User Reviews

Playing out like a farce on stage, this is comic perfection.

Brilliantly written and executed, this is full of wonderful moments along the way, flying along wonderfully.

They really don't make them like this any more.

This is my first time reviewing a HONEYMOONERS episode, even though I've been a fan of the show for years. THE HONEYMOONERS had such a spontaneous, theatrical quality, as if everything was being improvised by an experienced troupe of commedia dell'arte performers. The bare set of the Kramden's apartment was almost a character unto itself. That the show was filmed before a live audience added to the gritty verisimilitude. Of course, Jackie Gleason's out-sized persona and comic-pathetic mannerisms are not to everyone's taste. But with the added ingredients of Art Carney and Audrey Meadows and the back-and-forth between the three characters, we have a comic symphony.

"Pardon My Glove" is one of my favorites of the "Classic 39" episodes. The plot could have been taken from Boccaccio or Chaucer. Ralph's birthday is coming up, and Alice is preparing a pair of special treats: a surprise birthday party plus a redecorating job for the apartment, made by special arrangement with a department store for free. Unfortunately, the interior decorator, a dapper and elegant man, leaves one of his gloves in the apartment. Ralph finds it and suspects Alice of having an affair. He hides with Norton out on the fire escape and tries to catch the two of them at their "tryst." You can probably guess how things are going to turn out. As ever, Ralph's hubris and impulsiveness get the best of him and ruin the day. But it doesn't ultimately matter, because Ralph and Alice's love endures through the worst of Ralph's imbecilities. The episode offers the usual amusing interplay between Ralph and "Nawt'n."

Dog-gone-it, I was really looking forward to how the bare Kramden apartment would be re- decorated. Maybe put a picture on the wall, or a cloth on the bare table. Seems Alice can get the work done free of charge and by a continental sophisticate to boot. Plus, she's going to do it as part of a birthday surprise for Ralph. But when Ralph finds an expensive glove left by the decorator, of course he suspects the worst.

Most of the shows follow a formula—Ralph goes wildly off the track, blusters and rants in Norton's ear, after which sensible Alice shows humbled Ralph the error of his ways, and all ends with a loving embrace. Most entries are a variation on this theme and it's a real tribute to the writers and the cast that it works so well, time and again, as it does here. Meanwhile, I'm still wondering which is smaller—"teensy-weensy" or "itsy-bitsy". Oh well, I guess it's another of those great cosmic mysteries.