I did a tape trade with Videowack around the 2006 Holiday season and he supplied me with come Color Honeymooners episodes that I think were taped from the time the show was on the air. Here is the evidence:

1. Some of the episodes were episodes that were not released at that time by MPI.
2. The shows have the opening dance numbers as well as the original closing credits.
3. No TV rating is shown on the screen. TV ratings started to be shown in January 1997, six years before the show went into syndication.
4. No logo is on the screen.
5. Some of the episodes have the original commercial bumpers.
6. The episode entitled: "Sees All, Knows All" has the sponsor plugs.
7. I have read from some people that they have copies of an episode or two before the show went into syndication.

Now, I have a question. I read from Amazon.com this:

"MPI has also seen fit to edit the episodes! Jackie Gleason's closing segment is either truncated or removed altogether. I guess comments about next weeks show (which was not always a Honeymooners show) were there and MPI did not want to tell you what you would not see."

And then...

From what I can tell they have mainly excised the opening banter where Gleason would come out and talk to the audience before going into the sketches.Whether this is what MPI is doing or the way the film now exists I can't say as MPI so far has refused any correspondance I have thrown their way regarding this very subject.If I ever find out I will certainly let you know immediately."

Is this true? Because some of the homebrew copies I have don't have Gleason, at the top of the show, talking to the audience. I know some of his curtain calls were edited or removed altogether but not by MPI, by CBS. (Some of MPI's episodes were repeats that aired in 1968.)

If they're Trip to Europe episodes, they may be taped from syndicated airings in the mid to late 70s when those episodes, plus King of the Castle, were shown on local stations. In NY, they ran on WNEW (ch. 5) on Sunday evenings.

I don't remember seeing Gleason do a monologue on any of the Color Honeymooners shows, though he had one for the some of the non-Honeymooners shows I've seen. He always opened with the June Taylor Dancers and since the Honeymooners show opened with the dancers, I presumed that nothing was edited. The black and white kinescopes of Confusion Italian Style and Flushing Ho begin with the dancers after "Away We Go," though the sponsor tags are edited from the opening. (I believe these were 1968 reairings as they contain network commercials).

As for the closing, I suspect that footage was lifted when CBS reran those shows in 1968 or even in 1971 when Honeymooners shows ran Sunday nights at 10PM eastern. Certainly, any show that doesn't feature the curtain call music with Gleason walking out, but a cold opening with Gleason yelling "Good night, everybody" to an already applauding audience was edited. Truth be told, I'm grateful MPI chose to go with the original Gleason Show opening and the dancers, which were sliced off for the airings on ALN. As someone here observed, the credits run so fast on ALN, that the swaying palm trees look like Miami is having a hurricane! :lol:




I did a tape trade with Videowack around the 2006 Holiday season and he supplied me with come Color Honeymooners episodes that I think were taped from the time the show was on the air. Here is the evidence:

1. Some of the episodes were episodes that were not released at that time by MPI.
2. The shows have the opening dance numbers as well as the original closing credits.
3. No TV rating is shown on the screen. TV ratings started to be shown in January 1997, six years before the show went into syndication.
4. No logo is on the screen.
5. Some of the episodes have the original commercial bumpers.
6. The episode entitled: "Sees All, Knows All" has the sponsor plugs.
7. I have read from some people that they have copies of an episode or two before the show went into syndication.

Now, I have a question. I read from Amazon.com this:

"MPI has also seen fit to edit the episodes! Jackie Gleason's closing segment is either truncated or removed altogether. I guess comments about next weeks show (which was not always a Honeymooners show) were there and MPI did not want to tell you what you would not see."

And then...

From what I can tell they have mainly excised the opening banter where Gleason would come out and talk to the audience before going into the sketches.Whether this is what MPI is doing or the way the film now exists I can't say as MPI so far has refused any correspondance I have thrown their way regarding this very subject.If I ever find out I will certainly let you know immediately."

Is this true? Because some of the homebrew copies I have don't have Gleason, at the top of the show, talking to the audience. I know some of his curtain calls were edited or removed altogether but not by MPI, by CBS. (Some of MPI's episodes were repeats that aired in 1968.)

I know, having seen black-and-white kinescopes of the original airings of each, that due to time, "Ship of Fools" and "Be It Ever So Humble" have truncated closings, with Gleason coming out and bellowing, "G'night, everybody!" - and that was it. So it wasn't necessarily MPI's doing on that score. And prior to 1968, all openings and closings had sponsor plugs. Those, were cut out.

I do remember as clearly as the day is bright and the night is dark, the curtain speech from "Ralph Kramden Presents" where he told Sammy Spear, "Everything you did was wrong . . . that's the last time you'll be on." On the DVD set, that was left uncut, unlike ALN's airings.

But it seems that, indeed, all Color Honeymooners episodes, after the "And away we go!" spoken by either Judy Jordan (if pre-1968) or other Glea Girls (if post-1968), lead off with the obligatory musical number from the June Taylor Dancers.

The episodes that I have that were taped off of CBS were NOT the Trip To Europe Episodes. The episodes that I got in 2007 (long before MPI released them) are:

"King of The Castle"
"Out of Sight, Out of Mind" (with the original sponsor plugs)
"Two Faces of Ralph Kramden"
"Sleepy Time Gal"
"Case of The Cuckoo Thief"