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The Honeymooners debuted as a half-hour series on October 1 1955. Although initially a ratings success—it was the #2 show in the United States—it faced stiff competition from the popular Perry Como Show. The show eventually dropped to #19, and production ended after 39 episodes (now referred to as the "Classic 39"). The final episode of The Honeymooners aired on September 22 1956.
Despite its relatively brief run, The Honeymooners is considered one of the premier examples of American television comedy.
Discussion
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Quotations
(Norton is teaching Ralph how to play golf) First, you step up and address the ball. (To golf ball) Hello, ball!
(To Alice's mother) YOU! Are a BLABBERMOUTH! A BLABBERMOUTH!!
Like we say in the sewer: Time and tide wait for no man.
One of these days... One of these days... (He shoots his fist up) POW! Right in the kisser!
Ralph: You're the type of person that would bend waaaaay over to pick up a penny on the sidewalk. I wouldn't. Alice: You couldn't.
Hamina-hamina-hamina-hamina.
Encyclopedia
The Honeymooners debuted as a half-hour series on October 1 1955. Although initially a ratings success—it was the #2 show in the United States—it faced stiff competition from the popular Perry Como Show. The show eventually dropped to #19, and production ended after 39 episodes (now referred to as the "Classic 39"). The final episode of The Honeymooners aired on September 22 1956.
Despite its relatively brief run, The Honeymooners is considered one of the premier examples of American television comedy. It has been referenced in numerous homages and parodies, and has inspired successful television comedies such as The Flintstones, The King of Queens and Family Guy.
Cast and characters
The majority of The Honeymooners focused on its four principal characters, although various secondary characters made multiple appearances.
Ralph Kramden
Played by Jackie Gleason; a bus driver for the fictional Gotham Bus Company. He is never seen driving a bus (except in publicity photos), but is shown multiple times at the bus depot. Ralph is frustrated by his lack of success, and often develops get-rich-quick schemes. Ralph is very short tempered, frequently resorting to insults and hollow threats. Well hidden beneath the many layers of bluster however, is a soft-hearted man who loves his wife and is devoted to his best pal.
Alice Kramden (née Gibson)
Played by Audrey Meadows; Ralph's patient but sharp tongued wife of roughly 15 years. Alice often finds herself bearing the brunt of Ralph's insults, which she returns in fine form. She is bitingly sarcastic and very level-headed, trying to convince Ralph of the stupidity of his various schemes, which makes him lose his temper. However, she is considerably unruffled and never fazed by Ralph's constant threats to strike her "one of these days...Pow! Right in the kisser!". She studied to be a secretary before her marriage and works briefly in that capacity when Ralph is laid off. Another foil for Ralph is Alice's mother, even sharper-tongued, whom Ralph despises. Alice's father is occasionally mentioned but never seen.
Edward "Ed" Lillywhite Norton
Played by Art Carney; a New York City sewer worker and Ralph's best friend (and upstairs neighbor). He is considerably more good-natured than Ralph, but nonetheless trades insults with him on a regular basis. Ed (typically called "Norton" by Ralph) often gets mixed up in Ralph's schemes, and his carefree and rather dimwitted nature usually results in raising Ralph's ire, while Ralph often showers him with verbal abuse and throws him out of the apartment when Ed irritates him. Ed and Ralph are both members of the fictional Raccoon Lodge. According to Entertainment Weekly he is one of the "greatest sidekicks."
Thelma "Trixie" Norton
Played by Joyce Randolph; Ed's wife and Alice's best friend. She did not appear on every episode and had a less developed character, though she is shown to be bossy towards her husband. In one episode she is depicted as a pool hustler. On another episode, Ralph insults Trixie by making a reference to Minsky's (a burlesque theatre; the original Trixie (played by Elaine Stritch) was a burlesque dancer). There are a few references to Trixie's burlesque background in the lost episodes (e.g, Norton: "Every night I'd meet her backstage and hand her a rose...It was her costume!"), but Randolph portrayed the character as rather prudish, complaining to her husband when a "fresh" store employee called her "sweetie-pie".
