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

It did strike me that Gleason's casting practices with Alice, after his '50's variety show ended in '57, seemed to hover on Miss Meadows' availability. Notice that when he brought in Sue Ane Langdon for the Alice role at the onset of his American Scene Magazine in 1962, Audrey had finished one film (That Touch of Mink with Cary Grant and Doris Day) and was at work on another (Take Her, She's Mine with Jimmy Stewart and Sandra Dee - ironically, Carney was in the Broadway production of that play). Come 1966, after that one-off "Adoption" remake, Miss Meadows was by then married to Continental Airlines exec Bob Six and (no small part due to residuals a-comin' in from them Classic 39 reruns) was not so eager to get back into "the grind" on a regular basis, hence Jackie's going to Sheila MacRae for that role. He did seem more casual, however, in his casting of Trixie post-'57, which could explain why even when Audrey played Alice on those last four Honeymooners specials of 1976-78, Jane Kean continued to play Mrs. Norton as she had starting in 1966.

 

It was during dress rehearsals for this show that two pics that circulated around for decades were taken, one with Miss Meadows' hair not done up as Alice and both with Ralph in his bus driver's uniform; evidently, it was for the scene where Ralph was in his bathrobe, Alice laughs uproariously at the doctor's report which was about the dog and not him, and in the end he enlists Norton's aid (the one shot where his hands are up in his "Don't touch me - I'm sterile" pose).

 

Virtually all the color episodes - except for the 1966-67 "Life Upon the Wicked Stage" episode and the 1968-69 "short" episodes - have been put out in volumes of The Color Honeymooners by MPI Video. The full hour shows including that said 1967 ep were run a decade ago on the American Life channel. And the 1977 color syndicated package was indeed limited to the Europe shows plus "King of the Castle" (a remake of the Lost Episode "Battle of the Sexes") plus a Christmas Poor Soul episode.

 

Inconsistencies of Norton's attributes were common in the Lost Episodes. Supposedly he had no sense of smell, but sought to sleep in the Kramdens' one night because his own apartment was being painted and he couldn't stand the smell of paint. (Go figure.)

"The Sleepwalker" was notable for another problem too. Most of the episode was pristine 35mm - but the very final scene appears to have been transferred from a lower-quality 16mm source.

 

I live in NYC, and the radio traffic reporters all pronounce it "Koss-key-oos-ko." But then, depending on the station, the Van Wyck is either "Van Wike" or "Van Wick" in the pronunciation department.

 

The "wallpaper that glows in the dark" reference seems to have been a forerunner to the "green energy" movement. A few years ago, there was word that scientists were actually developing same - wallpaper with small LED's. Something tells me Ralph would have fallen for many of those "green energy" schemes in today's time, and coming up (financially) short every time. As well, seeing how he handled the rehearsal vs. the live ad, one wonders if this was Gleason's way to justify his disdain for rehearsals. (Side note: Exactly 11 years to the day after this show first aired, an episode in the "Trip to Europe" arc aired entitled "The Mod Couple" a.k.a. "The Honeymooners in England." That ep also involved Ralph rehearsing a commercial and involving not only Norton but the wives, and him [of course] freezing when the camera light was on.)

 

Even before the ad went live, Ralph showed signs of losing it, with his "I wish you would stop talking like that, nervous, you're gonna get yourself all Norton."

 

When, at the end of the episode, he is assigned the crosstown route, one wonders if that was a reference to the #18 - 86th Street crosstown (today's M86+SBS+). The bonafide #2969 bus the cast posed inside and around mostly plied that route (even to its mid-1960's retirement under MaBSTOA [Manhattan and Bronx Surface Transit Operating Authority] aegis), only occasionally handling the #2 - Madison Avenue as was shown on the side where Gleason posed next to the entrance (believe it or not, that #2 route is today the Third, Lexington and Lenox Avenues' M102, the result of a 1969 switch whereby the by-then Fifth, Madison and Lenox Avenues #2's entire route south of 116th Street was moved to Third Avenue northbound and Lexington Avenue southbound and rebranded M-101A, as it was known up to 1974 when it became M102).

Alice's boss was played here by John Holland. The original TV Guide listing for this episode listed "her boss" as played by Robert Middleton, but apparently Middleton (who appeared in a few Lost Episodes) too much resembled the real-life Tony Amico (who was an aide-de-camp of Gleason's at the time) and the more "suave" looking Holland was cast instead.

 

WPIX actually first aired The Honeymooners during the 1958-59 season. For its first season in syndication (1957-58), it aired Tuesdays at 7 P.M. on the then-WRCA-TV (Channel 4, now WNBC). Apparently, the Kramdens and Nortons, in the end, were more at home within the confines of the old Daily News building than at 30 Rock.

 

It appears those first 16 episodes included the first 12 aired up to "Something Fishy," plus "A Matter of Record," "Oh, My Aching Back," "The Babysitter" and "Ralph Kramden, Inc." None of these episodes had opening audience applause or applause whenever a key cast member shows up. All of them were lensed by Doug Downs. I presume the first episode filmed after resumption of production that Dec. 13 day (a Tuesday) would have been " 'Twas the Night Before Christmas," the only episode to credit Dan Cavelli as cinematographer. (All remaining episodes would credit Jack Etra as director of photography.)

