Television: Second Honeymoon

When Jackie Gleason suddenly up and announced his retirement from CBS television last winter, he got a wire of “appreciation” from an NBC vice president. The telegram was ill timed. In the first place, the Gleason show had become so lackluster in recent seasons that he already seemed semiretired. In the second place, Gleason turned right around and signed an $8,000,000 deal with CBS for one more season. It would be, he proclaimed, “something different” and “something better.”

It is not a good deal different, but Gleason’s new Honeymooners is a lot better—better, in fact, than any other comedy series on the air. Dressed up now and then with music and dancing, the adventures of gullible Brooklyn Bus Driver Ralph Kramden (Gleason) and goofy Sewer Worker Ed Norton (Art Carney) rock with a screwball spontaneity that puts the team in a class with the Marx Brothers and Laurel and Hardy. At the same time, they are never so far out that the audience has the slightest trouble identifying them as a couple of ordinary likable slobs. “This is a nudge act,” explains Gleason. “Somebody’s always out there in the audience nudging his partner, saying. ‘There’s Uncle Charlie.’ ”

Gleason admits that Honeymooners was long overdue for rehabilitation. “Some of the shows I did last year,” he concedes, “looked like they had been made on the way to the men’s room. But you don’t kid an audience.” He discovered that last year when the ratings at times showed a greater preference for Flipper and I Dream of Jeanie. This season Flipper and Shane oppose him, but so far Honeymooners has outrated them both.

Legendary in show business as the “Great Non-Rehearser,” Gleason now works six days a week, has cut down on his golfing (though he still manages to break 80 frequently). Otherwise, nothing has changed. Lots of pool in “Gleason’s Pool Hall,” a 40-by-60-ft. air-conditioned annex to his house. More J & B Scotch than ever, though he shifts to champagne on taping day. The same omnipresent “executive secretary,” Honey Merrill, who has been with Gleason for ten years. No nostalgia for New York City that he can’t appease with daily phone calls to his friends and three visits a year. And no more talk of retirement. “Why should I quit?” asks he, “when I can get a laugh on ‘Aw, shut up!’ “