Others
Some of the actors that appeared multiple times on the show include George O. Petrie and Frank Marth as various characters, Ethel Owen as Alice's mother, Zamah Cunningham as Mrs. Manicotti, and Cliff Hall as the Raccoon Lodge President.
History
Origins
In July 1950, Jackie Gleason took over as the host of Cavalcade of Stars, a variety show that aired on the DuMont Television Network. After a few episodes, Gleason and his writing staff developed a sketch that drew upon familiar domestic situations for its material. Gleason wanted a realistic portrayal of life for a poor husband and wife living in Brooklyn. The couple would fight constantly, but ultimately show their love for each other. After rejecting titles such as "The Beast", "The Lovers", and "The Couple Next Door", Gleason and his staff settled on "The Honeymooners" for the name of the new sketch. Gleason took the role of Ralph Kramden, a blustery bus driver, and he chose veteran comedy movie actress Pert Kelton for the role of Alice Kramden, Ralph's acerbic wife.
"The Honeymooners" made its debut on October 5 1951, as a six-minute sketch. Cast member Art Carney made a brief appearance as a police officer who gets hit with flour Ralph had thrown out the window. The tone of these early sketches was much darker than the later series, with Ralph exhibiting extreme bitterness and frustration with his marriage to an equally bitter and argumentative middle-aged woman (Kelton was nine years older than Gleason). The Kramdens' financial struggles mirrored those of Gleason's early life in Brooklyn, and he took great pains to duplicate on set the interior of the apartment where he grew up (right down to his boyhood address of 328 Chauncey Street). The Kramdens (and later the Nortons) are childless, an issue never explored, but a condition on which Gleason insisted.
Early additions to the cast of later sketches were upstairs neighbors Ed and Trixie Norton. Ed (played by Carney) was a sewer worker and Ralph's best friend, although his innocent and guileless nature was the source of many arguments between the two. Trixie Norton (maiden name unknown), Ed's wife, was originally portrayed as a burlesque dancer by Elaine Stritch, but was replaced by the more wholesome looking Joyce Randolph, after just one appearance. Trixie is a foil to Ed, just as Alice does for Ralph, but derivatively, and almost always off-screen.
Due in part to the colorful array of characters that Gleason invented (including the cast of "The Honeymooners"), Cavalcade of Stars became a huge success for DuMont. It increased its audience share from nine to 25 percent. Gleason's contract with DuMont expired in the summer of 1952, and the financially struggling network (which folded in the mid-1950s) was unable to re-sign him.
Move to CBS
CBS president William S. Paley convinced Gleason to leave the DuMont Network and bring his show to CBS. In July 1952, the cast of the retitled Jackie Gleason Show embarked on a highly successful five-week promotional tour across the United States, performing a variety of musical numbers and sketches (including the popular "Honeymooners"). The cast performed four shows a day, which was too much for Kelton, who was suffering from "heart problems." In actuality, Kelton was blacklisted as a suspected communist. She was replaced on the tour by Gingr Jones [sic], who subsequently was also blacklisted (having earlier been named on the Red Channels blacklist) by CBS, which meant that a new Alice was needed.
Jones' replacement was Audrey Meadows, already known for her work in the 1951 musical Top Banana and on Bob and Ray's television show. Before receiving the role, Meadows had to overcome Gleason's reservations about her being too attractive to make a credible Alice. To accomplish this, she hired a photographer to come to her apartment early in the morning and take pictures of her with no make-up on, wearing a torn housecoat, and with her hair undone. When the pictures were delivered to Gleason, he looked at them and said, "That's our Alice." When it was explained to him who it was he said, "Any dame who has a sense of humor like that deserves the job." With the addition of Meadows the now-famous "Honeymooners" lineup of Gleason, Carney, Meadows, and Randolph was in place.
