![Art Carney an Jackie Gleason in The Honeymooners](https://www.closerweekly.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/honeymooners-main.jpg?resize=940%2C529&quality=86&strip=all)
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‘The Honeymooners’ and How it Went From TV Sketch to Beloved Sitcom
Back in 1950s and ’60s television, you really never saw a family struggling to get by. But then came The Honeymooners. Think about it: I Love Lucy, The Andy Griffith Show, Leave It to Beaver, My Three Sons — usually there was domestic bliss for the most part. But that wasn’t the case with the Classic TV series that starred Jackie Gleason as bus driver Ralph Kramden, Audrey Meadows as his long-suffering wife, Alice; Art Carney as dim-witted but lovable best friend and sidekick, Ed Norton; and the last living member of The Honeymooners Joyce Randolph as his wife, Trixie.
The two couples lived in a Bensonhurst apartment in Brooklyn, New York, struggling to get by. And it was exactly that struggle, and wanting to break free of it, that propelled much of the comedy. Ralph was the get-rich-quick scheming, short-tempered, soft-hearted guy who was always striving for greatness, but never made it out of that two-room Brooklyn apartment. And that’s one of the main attractions for even the most casual of viewers: the characters are so identifiable. As Jackie himself said at the time, “Everything we did could have happened. People like the show, because we are them.”
Scroll down and see for yourself as we take this little trip back in time to 328 Chauncey Street and how Jackie created a true classic.
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It Began With ‘Cavalcade of Stars’
This variety show was a part of the DuMont Television Network, and made its debut in 1949. Initially hosted by Jack Carter and then Jerry Lester, in July of 1950 comedian Jackie Gleason took over. In the process, he took what was a struggling show and turned it into a hit. The show — which featured comedy skits and a number of different performers each week — was broadcast live in front of a theater audience. In 1951, Jackie and writers Harry Crane and Joe Bigelow came up with the idea for a sketch called The Honeymooners about a struggling couple living in Brooklyn who frequently fought, but in the end, there was no question that they loved each other.
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The First ‘Honeymooners’ Sketch Was Six-Minutes Long
It aired on October 5, 1951, and saw Jackie as Ralph Kramden and actress Pert Kelton as his wife, Alice. Art Carney, who was a part of the show’s comedy troupe, appeared briefly as a cop covered in flour that Ralph had previously thrown out the window. Those sketches have been described as considerably darker than The Honeymooners audiences would really come to know, with Ralph embittered by his station in life and his marriage, and Alice coming across no less bitter. Much of this was inspired by Jackie’s early financial struggles in life. Things would soften with time.
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![Art Carney, Jackie Gleason and Audrey Meadows behind the scenes on The Honeymooners.](https://www.closerweekly.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/art-carney-jackie-gleason-audrey-meadows.jpg?fit=800%2C629&quality=86&strip=all)
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Leonard Stern, a writer on both The Honeymooners and The Jackie Gleason Show and a producer in his own right, relates to the Archive of American Television, “We started doing one sketch of The Honeymooners every five or six weeks and the response of people on the street was tremendous. So we started doing them every other week. Eventually, though, everyone, including Jackie, lost interest in the other characters in the different sketches, so we started to do them every week until the fatigue level hit its high and we’d have to take a break. I think Gleason had fun doing them, because he recognized the impact Kramden and Alice and Norton and Trixie were having on the audience. I’m not a great fan of ratings, but let me say that 53% of the total television audience was watching the show. There’s nothing like that in existence today. It was astonishing and the show itself was live. Remember, the audience of 3,000 people filled that theater. You earned your laughs. It was a resounding success and very exhilarating for all of us. It was opening night every week.”
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The Nortons Entered Early On
Adding the characters of Ralph’s best friend, sewer worker Ed Norton (Art Carney), and his wife, Trixie (Joyce Randolph), really helped bring The Honeymooners sketches together. In fact, The Honeymooners as part of Cavalcade of Stars made a tremendous impact on DuMont’s audience share, though when Jackie’s contract expired, and the network was struggling to stay afloat, he shifted over to CBS and what would become The Jackie Gleason Show.
