Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 2, 1994 TAG: 9406020047
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Tom Shales
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
By sharp contrast, Jackie Gleason and company made ``The Honeymooners'' a TV classic. Now The Disney Channel has gone back to the Stone Age of television to present films of ``The Honeymooners'' at its very earliest stages, when Gleason was just developing the characters on a variety show he did for Dumont, a fourth network that went out of business decades ago.
This priceless archaeological dig was first unearthed by New York's Museum of Television & Radio last year. It found early ``Honeymooners'' on kinescopes (films made off a TV screen) of ``Cavalcade of Stars,'' the variety show Gleason hosted on Dumont. Disney put six of those rare sketches together as a special, called it ``The Honeymooners Really Lost Debut Episodes'' and premiered it recently.
Ralph Kramden was hardly the only character Gleason introduced on Dumont, however. A second Disney special, ``Jackie Gleason's Cavalcade of Characters,'' premieres tonight at 9. It's richly enjoyable as cultural history, as TV memorabilia, and as utter hilariousness.
Part of Gleason's genius was that he could play both sympathetic and obnoxious characters within the same show. The special, like a typical Gleason variety hour, includes a visit from The Poor Soul, a put-upon schlemiel whose sketches were small silent movies; and also one from The Loud Mouth, Charlie Bratten, an oafish lout who terrorizes Clem, a henpecked milquetoast played by Art Carney.
One of Gleason's most insane, least lovable characters was Rudy the Repairman, who also pops up in Disney's special. All the Rudy routines followed the same format: Rudy and his unintelligible assistant show up at some rich person's home ostensibly to solve a problem and then proceed to demolish the place. On the special, Rudy is called upon to catch a mouse. Before he's gone, all but the mouse is in ruins.
What you see in these sketches, which are preserved on film from live telecasts of 1951, is a tremendous amount of energy and inventiveness but also, beneath the surface, a tremendous amount of anger. Gleason grew up poor and may have maintained a lifelong contempt for the rich even after he became rich himself. When Rudy destroyed some snooty fop's elegant living room, it was Gleason symbolically getting even for the years he spent in poverty.
Later, when Gleason became a huge star, he was notorious for the way he would put the screws to management at CBS when contract renewal time came around. Gleason insisted on fabulous sums. He was getting even again.
Of all the lampooning of the rich done on Gleason's shows, the character who thrived at it most was Reginald Van Gleason III, dissolute and irreverent playboy zillionaire. Reggie was determined to squander his fortune on booze and women. His contempt for his wealthy parents was thinly veiled; he regularly greeted his mother with, ``Mmm-boy, are you fat!'' Reggie's idea of collecting antiques was piling up 20- and 30-year-old bottles of Scotch.
Reggie was probably the most outlandish, larger-than-life character in Gleason's repertory - with the possible exception of Gleason himself.
Disney's Gleason specials have been rather sloppily slapped together, marred by oddly abrupt edits and awkward moments. Producer Toby Martin was probably limited by a tiny budget imposed by Disney. Of all people, stand-up comic Paul Reiser was chosen to host. The man is a plank - utterly expressionless and displaying no special affinity for Gleasoniana. Go figure.
But of course the attraction here is the raw material, the work that Gleason and his cronies did four decades ago. They never imagined they were doing it for posterity, and it was long thought destroyed. Now through the magic of television, the great Gleason can take another bow. And yes, in this case magic is just what it is.
Washington Post Writers Group
by CNB