The rising popularity of "The Honeymooners" was reflected in its increasing prominence as part of The Jackie Gleason Show. During the first season, it appeared on a regular basis (although not weekly) as a short sketch during part of the larger variety show. The sketches ranged in length from seven to thirteen minutes. For the 1953–54 season, the shorter sketches were outnumbered by ones that ran for a half hour or longer. During the 1954–55 season, most episodes consisted entirely of "The Honeymooners". Fan response was overwhelming. Meadows received hundreds of curtains and aprons in the mail from fans who wanted to help Alice lead a fancier life. By January 1955, The Jackie Gleason Show was competing with (and sometimes beating) I Love Lucy as the most-watched show in the United States. Audience members lined up around the block hours in advance to attend the show.
Before Gleason's initial three-year contract with CBS expired, he was offered a much larger one by CBS and Buick (the carmaker having dropped their sponsorship of The Milton Berle Show). The three-year contract, reportedly valued at $USD 11 million, was one of the largest in show business history. It called for Gleason to produce 78 filmed episodes of The Honeymooners over two seasons, with an option for a third season of 39 more. He was scheduled to receive $65,000 for each episode ($70,000 per episode in the second season), but had to pay all production costs out of that amount. Art Carney received $3,500 per week, Audrey Meadows received $2,000 per week, and Joyce Randolph (who did not appear in every episode) received $500 per week. Production for The Honeymooners was handled by Jackie Gleason Enterprises, Inc., which also produced the show's lead-in, Stage Show.
The first episode of the new half-hour series aired Saturday, October 1 1955, at 8:30 pm (during prime time), opposite Ozark Jubilee on ABC and The Perry Como Show on NBC. As it was sponsored by Buick, the opening credits ended with an advertisement ("Brought to you by your Buick dealer. And away we go!"), and the show concluded with a brief Gleason sales pitch for the company. All references to the carmaker were removed when the show entered syndication.
Critical reaction to The Honeymooners was mixed. While The New York Times and Broadcasting and Telecasting Magazine wrote that it was "labored" and lacked the spontaneity of the live sketches, TV Guide praised it as "rollicking", "slapsticky" and "fast-paced". In February 1956, the show was moved to the 8 pm time slot, but had already started to lose viewers to the hugely popular Perry Como Show. Gleason's writers had also begun to feel confined by the restrictive half-hour format, and Gleason felt that they were starting to run out of original ideas. After just one season, Gleason and CBS agreed to cancel The Honeymooners, which aired its 39th and last original episode on September 22 1956. In explaining his decision to end the show with $7 million remaining on his contract Gleason said, "the excellence of the material could not be maintained, and I had too much fondness for the show to cheapen it." Gleason subsequently sold the films of the "Classic 39" episodes of the show to CBS for $USD 1.5 million.
Revivals
One week after The Honeymooners ended, The Jackie Gleason Show returned on September 29 1956. "The "Honeymooners" sketches were soon brought back as part of the revived variety show. When Art Carney left the show in 1957, the sketches ceased production. In 1962, Gleason's variety show returned as
Jackie Gleason and His American Scene Magazine. The
"Honeymooners" sketches returned as well, whenever Carney was available. Audrey Meadows and Joyce Randolph were replaced as Alice and Trixie by Sue Ane Langdon and Patricia Wilson, respectively.
In January 1966, Meadows returned as Alice for a musical special entitled The Honeymooners: The Adoption, a re-enactment of a 1955 sketch of the same name. When The Jackie Gleason Show (now based in Miami Beach, Florida) returned in 1966, the "Honeymooners" sketches (now in color for the first time) returned as a series of elaborate musicals. The sketches, which comprised ten of the first season's thirty-two shows, followed a story arc that had the Kramdens and Nortons traveling across Europe after Ralph won a contest. "The Color Honeymooners", as it has since become known, featured Sheila MacRae and Jane Kean in the roles of Alice and Trixie, respectively (Meadows and Randolph did not want to relocate to Miami). One notable 1967 segment featured the return of Pert Kelton, this time playing Alice's mother, Mrs. Gibson.
