings tho! I don't think the Oscars get those kind of ratings anymore. I Love Lucy-what a juggernaught.

 

Episode 14 - "The Man From Space"

Aired: 12-31-55



There is one New Year's Eve themed "Honeymooners" sketch (from 1953), but in this case they chose to ignore the holiday.

Gleason and Carney both get an opportunity to shine in this episode, IMO. The script is inventive without going beyond the scope of believability. I'm a big fan of Norton's pseudo-French. Kudos to Gleason for the two (or more) ad-libs he throws in. One in response to not finding the flashlight (which apparently WAS supposed to be in the bureau) and one in response to his "denaturizer" flying off of his costume, a la the spear fishing attachment on the Handy Housewife Helper. (Apparently the "Bang .... Zoom"s were not scripted - Gleason just threw them in where he felt they were appropriate, so that makes 3 ad-libs.)

Opinions?

A few notes about the miscellany that interest me so much (watching the episodes over 100 times will do this to you).

"The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit", referenced by Norton, was a contemporary novel at this time (released in 1955) and the film version was probably in production or pre-production when this episode aired (the film came out in May of '56).

Pablum (which Norton figured would go well on pizza) was a type of baby food, which apparently died out in popularity before my time.

Norton's pseudo-French appears to be a mangled quotation - "La plume est plus forte que l'epee." ("The pen is mightier than the sword.")

In the original script Norton being called into work was a deception manufactured by Ralph to eliminate him from the costume competition. Someone apparently made the wise decision of cutting this subplot, which would have come off too mean-spirited (IMO).

Despite Ralph's two mentions of "Tug Boat Annie", no one seems to be in such a costume at the (sparsely-attended!) costume party.



How does Norton's elaborate costume fit into that small box ... and where do you keep boxes dry and clean in the sewer?

How does Ralph manage to get lights to light up on his costume?

 

This episode was on METV in the Chicago area last night. Of course I watched it.

 

Marie Dressler would have been great as Ralphs' mother-in-law.Her timing and facial expressions were right up there with Gleasons.
Jackie lets loose dancing at the costume party in this episode.Always makes me smile.

 

Another classic episode.

I did not like the bit with Ralph and the snuff, but everything else worked for me. I especially liked Ralph letting it go and dancing with Alice after Norton won. Isn't this the episode that they are watching in Back to the Future?

The odd thing about Norton's "Padlum pizza" was that Ralph says Norton came up with a new breakfast cereal. Is it a flub, or did cereal mean something different then?

 

Yes, this is the episode the family is watching "live" in "Back to the Future". Not shocking that they went for a familiar clip rather than historical accuracy ("The Sleepwalker" aired that night).

 

By the time I came around, pablum came to mean any kind of tasteless mush (like Cream of Wheat) that kids didn't like to eat (it took on other meanings as well). Cereal makers were always trying to jazz its blandness up with flavors like cinnamon or maple syrup. Norton was promoting palatable pizza pablum.

 

When someone throws Norton's costume up from the sewer-it just hangs in the air when Norton snags it.
"Bellevue is calling!" Bellevue is the universal catchall for insane asylum.
I haven't seen anyone eat and act like that since Brad Pitt.
"Your knees are showin!" Scandalous.
The old prints of this were so bad it took a long time to realize that there were flashing lights on Ralph's costume.

 

I'll bet many of us shared similar experiences. Even on YouTube these are a zillion times better prints than anything I saw on UHF or VHF. No amputations, either. I once thought that Ron Popeil was the Great Lost Honeymooner.