 

Apparently if examining the ratings, Como's "lead" was an average. Stage Show would have been "moidered" in the ratings, but The Honeymooners more than held its own.

 

Remade in color in 1967 as "Ralph Kramden Presents," whereby the desk clerk (again Petrie) haughtily replied to the same question, "I couldn't tell you. I watch Flipper." Which was one of Gleason's competition at that time.

 

This might have been at least the 17th episode in order of filming. 16 of the 39 episodes list Doug Downs as director of photography (all episodes through "Something Fishy," then "A Matter of Record," "Oh, My Aching Back," "The Babysitter" and "Ralph Kramden, Inc."). This was the first to have sustained applause whenever a cast member shows up on stage, and the only one whereby Dan Cavelli was the cinematographer (starting with "The Man From Space" and up to the last of the 39, Jack Etra held that capacity).

As well . . . the opening music was from "The Vicar of Bray," a version of which I have on CD from folk troubador Richard Dyer-Bennet.

 

Norton's description of the vacuum cleaner's problems - "The armature sprocket is causing interference which, in turn, causes the combustion line to interfere with the flow in the Dynaflow" - slipped in a little sponsor in-joke, as Dynaflow was GM's name for the automatic transmission feature in their Buicks (built between 1947 and 1963).
MacGillicuddy (Ralph's competitor in the deciding vote, Brother Frank MacGillicuddy) may have been an in-joke reference to the maiden name of Lucille Ball's I Love Lucy character, Lucy Ricardo.
As for the Raccoon Lodge president, he was played by the late Cliff Hall, who was "Charlie" in Jack Pearl's "Baron Munchhausen" routine on radio ("Vass you dere, Sharlie?").

 

Gleason did more than a few flubs in this episode, namely:
- "Mr. President, Brother Kramden . . . Brother Norton is a nut!"
- " . . . for the last seven years, we have unaminously voted to keep the women off of the fishing trip . . . "
And I wonder if GM supplied the vehicle that had trouble starting, in the final scene . . .

 

Nice - good catch!

 

<------- Everyone here knows the TRUE stars of TAKE HER, SHE'S MINE!

 

I worked in New York for 15 years, and occasionally I'd run into people who pronounced "Houston" like it was a city in Texas. My argument over Wick/Wike was "He's not Dick Van Dick, is he?"

 

I'm sure Jimmy would have been gracious enough to agree with you.

 

Episode #35 - "Mind Your Own Business"

Aired: 5-26-56



Perhaps the most Norton-centered episode of the entire 39, and lots of laughs (IMO).

There are a couple of major gaffes that remind us of the "live on tape" approach of these episodes.

Carney says "When you win" when he should, of course, say, "When you LOSE", which does some minor damage to the punchline (Norton getting gin instantly) that follows.

We also get some mind-reading on Alice's part. With nothing more to go on than "I had words with my boss" from Norton, Alice tells Ralph that he threatened his boss and demanded a promotion or else, information she had no way of knowing (or even guessing at).

I love the way the that Norton pronounces "iron".

Interesting to note that this episode only has the 4 primaries in it (the first since "TV or Not TV"?)

Ralph was "due for a promotion" in May of 1956. More than 20 years later on the ABC reunion specials, Ralph was still a bus driver, so that promotion was OVER due.

While "blitz" is an actual gin rummy term, I've never been able to understand what Carney says (a blount?)

 

I would like to see these pictures if you can post them. And thanks for these contributions to the thread. Good stuff.

 

Mind Your Own Business

Ralph was lucky he didn't lose his job anyway. They set up the tension nicely, as you think Ralph has quit his job, and is going to sell irons.

Thankfully, Ralph made the right decision this time around. All he ended up being out in this episode, was one junk iron, and I love the look Alice gives him at the very end.

I think the joke about Ralph not being able to fit down the manhole has been used before, but I believe it was Norton that said it.

Does anyone here play gin rummy? Did the way Norton won actually make sense? I don't play, but Ralph's reasoning seemed sound for giving him the 7 of spades.

 

I don't know if they were using the Weehawken or Canarsie set of gin rummy rules, but where I come from Norton would have had to pick up a card and discard one before he could declare "gin". I should add that most everyone I grew up with who played that game declared "gin" in an imitation of Norton. (As with the pool sequences in other episodes, I think the actors were just ignoring the rules and protocols to keep the script moving.)

Norton makes the manhole cover joke in "Brother Ralph" when Ralph is laid off.

 

Here they are . . .

This is the pose where Norton, thinking Ralph had passed away from arterial monochromia after a fainting spell, is stunned ("Eeeee!") to see him very much alive. (Notice the high heels on Miss Meadows, not to mention her hair as it regularly looked then . . . when it filmed, she wore flats because of Gleason's being 5' 9½" and her not wanting to appear taller.)


"Norton . . . would you do this for me?" "Don't touch me, Ralph - I'm sterile!" The last part of Act II, Scene I.

And in both pics, the ubiquitous cigarette in Gleason's left hand . . .

 

Based on the way Gleason looked in this episode, it would appear to have been filmed the same week as "The Worry Wart."