"The Honeymooners" ended again when The Jackie Gleason Show was canceled in 1970, the result of a disagreement in direction between Gleason and the network. Gleason wanted to continue interspersing "The Honeymooners" within the confines of his regular variety show, while CBS wanted a full-hour "Honeymooners" every week. On October 11 1973, Gleason, Carney, MacRae and Kean reunited for a 'Honeymooners' skit called "Women's Lib" on a Gleason special on CBS. Finally, the Kramdens and Nortons were brought back for four final one-hour specials on ABC, which aired from 1976–78. Alongside Gleason and Carney, Audrey Meadows returned as Alice (for the first time since 1966) while Jane Kean continued to play Trixie. Joyce Randolph, the actress most identified as Trixie, never played the part after the 1950s. These four specials were the final original "Honeymooners" productions.
Production
In 1955, most television shows (including The Jackie Gleason Show) were performed live and recorded using kinescope technology. One notable exception was I Love Lucy, which was recorded directly onto 35 mm film. For The Honeymooners, Gleason utilized the Electronicam TV-film system, developed by DuMont in the early 1950s. As a result of the superior picture and sound quality afforded by the Electronicam system, episodes of The Honeymooners were much more suitable for rebroadcast than some other shows of the era.
All 39 episodes of The Honeymooners were filmed at the DuMont Television Network's Adelphi Theater in New York City, in front of an audience of 1,000. Episodes were never fully rehearsed, as Gleason felt that rehearsals would rob the show of its spontaneity. The result was that while the cast was able to bring a fresh approach to the material, mistakes were often made—lines were either recited incorrectly or forgotten altogether, and actors did not follow the scripted action. To compensate, the cast developed visual cues for each other: Gleason patted his stomach when he forgot a line, while Meadows would glance at the refrigerator when someone else was supposed to retrieve something from it.
In contrast to other popular comedies of the era (such as Father Knows Best, I Love Lucy, Leave It to Beaver, and The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet), which depicted their characters in comfortable, middle class suburban environments, the set design for The Honeymooners reflected the blue collar existence of its characters. The Kramdens' apartment, in particular, was sparsely furnished—the main set was a kitchen, which consisted of a functional table and chairs, a curtain-less window (with a view of a fire escape) and an outdated icebox.
The instrumental theme song for The Honeymooners, "You're My Greatest Love", was composed by Gleason and performed by an orchestra led by Ray Bloch (who had previously served as orchestra leader on Gleason's variety show, as well as The Ed Sullivan Show). Although lyrics were composed, they were never sung. Sammy Spear, who later became Gleason's musical director, provided the arrangement. The music heard in the episodes was not performed during the show, so to enhance the feeling of a live performance for the studio audience an orchestra performed before filming and during breaks. The show's original announcer was Jack Lescoulie, who was also a spokesman for the sponsor, Buick. For the non-sponsored syndicated version, the introduction was voiced by CBS staff announcer Gaylord Avery.
Awards
Art Carney won five Emmy Awards for his portrayal of Ed Norton—two for the original Jackie Gleason Show, one for The Honeymooners, and two for the final version of The Jackie Gleason Show. He was nominated for another two (1957, 1966) but lost. Gleason and Meadows were both nominated in 1956 for their work on The Honeymooners. Gleason was nominated for Best Actor – Continuing Performance but lost to Phil Silvers, while Meadows was nominated for Best Actress in a Supporting Role but lost to Nanette Fabray. Meadows was also nominated for Emmys for her portrayal of Alice Kramden in 1954 and 1957.
The following table summarizes award wins by cast members, both for The Honeymooners and The Jackie Gleason Show.
