By Chuck Darrow
One byproduct of Atlantic City’s legal-gambling era has been the town’s status as the host of numerous exclusive entertainment events. Among them were The Beach Boys’ steeped-in-controversy July 4, 1983 beach concert presented by Caesars Boardwalk Regency (now Caesars Atlantic City), the 1989 Rolling Stones concert at what was then Convention Hall (now Jim Whalen Boardwalk Hall), which was sponsored by Trump Plaza Casino & Hotel and viewed globally via pay-per-view broadcast, and the world debut of the book musical, “Barry Manilow’s Copacabana,” which was staged in 1990 at Caesars.
But for those of us who worship at the altar of the immortal 1950s sitcom, “The Honeymooners,” the most special of special events took place 45 years ago this month, when Jackie Gleason, Art Carney and their TV wives (played by Audrey Meadows and Jane Kean) spent Thanksgiving week performing and taping a one-hour special that aired on ABC-TV on St. Valentine’s Day, 1979.
Before we continue, here’s a memory refresher (or new information if you’re unfamiliar with the show):
“The Honeymooners” began life in the early 1950s as a recurring sketch on the variety shows hosted by Gleason first on the old Dumont network, and then on CBS. At the end of the 1954-’55 season, Gleason decided that the skits—which centered on the comic misadventures of Ralph Kramden, a blustery, often overbearing Brooklyn bus driver and Ed Norton, his not-overly-bright, but eternally loyal, best friend and neighbor—and their perpetually exasperated, but loving, wives, Alice (Meadows) and Trixie (then played by Joyce Randolph)—should become a stand-alone, half-hour-long weekly series the following season.
The result was what “Honeymooners” devotees call the “classic 39” episodes. When the last of the 39 aired in September of ’56, Gleason announced the half-hour sitcom would not return (his reasoning was it would be impossible to sustain the high quality—make that brilliance—that was the show’s hallmark). But that didn’t spell the end of “The Honeymooners.” Just a week later, Gleason and company returned for a series of hour-long episodes, 10 of which were “Honeymooners” presentations, but with original music by the team of Lyn Duddy and Jerry Bresler that were, essentially mini-Broadway-style musicals.
Gleason then put the “‘Mooners” back in the trunk until 1962 when his new variety series, the Miami Beach-based “American Scene Magazine,” featured sketches whenever Carney—by then an in-demand character actor—was available.
In 1966, what was by then called “The Jackie Gleason Show” (now broadcast in color) resurrected the original musicals with Shelia McRae as Alice and Kean as Trixie. The “Gleason Show” was cancelled by CBS in 1970, and in 1976, the first of the final four hour-long episodes (with Meadows back as Alice) aired on ABC.
The third one was “The Honeymooners Valentine Special,” which Gleason brought to what was then Resorts International (now Resorts Atlantic City Casino-Hotel) for a five-show run that started Tuesday, Nov. 21. The plot—which bore some fundamental similarities to a “classic 39” installment—found Ralph misinterpreting Alice’s intent to buy him a new suit for Valentine’s Day and believing she was actually planning to murder him and run off with her paramour.
I had the incredible fortune of getting a ticket for the Thanksgiving Eve (Nov. 22) performance (mine was a press comp; the non-high-rolling public paid, per the Philadelphia Daily News, $25 a pop–$117.91 in today’s dollar according to the U.S. government’s online inflation calculator).
As I recall, the show had its moments, script-wise, with enough “Honeymooners” tropes and shtick to satisfy the most rabid fan. But what was said was secondary almost to the point of irrelevance. The four actors could have read from the backs of cereal cartons and it wouldn’t have mattered. Just being in the same physical space with Gleason and company and seeing them in those immortal costumes (Ralph’s bus-driver uniform; Norton’s vest and beat-up fedora) was a thrill beyond words. And I still get goose bumps remembering the moment the house lights dimmed:
The curtain on the Superstar Theater opened and there, just a matter of yards in front of me, was that iconic set consisting of a nondescript, seen-its-best-days dining table and chairs, an ancient “ice box” (that is, a refrigerator that wasn’t cooled by electricity, but by a giant block of ice) and the rest of the props and furnishing that were so familiar to me (I’m pretty sure I saw my first “classic 39” rerun on New Year’s Day, 1966. Today, I figure I’ve seen each episode at least 15-20 times, some likely much more).
As Meadows recalled in “Love, Alice,” her 1994 memoir about her times on the show, that moment of delight was apparently shared by pretty much everyone in attendance:
“We were all backstage, waiting to make our entrances,” she wrote, “wondering how the audience would accept us over 20 years later. Would the magic still be there?
“The script called for the curtain to open on our empty set. When it did, we heard a burst of thunderous applause, and Jackie turned to me with a big grin and said, ‘We’re home free.’”
Remembering When is a monthly column that looks at Atlantic City’s often-wild, always-fascinating history.