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Elaine Stritch Was Originally Cast As Trixie Norton
Joyce Randolph is the most recognizable face as Trixie, but originally cast in the role was Elaine Stritch. That version of the character worked as a burlesque dancer, but that felt wrong to Jackie and the actress didn’t bring the right look he wanted. After just one appearance, she was replaced by Joyce Randolph.
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Blacklisting Actually Helped Audrey Meadows to Be Cast As Alice
We all know Audrey Meadows as Alice Kramden, but the original intention when Jackie switched to CBS was that Pert Kelton would continue in the role, but she found herself blacklisted during the “Red Scare” of the 1950s. She was initially replaced by Ginger Jones, but then she was blacklisted as well. Enter Audrey, who at the time was known for her run on Broadway in the musical Top Banana as well as the Bob and Ray television series. Extra bonus for Audrey: her lawyer brother had a clause added into her contract that called for residual payments to be made if the show should go into re-runs (which it obviously did).
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Success Was Obvious Very Early On
As part of The Jackie Gleason Show, the Honeymooners sketches started off as a regular fixture of the series, though it wasn't tapped into every week. In the 1952 season, those sketches usually ran between seven and 13 minutes. Jump ahead to the following season, and those sketches ran for a minimum of 30 minutes, and sometimes longer. Then, in the 1954-55 season, they actually filled the entire hour of The Jackie Gleason Show, and was doing so well in the ratings that it occasionally surpassed the viewership of I Love Lucy.
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The “Lost” Episodes Were Eventually Found
In the 1980s, Jackie let it be known that in his vault he had a number of Honeymooners skits from The Jackie Gleason Show that had been shot on Kinescope, which is a way of filming directly through a lens that actually focused on the screen of a video monitor. Ultimately, 107 of those skits were released on DVD and syndicated to television stations. For fans, they were a tremendous find, giving us further adventures of the Kramdens and the Nortons that otherwise would have been lost to time.
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The ‘Classic 39’ Episodes Arrive
For the 1955-56 season, The Jackie Gleason Show became The Honeymooners, a half-hour sitcom filmed in front of a studio audience. In all, 39 episodes were produced, and these are the ones that are still being broadcast, are the subject of holiday marathons, and so on. They are also the adventures of the Kramdens and the Nortons that are most fondly remembered. Interestingly, Jackie had been given a three-year contract from CBS for 78 episodes of The Honeymooners to be produced in the first two seasons, with an option for a third season of 39 more. In the end, though, he felt the quality of the scriptwriting couldn't be maintained, and the show was mutually canceled by him and CBS.
What's particularly impressive about The Honeymooners living on the way it has is the fact that back in the day, there needed to be a minimum of 100 episodes of a show available so that local stations could run it five days a week. Any less made syndication difficult, since the cycle would be repeated that much sooner. But then there was The Honeymooners, with a mere 39 episodes to offer up, yet it worked. And continues to do so.
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Jackie Told Johnny Carson Why ‘The Honeymooners’ Ended
In 1996, while promoting what would be his last film, Nothing in Common, Jackie appeared on Johnny Carson‘s The Tonight Show. The conversation eventually shifted over to The Honeymooners, with the host asking him why he only did the 39 episodes. “We were running out of ideas,” he admitted. “I liked The Honeymooners and I liked doing them, and I didn’t want to denigrate them by forcing scenes that didn’t mean anything. So I wanted to quit, but they didn’t believe me. They thought I had another job someplace, but I didn’t. I’m glad I did stop them, because what we had done was good and if we had gone any further, we might have spoiled it.”