| Actor | Awards won | Show |
|---|
| Art Carney | Emmy, Best Series Supporting Actor (1954) | The Jackie Gleason Show | | Emmy, Best Supporting Actor in a Regular Series (1955) | The Jackie Gleason Show | | Emmy, Best Actor in a Supporting Role (1956) | The Honeymooners | | Emmy, Special Classifications of Individual Achievement (1967) | The Jackie Gleason Show | | Emmy, Special Classification of Individual Achievements (1968) | The Jackie Gleason Show | | Audrey Meadows | Emmy, Best Supporting Actress in a Regular Series (1955) | The Jackie Gleason Show |
Plot
- For the full list of episodes, see List of The Honeymooners episodes
Most of The Honeymooners took place in Ralph and Alice Kramden's kitchen. Other settings used in the show included the Gotham Bus Company depot, the Raccoon Lodge, and on occasion the Nortons' apartment. Many episodes began with a shot of Alice in the kitchen, awaiting Ralph's arrival from work. Most episodes focused on Ralph and Ed Norton's characters, although Alice played a substantial role. Ed's wife, Trixie, played a smaller role in the series, and didn't appear in every episode as the other three did. Each episode presented a self-contained story, which never carried over into a subsequent one. The show employed a number of standard sitcom clichés and plots, particularly those of jealousy and comic misunderstanding.
The show presented Ralph as an everyman and an underdog who struggled to make a better life for himself and his wife, but who ultimately failed due to his own shortcomings. He (along with Ed) devised a number of get-rich-quick schemes, none of which succeeded. Ralph was quick to blame others for his misfortune, until it was pointed out to him where he had fallen short. Ralph's anger was replaced by short-lived remorse, and he would then apologize for his actions. Many of these apologies to Alice ended with Ralph saying, "Baby, you're the greatest", followed by a hug and kiss.
In most episodes, Ralph's short temper got the best of him, leading him to yell at others and to threaten physical violence, particularly against Alice. Ralph's favorite threats to her were "Bang, zoom!" and "One of these days … one of these days … POW, right in the kisser!" This has led some to criticize the show as displaying an acceptance of domestic violence. Ralph never carried out his threats, however, and others have pointed out that Alice knew he never would. In retaliation, the targets of Ralph's verbal abuse often responded by simply joking about his weight, a common theme throughout the series. Alice was never seen to back down during any of Ralph's tirades.
Syndication and home video
The Honeymooners gained its greatest fame in syndication, where it has aired almost continually since its cancellation. New York's WPIX-TV has aired The Honeymooners nightly and on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day for more than four decades, with occasional breaks, in a marathon entitled The Honeymooners' Blowout. BBC2 aired 38 of the original 39 episodes beginning in 1989 and ending in 1991. The show has also aired in Australia, Iran, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Ireland and Suriname.
In 1984, the Museum of Television and Radio announced the discovery of four original Honeymooners sketches from the original The Jackie Gleason Show. When they later held a public viewing for three of them, the response was overwhelmingly positive. In January 1985, Gleason announced the release of an additional group of lost episodes from his private vault. As with the previously released sketches, these "lost episodes" were actually kinescopes of sketches from the 1952–55 run of The Jackie Gleason Show.
Gleason sold the broadcast rights to the lost episodes to Viacom, and they were first aired from 1985–86 as a series of 68 22-minute episodes on the Showtime cable network. They have since joined the original 39 episodes in syndication, and have also been released on VHS and DVD. In September 2004, another "lost" episode was reportedly discovered at the Peabody Award archives in Georgia. This episode, "Love Letter," originally aired on The Jackie Gleason Show on October 16 1954. It aired for the first time since then on October 16 2004 (its fiftieth anniversary), on TV Land.
CBS Paramount Television (the modern-day successor to Viacom), via CBS Broadcasting, owns the "classic 39" series outright, while the Gleason estate owns the "lost episodes" (although CBS Paramount does distribute them).
Paramount Home Entertainment released a six disc-DVD set entitled The Honeymooners "Classic 39" Episodes in November 2003 (only available in Region 1). The set contains all 39 episodes from the series' original 1955–56 broadcast run. Also included in the set is an edited version of a 1990 anniversary special hosted by Audrey Meadows, as well as original show openings and closings (sponsored by Buick) that were removed when the show entered syndication.
