Ticket 2 Ride

On Thursdays, I’ll highlight a television show that may have slipped into oblivion. This week I look at the musical variety show, The Jackie Gleason Show.

Younger generations will associate him with the Smokey and the Bandit films or their parents talking about those old black & white Honeymooners reruns. Gleason was a personality who was perfect for television, especially the variety show format where he could tell jokes, perform a few skits with his pals, have music and dancers, – who needs Las Vegas. All of that entertainment wrapped around that Gleason persona. Of his various 1960s programs, between 1966 and 1970, The Jackie Gleason Show was the one I recall. A total of 88 episodes were produced for CBS. This show was memorable for several reasons.

Miami Beach was Gleason’s home and he had established his television base there. Each week his show opened with a traveling camera shot from a boat to the sunny city skyline. Miami Beach was hip and a fun city. “Miami Beach audiences are the greatest audiences in the world!” Gleason would say every week. Miami was far from the city it is today, and Gleason helped put it on the map.

The Sammy Spear Orchestra supplied the music for most of Gleason’s television programs. Music was a big part of the musical-variety format. Spear was a frequent target of Gleason in his opening monologue, sometimes remarking on Spear’s loud sports coats.

The June Taylor Dancers performed on Gleason’s previous shows as well, dancing with guest performers, by themselves in choreographed musical numbers and with Gleason. Taylor’s dancers were amongst the last of the dance troupes on television variety shows. These were big productions and even if you didn’t dig the style, you had to respect the work by the dancers and the camera crew that gave you overhead and other interesting views.

Of all of the Gleason characters, he was Ralph Kramden. Gleason knew he had struck gold with The Honeymooners, and so it was an alternating centerpiece of the Gleason show. Art Carney, Sheila McCrae, Jane Kean and Gleason were the new Honeymooners (below). Gleason kept the format going through the 1960s, keeping Carney, but changing out the female characters. This version would also sing and be included in production numbers.

Gleason’s comedy repertory included characters that appeared on other of his television shows and nightclub acts.

Joe the Bartender & Crazy Guggenheim was Gleason as a lonesome bartender and Frank Fontaine as Crazy Guggenheim, a regular customer who shared a few funny stories and performed a song in his real baritone voice. Crazy had a bug-eyed look and talked with a silly voice.

Reginald Van Gleason III was a millionaire, who wasn’t qualified to be anything else. Urbane and stiff-lipped, RVG III was one of Gleason’s long running characters.

The Poor Soul, Rudy the Repairman, Rum Dum, Fenwick Babbitt were some of Gleason’s most popular characters.

America Embraces Gleason

Gleason was boisterous, heavy, far from a matinee idol, smoked on stage and applied all of this to his many characters. As Ralph Kramden, Gleason was the everyman, looking for his piece of the American Dream, any far-fetched idea to get ahead, and trading jabs with his long-suffering wife. Big-hearted and full of flaws, Ralph Kramden, was a lovable character in post-War America.

While Gleason made films and took his act on the road, television was where he connected with America, and he rode it through the 1950s and 1960s. Musical-comedy-variety programs were an extension of vaudeville and nightclubs. Gleason’s television shows used a successful formula, built around Gleason’s enormous talent. A monologue, a dance number, a sketch, more music, add some dancing, more comedy and include a song, final jokes and outro from Gleason.

I watched a couple of his shows on the internet. In one non-Honeymooners show, Gleason’s guests were Jack Benny, comedian Alan King, actor Jack Haley (The Wizard of Oz) and singer Robert Goulet. Another show from that same years was built around The Honeymooners taking a cruise to France. There was a lot of singing and dancing, and the usual wisecracks.

What I soon realized was the demographic for this show was my parents, or more likely, my grandparents. Then I remembered that it was Saturday night viewing at their house. To me, it was old Hollywood, and times were changing as networks shifted to programming for younger demographics. Gleason’s show ended in 1970, but he stayed as busy as he wanted to be with TV appearances and films.

Gleason was one of the few who entered television in the early 1950s to last through the 1960s. Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, GeorgeBurns, Jack Benny all had shows that ended by the early 1960s.

These musical-variety shows are a thing of the past. In the 1970s, the format bottomed-out as the market was flooded with them and audience tastes changed. Maybe I’ll develop a list of the worst variety shows, there were indeed some bad ones.