How Sweet It Is

50 years ago tonight, a television show debuted that would have an impact on its genre, its medium, and its society forever.

The concept was fairly simple. A man and his wife, and their neighbors, dealing with life in a work-a-day world. The characters seemed fit into fairly standard archetypes. The husband, a large, loud dreamer who under all his bluster was really a big pussycat. His wife, a woman who genuinely loved him but at the same time would take a stand when he was being near-sighted or unfair. His best friend, goofy but loveable and loyal to the end, no matter what end that might be. And his wife, caring and supportive, not as openly confrontational but just as fiercely independent.

From these four characters and this situation would come the groundswell of most situation comedies that would follow in the interim 50 years. Just as scholars look back at Shakespeare and find the source of much of the plot structure and character types which were produced in the following centuries, so too do a tremendous amount of sitcoms owe its inspiration to this show. (In many cases with plots and characters directly pilfered from it. Some may call it homage, I call it copying what works.) Remarkable, really, considering the show only ran for one season, and only 39 episodes were produced.

“The Honeymooners” is perhaps my favorite show of all time. Certainly it ranks in the top five. And definitely a great deal of my performance style, my love of comedy, my ear for verbal wit and timing, can be traced back to my childhood, and my fanship for Ralph, Alice, Norton and Trixie. I can’t remember a time in my life when I didn’t know “The Honeymooners,” actually.

Now, as we sit here 50 years to the day of the first episode of the “Classic 39” being aired, times certainly have changed. Three of the four main cast members have passed away, with only Joyce Randolph remaining. Many of my friends have never seen an episode of the show, and quite a few of them have never even heard of it, except in connection with the Cedric the Entertainer remake earlier this year. And as far as I can tell, there is no formal celebration for this television milestone being done anywhere.

Understandable, I suppose. Television is a cyclical medium. What is hot now will be forgotten next week. And this isn’t really even the “real” anniversary of the creation of the characters, which first appeared years before on Jackie Gleason’s variety program (exact dates are hard to come by - The Official Honeymooners Treasury lists the first sketch debuting in 1950, online sources list 1951- either way, predating its contemporary “I Love Lucy” and rebutting the claim that “Lucy came first”). And to a modern audience, viewing the shows for the first time, the story and characters depicted in “The Honeymooners” may seem cliché - because so many have copied it in the interim, they HAVE become cliché.

But the pioneers remain in our national consciousness, echoes of their impact seen most anywhere you can flip a dial. And beyond waxing rhapsodic about its significance, the show is simply funny - one of the greatest ever, even apart from its importance to its medium. Gleason, Meadows, Carney and Randolph took four characters which could have become over-the-top caricatures and instead made them sympathic, believable, funny, insightful - and immortal.

Baby, you were ALL the greatest.