MPI Home Video released the "lost episodes" on DVD in Region 1 in 24 volume collections from 2001 - 2002. It has subsequently re-released these episodes in 6 box sets featuring all 80 episodes. Unfortunately, both the volumes and the six box sets had gone out of print one by one during the course of 2008. At this time, the Lost Episodes of the Honeymooners are no longer available on home video. Some believe MPI's rights to distribute have expired and that CBS/Paramount/Viacom may be planning a release of this.
| DVD Name | Ep # | Release Date |
|---|
| The Honeymooners- Lost Episodes Collection 1 | 13 | October 30 2001 | | The Honeymooners- Lost Episodes Collection 2 | 13 | October 30 2001 | | The Honeymooners- Lost Episodes Collection 3 | 15 | January 29 2002 | | The Honeymooners- Lost Episodes Collection 4 | 15 | March 26 2002 | | The Honeymooners- Lost Episodes Collection 5 | 12 | June 25 2002 | | The Honeymooners- Lost Episodes Collection 6 | 12 | August 27 2002 |
In June 2006, MPI Home Video released The Color Honeymooners – Collection 1 (NTSC and PAL), which collects the "Trip to Europe" story arc presented on The Jackie Gleason Show in 1966. It has since released an additional 3 volumes featuring additional episodes from this story arc. AmericanLife TV Network is currently airing The Color Honeymooners shows under license from Gleason Enterprises and Paul Brownstein Television.
| DVD Name | Ep # | Release Date |
|---|
| The Color Honeymooners- Collection 1 | 9 | June 27 2006 | | The Color Honeymooners- Collection 2 | 9 | February 26 2008 | | The Color Honeymooners- Collection 3 | 12 | May 27 2008 | | The Color Honeymooners- Collection 4 | 12 | August 26 2008 |
Impact and legacy
Due to its enduring popularity, The Honeymooners has been referenced numerous times in American pop culture, and has served as the inspiration for other television shows. The show also introduced memorable catchphrases into American culture, such as "Bang, zoom, straight to the moon!", "One of these days...one of these days...POW, right in the kisser!" and "Baby, you're the greatest".
- In 1960, the animated sitcom The Flintstones debuted. Many critics and viewers noted the close resemblance of that show's premise and characters to that of The Honeymooners. Co-creator William Hanna has stated that The Honeymooners was used as a basis for the concept of The Flintstones. Mel Blanc, the voice of Barney Rubble, was asked to model Barney's voice after Ed Norton, but reportedly refused. Gleason later said that he had thought about suing, but decided not to as he did not want to be the person responsible for having the show pulled off the air.
- The 1990 Sitcom Dinosaurs (TV series) bears a strong resemblance to The Honeymooners, particularly parents Earl and Fran.
- All in the Family premiered as a mid-season replacement on CBS five months after the last episode of The Jackie Gleason Show and took over Gleason's Saturday evening time slot the following fall.
- The sitcom King of Queens was inspired partly by The Honeymooners. In a 2001 episode of the show ("Inner Tube"), Doug Heffernan (played by Kevin James) dreams that he is Ralph Kramden, his wife Carrie (played by Leah Remini) is Alice Kramden, and his friend Deacon Palmer (played by Victor Williams) is Ed Norton. The sequence was filmed in black-and-white and the audio quality (including the audience) matches a '50s style.
- In 1999, TV Guide published a list entitled "TV's 100 Greatest Characters Ever!" Ed Norton was #20, and Ralph Kramden was #2.
- In 2002, The Honeymooners was listed at #3 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time.
- The show was parodied in a series of animated Looney Tunes shorts, in which the principal characters are depicted as mice and Ralph's "big dream" is to get enough cheese to impress Alice. These cartoons are "The Honey-Mousers" (1956), "Cheese It, the Cat!" (1957), and "Mice Follies" (1960). In this, the characters are Ralph Crumden; and Ned Morton; whilst their wives retain the names of Alice and Trixie. Human caricatures of Ralph and Ed are pitted against Bugs Bunny in the 1956 Warner cartoon "Half-Fare Hare". In one Sylvester and Tweety cartoon — in which Granny gets rousted out of her house by the big bad wolf, only to get the wolf in the end — Granny (June Foray) hollered, "One of these days...one of these days...Pow! Right in the kisser!" And in another cartoon, when Sylvester falls into an open manhole, inside we hear a voice like Ed Norton's say "Hey, look at this, Ralph, a pussycat". To which, Sylvester simply peers out of the sewer to the audience. Norton was also parodied by Bugs Bunny at the end of Wideo Wabbit. All of these cartoon incarnations of Kramden and Norton were voiced by impressionist Daws Butler.