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![Jackie Gleason and Audrey Meadows on The Honeymooners.](https://www.closerweekly.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/jackie-gleason-audrey-meadows.jpg?fit=800%2C697&quality=86&strip=all)
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Audrey Meadows Remembers Filming the ‘Classic 39’
Making an appearance on Pat Sajak’s late night talk show in 1989 (which he was doing at the same time he was filming Wheel of Fortune), Audrey Meadows provided some information on the filming of those 39 episodes of The Honeymooners. “What people don’t know,” she explained, “is that back then you did 39 shows and you had 13 weeks off. We did our 39 shows, two a week, and we never had to reshoot one single shot or word. There was one show called ‘Chef of the Future,’ where Ralph and Ed go on television and are trying to sell some dreadful kitchen equipment. A piece of it broke off and it flew off the set and the two of them just kept going. You never did it over; Jackie wanted it fresh.”
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‘The Honeymooners’ Inspired ‘The Flintstones’
Anyone watching both shows could easily see the influences that The Flintstones took from The Honeymooners, particularly in terms of the Fred and Barney relationship. Jackie Gleason certainly noticed the similarities and was thinking about suing, but changed his mind for two reasons: first, he watched the show and thought it was genuinely funny. Second, he was asked by those around him if he really wanted to be responsible for taking a show beloved by adults and children off the air. He decided he didn’t.
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‘The Color Honeymooners’ Is a Thing
Following the 1955-56 single season of The Honeymooners, variations of The Jackie Gleason Show would return to the air with the Honeymooners skits always being a part of it — though Alice and Trixie were played by different actresses; Jackie insisted that no one but Art Carney would play Norton. The first 10 episodes of the 1966 season told a story arc of the Kramdens and the Nortons winning a contest that sends them traveling and singing their way throughout Europe. It was certainly a different take on the foursome, with Jackie and Art playing Ralph and Norton, with Sheila MacRae as Alice and Jane Kean as Trixie. The Jackie Gleason Show ended its run in 1970, ending The Honeymooners at the same time. At least for then.
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There Were Four Final ‘Honeymooners’ TV Specials
For the final four appearances of The Honeymooners, Jackie moved over to ABC for a series of specials airing between 1976 and 1978. These consisted of The Second Honeymoon, The Honeymooners Christmas Special, The Honeymooners Valentine Special, and Jackie Gleason’s Honeymooner’s Christmas. Besides Jackie and Art, Audrey returned as Alice and Jane Kean was back as Trixie.
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![Art Carney and Jackie Gleason on the set of The Honeymooners](https://www.closerweekly.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/jackie-gleason-art-carney-2.jpg?fit=800%2C640&quality=86&strip=all)
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ABC Actually Wanted a Remake
According to producer/executive Dean Valentine, there was a point at ABC, when Michael Eisner was in charge, where he gave serious consideration to the idea of purchasing the scripts from The Honeymooners and reshoot them with new actors in the classic roles. “And he said, ‘It’s going to save money.’ Michael was always about saving money,” Dean told the Archive of American Television. “He must’ve caught me rolling my eyes or something and he was, like, ‘What? You don’t think it’s a good idea?’ And I said, ‘It’s the f–king stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. It’s The Honeymooners! The Honeymooners is Jackie Gleason and Art Carney. It’s like saying, ‘Go out there and find me Jackie Gleason and Art Carney.’ Well, there is no Jackie Gleason out there. What are we going to do, just find some fat guy and some thin guy and call it The Honeymooners? That was the first thing. Secondly, these things were written 40 years ago and had completely different pacing, completely different jokes, completely different everything. And if you look at it, most of the comedy really comes out of Jackie and his genius as a comedian. It was the writers and the comedian working together to create something for him.” The idea didn’t go any further.
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And So It Ends
There was a 2005 movie version of The Honeymooners that starred Cedric the Entertainer as Ralph and Mike Epps as Norton, but it failed to connect with audiences. There have, over the past couple of years, been rumblings of a new TV version, but that hasn’t panned out either. So for all intents and purposes, that final Christmas special is where we leave The Honeymooners, though that’s not really the end, is it? Frankly, the comic joy brought to us by Ralph, Norton, Alice, and Trixie has never truly gone away. Nearly 70 years after we first visited that Bensonhurst, New York apartment, the laughter hasn’t stopped. And for that, all we can say is thanks a lot, Ralphie boy.