Last night I stumbled upon a website called Archival Television Audio that has a number of Gleason/Honeymooners items for sale. Looking through their online database, I discovered that they had the audio for a number of the American Scene shows, as well as Gleason specials like "The Big Sell" and "Million Dollar Incident." They also list episodes of the 60s Jackie Gleason Show that featured the following short Honeymooners sketches: "Lawsuit" (1/4/69); "Hot Tip" (2/8/69); "The New Bowling Ball" (3/22/69); and "The New Manager" (4/19/69). This may seem like good news to fans that have been trying to find some of this material, but after submitting an order inquiry for "The Big Sell," I found out that they were asking for over $100 for that show alone. I don't know what the prices are for any of the other shows, but for anyone that's interested (I know Frank's been looking for those shorter sketches), here's a link to the Gleason material they have for sale:

http://www.atvaudio.com/ata_search_qs.php?QS=Y&keywords=jackie%20gleason

Thank you. I will look into them. I hope the prices aren't too high.

$100 would sound about right, at one time I know they were charging close to $50 per half hour, sounds like prices have stayed about the same. On the flip side, the do have some brief audio samples including the "theme" from Jackie's 1961 "The Jackie Gleason Show" talk show which is close to the same Dixieland-style "Melancholy Serenade" thay was used on a couple of the 1970s rerunion specials.

I EMAILED HIM ABOUT A PRICE ON THIS SHOW HE WANTED 185.00 WHICH IS TO HIGH FOR JUST A AUDIO OF THE SHOW.

$185 for just audio? Forget that! For $185 we''ll all get together and perform the show ourselves.

I WOULD PAY 185.00 FOR THE DVD OF THE SHOW BUT NOT FOR JUST THE AUDIO FOR JUST THE AUDIO I WOULD PAY 65.00 TO 70.00

I was dissappointed when I found out that the 5 episodes that I was interested in were $75 each. That's $450.

I am not paying that much.

That's way too much to be paying for just audio! It would be awesome if they were selling the DVD version.

$185 for just audio? Forget that! For $185 we''ll all get together and perform the show ourselves.

That's hilarious!!! We all should get together and put on a show.

I EMAILED HIM ABOUT A PRICE ON THIS SHOW HE WANTED 185.00 WHICH IS TO HIGH FOR JUST A AUDIO OF THE SHOW.
Something tells me that this high price may have either been dictated by the Gleason estate, or else he charged the high price in a sop to the estate. Not to mention it being, ahem, copyrighted . . .

you are right he does not have the right to sell the audio wonder if jackie gleason's family knows about this guy should someone tell them.

...was (and still is) an avid recorder of TV soundtracks, right off the speaker as they were originally broadcast. Only he started in the early '60s, when there were hardly any home "video recorders" in existance [Red Skelton owned an elaborate reel-to-reel video recorder, which enabled him to tape a portion of one of his appearances on "THE JACK PAAR SHOW" in 1960; the tape exists...and Johnny Carson owned one of the first Sony reel-to-reel recorders for "home use" in 1965]- if he HAD a video recorder back then, his archive would be more than priceless! I've seen his catalog, and I'm impressed: I've heard things I thought had vanished long ago...including his audio taping of the first NBC-TV bulletin of Presdient Kennedy's assasination around 1:45pm(et) on November 22, 1963 [delivered by Don Pardo]; even the network doesn't have ANY copies of that, audio or video.


However, he DOES charge extraordinary fees for private duplication of his material. Gleason's estate owns the original kinescopes and videotapes of almost everything Jackie did for CBS [he was very shrewd in obtaining copies of his shows as part of his contract, as the network rarely saved or kept any of their copies of them]; as long as Archival Television Audio doesn't make a big deal about selling them, the estate doesn't bother with him.

:tv:

...was (and still is) an avid recorder of TV soundtracks, right off the speaker as they were originally broadcast. Only he started in the early '60s, when there were hardly any home "video recorders" in existance [Red Skelton owned an elaborate reel-to-reel video recorder, which enabled him to tape a portion of one of his appearances on "THE JACK PAAR SHOW" in 1960; the tape exists...and Johnny Carson owned one of the first Sony reel-to-reel recorders for "home use" in 1965]- if he HAD a video recorder back then, his archive would be more than priceless! I've seen his catalog, and I'm impressed: I've heard things I thought had vanished long ago...including his audio taping of the first NBC-TV bulletin of Presdient Kennedy's assasination around 1:45pm(et) on November 22, 1963 [delivered by Don Pardo]; even the network doesn't have ANY copies of that, audio or video.


However, he DOES charge extraordinary fees for private duplication of his material. Gleason's estate owns the original kinescopes and videotapes of almost everything Jackie did for CBS [he was very shrewd in obtaining copies of his shows as part of his contract, as the network rarely saved or kept any of their copies of them]; as long as Archival Television Audio doesn't make a big deal about selling them, the estate doesn't bother with him.

:tv:


Very interesting details! Thanks for sharing the information!