- As Ralph Kramden was a New York City bus driver, one of the service depots in Brooklyn was renamed the Jackie Gleason Bus Depot in 1988. All buses that originate from the bus depot bear a sticker on the front that has a logo derived from the 'face on the moon' opening credits of The Honeymooners. The MTA also took 1948 GM-TDH5101 bus number 4789, renumbered it to 2969 and made it the 'official Jackie Gleason bus'.
- A statue of Gleason as Ralph Kramden stands at the Eighth Avenue entrance to the Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York City. The plaque on the base of the statue reads, "Jackie Gleason as Ralph Kramden - Bus Driver - Raccoon Lodge Treasurer - Dreamer - Presented by the People of TV Land"
- Comedian Eddie Murphy impersonated Ralph and Ed in an infamous stand-up routine depicting Kramden and Norton as a gay couple as part of his 1983 concert film Eddie Murphy Delirious.
- An episode ("A Trip To The Moon") of the 1980s detective spoof Moonlighting features lead characters David Addison, Maddie Hayes, Agnes Dipesto, and Richard Addison performing a Honeymooners re-creation.
- Comedian Joe Piscopo released a song entitled "Honeymooners Rap" in 1985, in which he impersonated Ralph Kramden while Eddie Murphy supplied the voice for Ed Norton.
- A Tribe Called Quest's song What contains the line "What's Ralph Kramden, if he ain't yellin', at Ed Norton, what's coke snortin'?"
- The Honeymooners was spoofed in an episode of Perfect Strangers as a result of the character Balki Bartoukomos (Bronson Pinchot) spinning an extended metaphor about the characters' situation to an episode of The Honeymooners he had once seen; Balki's description of the episode is shown in a black-and-white flashback. Larry Appleton (Mark Linn-Baker) portrayed Ralph Kramden and Balki portrayed Ed Norton (retaining his foreign accent in the role).
- In the Pinky and the Brain episode "Win Big", Pinky repeatedly says, "Bang, zoom, right in the kisser!" after watching The Honeymooners. Later in the episode, the knowledge of the origin of this phrase plays a part in Brain's attempt at world domination. The entire plot of the episode also seems to parody the Classic 39 episode The $99,000 Answer, especially in how the episode ends, when Brain attributes the Honeymooners line in his final question to Pinky.
- In the Futurama episode "The Series Has Landed", Fry witnesses the future's interpretation of The Honeymooners. "Bang, zoom, straight to the moon!" was thought by the people in the year 3000 as a representation of man's desire to travel to space. Fry correctly notes that the quote was actually a metaphor for domestic violence. In the episode "Spanish Fry", one of the aliens also refers to the catchphrase—"One of these days Ndnd... Bang, zoom, straight to the third moon of Omicron Persei 8!".
- In the Family Guy episode "The Fat Guy Strangler", Lois Griffin's brother, Patrick, who has been in an asylum for most of his life for killing some fat men, and of whose existence Lois was ignorant her whole life, was traumatized as a child when he walked in on his mother having oral sex with Jackie Gleason, who ejaculates off-camera while saying his catchphrase, "Pow! Right in the kisser!" over and over. Peter Griffin triggers Patrick's killing spree by wearing a bus driver's uniform identical to the one Gleason wore on The Honeymooners. After Patrick is caught, he is left traumatized again at the end of the episode by Peter's endlessly repeating the phrase "Pow! Right in the kisser!". Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane has said that Gleason was an influence for Peter's character. In another Family Guy episode titled "PTV" when Peter is sitting on the couch watching the TV and the FCC is censoring everything that may be offensive, Brian states that there was something weird about that Honeymooners episode he watched that day and it cuts to a scene where Jackie Gleason's character is saying "One of these days Alice, one of these days!" and the voiceover replacement says "I'm going to stimulate the economy by buying an American Car." In the episode North by North Quahog, The Honeymooners is parodied in a flashback, as Jackie Gleason is shown finally punching his wife Alice after she mocks him for not fulfilling his physical threats.
