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Sit back and enjoy tales of television long ago -
this blog covers current and classic TV shows
and reviews of upcoming television programs
along with the latest TV on DVD releases!
THE HONEYMOONERS
Did you know the Honeymooners was a sketch on Gleason's 1950 Dumont Network show Cavalcade of Stars before becoming a half-hour sitcom on CBS?
These sketches, ranging in length from seven to thirteen minutes, proved so popular that they became a regular feature on The Jackie Gleason Show after the series moved to the CBS network in 1952; eventually these routines ran for a half-hour or even the entire hour.
Gleason ended his variety show to do The Honeymooners half-hour sitcom in 1956 but returned to the hour-long musical comedy format after only one season. The adventures of Ralph Kramden, Ed Norton and their long-suffering wives continued on The Jackie Gleason Show intermittently for another season but ended when Carney left the series in 1957.
In 1966 the sketch was revived and continued until Gleason's program was dropped by CBS in 1970; by that point every few weeks there was a Honeymooners hour-long musical extravaganza that incorporated plotlines from classic Honeymooners of old.
These are the Honeymooners I enjoyed as a kid growing up watching the Gleason show with my family.
CBS was actually willing to renew the Gleason show if he would do a Honeymooners hour every week but the star declined; it would have been like doing a Broadway musical every week.
There was a 1973 CBS special and four hour-long specials on ABC in the mid-1970s where Audrey Meadows returned as Alice. These are now being released on DVD along with other color Honeymooners sketches that haven't been previously released.
The one constant in all those years - Gleason always played Ralph and Art Carney always played Ed (although the Nortons were not in the very first few Honeymooners sketches, Carney appeared as a police officer in the first one).
Alice and Trixie were portrayed by several actresses, Pert Kelton was the first. Gleason loved working with Kelton but when his show moved from Dumont to CBS in 1952 the network blacklisted her as a suspected communist, this prompted a reluctant recasting.
Audrey Meadows was hired in 1952 and played the role until the sketches ended in 1957. Meadows played Alice once more on a 1966 Gleason hour; Sheila MacRae took on the role after that when the Honeymooners once again became a semi-regular feature on the program in 1966.
The first Trixie was Broadway great Elaine Stritch, she was replaced after the initial outing by Joyce Randolph who was also seen in the CBS sitcom. Jane Kean assumed the role of Ed Norton's wife in the 1960s and Pert Kelton even turned up as Alice's mother in some of those 1960's color sketches.
Here's one of the early, Dumont Honeymooners sketches with the original cast including Pert Kelton and Joyce Randolph. Remember this was the early-1950s when television was brand new, this plotline has been played out on every sitcom since then - and for decades before on radio, no doubt.
Here's a 1952 sketch with Audrey Meadows, by now Gleason had really hit his stride.
Now to compare and contrast - the opening to one of the color Honeymooners hour-long musicals.
Thursday, February 25, 2010 8:56am
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NEW STUFF
There are a couple of recent TV on DVD releases with a musical bent you might be interested in.
First, The Mama Cass Television Program is a 1969 pilot for an intended variety series for ABC starring the former singer for the Mamas & The Papas. It didn't get picked up for a weekly series but this hour-long special has some phenomenal musical numbers and a rare opportunity to see Joni Mitchell.
ABC reasoned that Mama Cass might be a natural variety show host. Indeed, she was wonderful when she appeared on other performer's programs like The Carol Burnett Show and This Is Tom Jones and ABC was at the forefront of the whole demographics movement of the late-1960s. They knew that hitting age specific targets was even more important than raw numbers, that's how Tom Jones, Englebert Humperdink and the Smothers Brothers all ended up with variety hours on the network around this period.
Here's a bit from that special with Buddy Hackett, Barbara Bain and Martin Landau. Cass Elliot died in 1974.
Also released are the first five (there were more?) TV specials starring Barry Manilow. I remember watching the first few, the initial one in 1977 is the only one I remembered liking because Manilow hadn't yet become the over-inflated, over-hyped pop sensation he would rapidly become. As a result you had an ernest hour with a terrific talent who wasn't too big to do that medley of commercial jingles he wrote before the hits came. I'm going to netflix that one.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010 10:00am
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TWENTY FIVE YEARS AGO
For those of you who were watching Saturday morning TV in the mid-1980s, here are some Saturday morning TV commercials from 1985.
From November 23rd, 1985 - this clip starts with the end credits to Dungeons & Dragons with the CBS bumpers; Go Bots, McDonald's & Pepsi commercials; In The News; and the start of Land of the Lost.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010 8:00am
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OLD
BUSINESS
Greg Laughlin writes with regard to a recent link to an article on the
worst business deciscions of all time "I have to chime in about
the circumstances behind ABC's decision to pass on The Cosby Show. You
have to remember that Carsey-Werner were two former ABC programming executives
who got a production commitment from the network after their departure
in 1981. Their first show for the network was Oh, Madeline starring Madeline
Kahn which was a ratings flop. When they presented the Cosby project,
the brass was not going to give them an order with no pilot (Cosby wouldn't
do one) as well as the fact the pair was not exactly a hot commodity after
the failure of their first sitcom. Hindsight is always 20/20 but it's
best to have the facts before making an assertion stated in that article.
Thanks."
That's a great point, Greg, not to mention ABC had recently flopped with Bill Cosby in a variety format aimed at the whole family. Who's to say The Cosby Show would have been a hit if it was broadcast on ABC, network nurturing and scheduling must have had some effect on the success of the show. After all, ABC was dropping the ball big time in 1984 after years of dominating the court.
Monday, February 22, 2010 7:50am
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This Television Blog is hosted by Billy Ingram, one of the nation's top Pop Culture Gurus and expert on classic TV. Seen on VH1, These TV Blog entries are from the TVparty! website. (I'm not normally this smug - this photo was shot for a film where I played a villain.) |
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