From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article does not cite any references or sources. (October 2007) Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.

The Jackie Gleason Show was the name given to a series of popular television shows that starred Jackie Gleason, which ran from 1952 to 1970.

Gleason's first variety series was aired on the DuMont Network under the title Cavalcade of Stars. After original host Jerry Lester quit the show in 1950, Gleason — who had made his mark on the first television incarnation of the Life of Riley sitcom — stepped into Cavalcade and became an immediate sensation. The show was broadcast live, in front of a theater audience, and offered the same kind of vaudevillian entertainment common to early-TV revues. Jackie's guests included New York-based performers of stage and screen, including Bert Wheeler. Smith and Dale, and Vivian Blaine. Production values were decent but not spectacular, owing to DuMont's humble facilities and a thrifty sponsor (the nation's neighborhood drug stores).

In 1952, CBS president William S. Paley offered Gleason a much higher salary, with which DuMont could not compete. Gleason moved to CBS, and the series was retitled The Jackie Gleason Show.

The show typically opened with a monologue from Gleason, followed by sketch comedy involving Gleason and a number of regular performers (including Art Carney) and a musical interlude featuring the June Taylor Dancers. (Taylor was Gleason's sister-in-law; he married her sister in 1975.)

Gleason portrayed a number of recurring characters, including supercilious, mustachioed millionaire Reginald Van Gleason III; friendly Joe the Bartender; loudmouthed braggart Charlie Bratten; mild-mannered Fenwick Babbitt; Rudy the Repairman; and a put-upon character known only as the Poor Soul, whom Gleason always performed in pantomime.

Gleason also occasionally portrayed Stanley R. Sogg, a late-night pitchman for Mother Fletcher's products ("No-Cal Chicken Fat"), similar to the later Art Fern character played by Johnny Carson in his "Tea Time Movie" skits on The Tonight Show.

By far the most memorable and popular character, however, was blowhard Brooklyn bus driver Ralph Kramden, featured in a series of skits known as "The Honeymooners". These were so popular that in 1955 Gleason suspended the variety format and filmed The Honeymooners as a regular half-hour sitcom, co-starring Art Carney, Audrey Meadows, and Joyce Randolph. These 39 episodes were rerun constantly, often five nights a week, with the cycle repeating every two months for decades. They are probably the most familiar body of work from 1950s television.

The show's original variety format and title returned in 1956 and continued until 1957. Then, in 1958, Gleason debuted a half-hour version of The Jackie Gleason Show, with Buddy Hackett as a sidekick, but it was short-lived.

Main article: You're in the Picture

In 1961, Gleason began an ill-fated stint as host of a game show called You're in the Picture. which lasted only one episode, and led to Gleason offering an on-air apology to his viewers the following week. Committed to filling a quota of episodes, Gleason renamed the series The Jackie Gleason Show and turned it into a short-lived talk show.

In 1962, Gleason returned to the tried-and-true variety format with his American Scene Magazine. (The official title of the show was, again, The Jackie Gleason Show.) American Scene was initially taped in New York City; after two seasons, production moved to Miami Beach (1964). Each week Gleason would begin his monologue and be surprised by the flamboyant jackets worn by bandleader Sammy Spear. (Beholding Spear's animal-print blazer, Gleason quipped, "I've heard of Tiger Rag, but this is ridiculous!") Reggie, the Poor Soul, and the rest of Gleason's comic characters were regular attractions. Frank Fontaine, as bug-eyed, grinning "Crazy" Guggenheim, starred in the Joe the Bartender skits, delighting fans with his nutty speaking voice and goofy laugh, and charmed by his surprisingly mellow singing voice.

In 1966 the title once again became simply The Jackie Gleason Show and would remain so until the show's cancellation in 1970. By this point the episodes included well-known guest stars and skits. An entire season consisted of musicalized remakes of old Honeymooners specials (Ralph and Ed win a slogan contest and take Alice and Trixie on a world tour). These were later collected as The Color Honeymooners, with Sheila MacRae and Jane Kean as Alice and Trixie. The regular cast of the new variety show included Gleason and old sidekick Art Carney; Milton Berle was a frequent guest star. The show eventually was taped at the Miami Beach Auditorium, and Gleason never tired of promoting the "sun and fun capital of the world" on camera. Hordes of vacationers took Gleason's advice, boosting Florida's economy.