- In the "Stan of Arabia (Part 1)" episode of American Dad! (another MacFarlane creation), Stan Smith uses the "Pow! Right in the kisser!" line to threaten his wife Francine, only with a gunshot to the ceiling replacing the word "pow".
- The 1985 film Back to the Future features a scene set in 1955, where the family of Lorraine Baines is watching an episode of The Honeymooners entitled "The Man from Space". This is technically an anachronism, however, as the scene takes place in November, while that episode did not air until December 31. Earlier in the movie, Marty McFly's family was watching a rerun of the same episode over dinner; he is thus able to indentify the episode (which was supposedly being aired for its first time) as a "rerun".
- Louis C.K. has stated in an interview that he based the layout of Louie's apartment in Lucky Louie on the Kramdens' apartment, in contrast to other shows like The King of Queens that have very nicely decorated apartments on low incomes.
- Two remote-sensing cameras on the New Horizons space probe to the dwarf planet Pluto are named "Ralph" and "Alice".
- On January 15 2007, the clip-art comic strip Partially Clips featured The Honeymooners.
- On June 1 2007, FOX aired a special of TV's Funniest Moments. A clip from the episode titled The $99,000 Answer was on the list. It was when Ralph identifies the composer of Swanee River as being "Ed Norton".
The success of The Honeymooners in countries outside the United States has led to the production of new shows based entirely on it. In 1994, the Dutch broadcasting network KRO produced a version of The Honeymooners entitled Toen Was Geluk Heel Gewoon ([Back] then was happiness very ordinary), using translated scripts of the original series but changing its setting to 1950s Rotterdam. After the original 39 scripts were exhausted, the series' lead actors, Gerard Cox and Sjoerd Pleijsier, took over writing, adding many new characters and references to Dutch history and popular culture. The series was a hit in the Netherlands and continues to run.
In 1994, the Swedish network TV4 produced a version of The Honeymooners entitled Rena Rama Rolf, but changing its to modern-day Gothenburg, Rolf (Ralph) is working as a streetcar driver. The show ran until 1998.
In 1998, the Polish network Polsat produced a version of The Honeymooners entitled Miodowe lata, using both translated scripts of the original series and new ones, but changing its setting to modern-day Warsaw. The original series ran until 2003 and was continued in 2004 as Calkiem nowe lata miodowe.
On June 10 2005, a feature film remake of The Honeymooners was released, featuring a predominantly African American cast. The roles of Ralph, Alice, Ed, and Trixie were played by Cedric the Entertainer, Gabrielle Union, Mike Epps, and Regina Hall, respectively. The movie was a critical and commercial failure, earning slightly more than $USD 13 million worldwide.
In 1988, software company First Row Software released a Honeymooners videogame for Commodore 64 and DOS systems.
In 1985, Joan Jett & the Blackhearts released an album titled "Glorious Results of a Misspent Youth" which was taken from the famous poolroom/Harvey episode. The Blackhearts' guitarist at the time, Ricky Byrd, is a big Honeymooners fan.
- In hard rock band Mr. Big's song entitled "Addicted to That Rush" at the end you can hear singer Eric Martin saying "One of these days...one of these days...Pow, right in the kisser!
."
Episodes
Additional reading
- Katsigeorgis, John (2002). To The Moon: The Honeymooners Book of Trivia - Official Authorized Edition. Metrobooks. ISBN 1-58663-694-4.
- McCrohan, Donna and Peter Crescenti (1986). The Honeymooners Lost Episodes. Workman Publishing. ISBN 0-89480-157-0.
- Meadows, Audrey (1994). Love, Alice: My Life as a Honeymooner. Crown Publishers. ISBN 0-517-59881-7.
External links
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