Color Honeymooners on DVD News

[gilligan fanatic]

http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/newsitem.cfm?NewsID=4313

[bubba2000]

i am glad they are going to release these color episodes but there is more i would rather have. I have the classic 39 dvd set and all the sets of the lost episodes (there are six sets with four disks each), but is that all the lost episodes? Did they leave anything out? I'm not sure.
Also, I would kill to get the DUMont Pert Kelton episodes on dvd. I know they have the rights to these (am i wrong?). Why won't they release these over the color episodes.
What about the specials they made in the 1970s. Those are so rare.
The color episodes would be interesting to see, but I would have no need to get them all. Besides they show these on cable.
What the story with them not releasing Pert Kelton on DVD. Is she still black listed (joking).

[gilligan fanatic]

What the story with them not releasing Pert Kelton on DVD. Is she still black listed (joking).

I think for the most part The Cavalace of Stars episodes are realy lost or are in very terrible shape. I think they were made in kinescope so I don't think even in 1951 when they first aired they were that good quality.

[Dr. Thong]

When I saw the thread title, I thought they were going to colorize the classic episodes!! Whew!! I remember seeing a colorized episode in the mid-'80s - this is when colorization of b&w was a new novelty - and it looked as though a child colored it with a crayon.

I'm not crazy about the later color episodes because it wasn't the classic cast (no Audrey Meadows or Joyce Randolph) and because they were musicals. Besides, The Honeymooners just don't look right in color. That probably sounds weird, but that's my story and I'm sticking to it!

[W.B.]

To be fair, Sheila MacRae and Jane Kean never set out to emulate or imitate their respective predecessors in the roles they played, and to be sure they were different. But the Color Episodes do have things to recommend them, to be sure, and Gleason and Carney are the key. And in some cases, I actually prefer the color remakes to the "Lost" originals. Like "Ralph Kramden Presents" (03/18/1967) over the original "Catch a Star" (12/15/1956).

I, for one, am looking forward to the DVD releases of these shows - if only to free up shelf space currently occupied by my tapings of these episodes on the AmericanLife (ex-GoodLife) cable channel.

And for those who'd like to see Pert Kelton - she did appear (and as Alice's mother, yet!) in the 03/04/1967 "Rififi - Brooklyn Style" episode, remade from the 1955 "The Great Jewel Robbery."

[Bill S.]

I'm not crazy about the later color episodes because it wasn't the classic cast (no Audrey Meadows or Joyce Randolph) and because they were musicals. Besides, The Honeymooners just don't look right in color. That probably sounds weird, but that's my story and I'm sticking to it!

I agree, in most cases I prefer the Lost Episodes over the color remakes. Even the 57 Europe episodes tend to annoy me when they break out in song and dance. The whole mood of the show completely changes when it's in color. It's hard for me to describe it but there's just something about that scratchy, dark black & white feel that makes me love the show even more. Take that away and I'm lost. Plus Gleason and Carney were in their prime back in the 50's. In the color shows, you see them getting older and sometimes even heavier. To me that's almost depressing, and probably the reason I haven't taken the time to watch the anniversary specials from the 70's. Gleason knew at that point that "the honeymoon was over."

[Dr. Thong]

I agree, in most cases I prefer the Lost Episodes over the color remakes. Even the 57 Europe episodes tend to annoy me when they break out in song and dance. The whole mood of the show completely changes when it's in color. It's hard for me to describe it but there's just something about that scratchy, dark black & white feel that makes me love the show even more. Take that away and I'm lost. Plus Gleason and Carney were in their prime back in the 50's. In the color shows, you see them getting older and sometimes even heavier. To me that's almost depressing, and probably the reason I haven't taken the time to watch the anniversary specials from the 70's. Gleason knew at that point that "the honeymoon was over."

I may have said this before, but I'm also not a fan of musicals, so those episodes do nothing for me.

Even the non-musical (I remember them as being non-musical, at any rate) revival specials in the '70s weren't the same. They got Audrey Meadows back, but Gleason was graying and Ralph Kramden does not look right with a mustache. They were better than the musical episodes, however and they weren't without some of the old charm.

Sometimes it's best to leave well enough alone, though I would take any of the color episodes over Cedric The Entertainer's "remake" of The Honeymooners. I did not go see that and I will never watch it on TV!!:mad:

[W.B.]

There are some bits in the "Color Episodes" that I actually prefer to the "Lost" versions. In "Be It Ever So Humble," for example, there was a bit of Norton playing the violin - very creakily, I might add - while Ralph was attempting to paint the apartment. That was obviously put in because the segment in the original source "Lost" episode, "My Fair Landlord," was all but passé, what with Norton watching The Mickey Mouse Club on TV. Also, I thought that the 1967 "Ralph Kramden Presents" was more in sync with what the show had become by that point, rather than the 1956 "Lost" "Catch a Star."

Also . . . prior to getting the ex GoodLife channel (now American Life), the only way I saw many of these episodes was via B&W kinescopes at the Museum of Television & Radio in New York - though the Gleason estate owns the color videotapes, fortunate for all of us who get the channel. And fortunate for the coming DVD releases.