Honeymooners Episode Reviews: "Letter To The Boss" ('55) & "Stand-In For Murder" ‘55

[Frank Gannucci]

Honeymooners Episode Reviews: "Letter To The Boss" ('55) & "Stand-In For Murder" ('55):

Episode #108
TV: Only shown once on TV.
DVD: Attached to “Boys & Girls Together”, “Principle of The Thing”, “Songs & Witty Sayings”, “Stand-In For Murder” (’55 version), “Double Anniversary Party”, “The Check-Up” & “Forgot To Register.”
Color Episode Title: "To Whomever It May Concern."
Lost Episode Title: "Letter To The Boss."
Air Date: Sat. 5/21/55

"Letter To The Boss" ('55):

Alice is home and Trixie stops by to borrow a cup. Alice is taking out the right sleeves in Ralph's underwear. His right arm gets hot in the bus. His left one doesn't, because that's the arm he puts out the window. After Alice and Trixie make plans, Trixie leaves. Ralph come home and says that he's not hungry because he's just been fired from the bus company after ten years. Ralph complains about all the inconveniences he had to put up with as a driver like drunks trying to get on the bus without paying, old women yelling at him etc. Alice: "Don't worry Ralph. You'll get another job." Ralph: "Sure, I will but not a good one like this one." Ha! He also brings up some job ads listed in the paper, but they are all for women. Alice: "Swell. That will take care for tonight, but what about tomorrow?" Ha! Ralph says that they will have to change their style of living and move out of here into a cheaper apartment and sell this furniture and get some second-hand stuff. Ha!

Ralph mentions that they should live with Alice's parents for the time being but Alice nixes that idea. Ralph mentions that he only quit school during the sixth grade. It would have been worse if he continued his schooling because it would be embarrassing if he, as a college graduate, being fired from a bus company. Ed Norton comes down, expecting to go bowling. Ralph says that he lost his job. Ed tries to cheer Ralph up, but only makes Ralph feel worse. Ralph hits on the idea that he will write a nasty letter to Mr. J.J. Marshall. Alice objects but her opinion falls on deaf ears. Ralph tells Norton to write what Ralph says. Here is the letter:

"Dear Mr. Marshall:

You dirty bum! You are a miserable low-life. You ought to turn in your membership card to the human race. After nine years of loyal service, I can truthfully say that you are the world's meanest man. You dirty bum!"

MPI Video says that this is a classic Kramden letter. Honeymooners.net said that the line of: "You dirty bum!" is delivered with such conviction that it looks like Ralph invented the insult for the occasion. This should to be shown to every getting a job-related class under the heading: "What not to write to your boss after you get fired." Both claims are probably correct. Ralph: "Sign it!’ Respectfully yours: Etc. Etc.'" Ed puts down S.W.A.K. on the letter which means “Sealed With A Kiss.” Ha! Ed goes out to mail the letter and says that he could get Ralph a job in the sewer. All he has to do is pass the floating test. Ha! Ed leaves. Ralph says to Alice that he used to get little kids on the bus and that he would let them pretend that they are driving the bus. Ralph: "Wait a minute! It's probably one of those brats that is taking my job." Freddie Muller comes by and says that Ralph hasn't been fired, but promoted. Ralph leaves to go get Ed before he mails the letter but not before he accidentally hits himself by walking into the door. Ha!

At the bowling alley, Ed fools around the custodian. He says that since he forgot to mail the letter and asks the custodian to mail it. What does the custodian get in return? Advice from Ed which is always look before you cross the street. Ha! Ralph comes in and finds out that his letter has been mailed and is worried that he will be really fired. Ed: "If he fires, you, send him another nasty letter." Ha! Ed is wearing his traditional Ed Norton outfit. Ralph says that a person like Mr. Marshall has buttons. One button so a secretary can come in with water. Another one in which a secretary comes in with mail. Ed: “Who wants that job? I will settle for those buttons.” Ralph hatches a plan to get the letter out of the mailbox. Ed: "What do I get in return?" Ralph: "That's a very selfish thing to say after what I did for you. Remember that race last year? You needed money to bet on that horse." Ed: "You didn't give me the money?" Ralph: "Yeah, the horse lost didn't he?" The policeman hears their plan. Ralph and Ed lie to him saying that they are rehearsing for a play. Ed (to the policeman): "Remember that 3rd grade class play and you were a tree?" Ralph says that he will give the policeman tickets. He leaves. Ed says that they have to get his address so they can send him the tickets. Ralph: "Only I have got a bosom friend like this."

They go outside to get the letter out of the mailbox. Ralph tells Ed to keep a look out in case someone comes by. Ed: "If you are worried about people seeing you getting a letter out of there, how do you think they will react when they see you climbing into it?" Ralph tries to get the letter out, but Ed says that someone is coming and scars Ralph and in the process, Jackie accidentally falls backward into the obviously fake background that was nothing more than sheets. Ed says that he was just practicing. Jackie covers for the blooper by saying: “What are you trying to do, give me a heart attack or something? For a while there, everything started to swim.” The crowd applauds. Ed examines the problem and ahs a solution which is he can’t get the ladder out. They try to pick up the mailbox and shake it. A mailman comes by. Ralph tries to cover it up. Ralph says that he has a letter in there and he needs the mailman to get it out. The mailman says that he can’t. The mailman gets the mail out of the box and the custodian comes by and says that he just gave the letter that Ed gave him to the mailman.

The next day, Ralph tries to get the letter before his boss reads it. I guess the mail travels fast on the Honeymooners. He fails and the boss reads Ralph's letter. He doesn't mind the insults because he always gets them but becomes “mad” when the author didn't sign his name. Ralph happily faints. I put mad in quotes because I don’t think the actor sounded mad when he found out that the author didn’t sign his name. The part about Mr. Marshall being mad about the author not signing his name was written in the description of the 1953 version.

At home, Ralph plans to go to the Royal Chinese Gardens and explains Alice the good news. Ed comes down. Ralph: “If you Ed were any prettier, I would kiss you.” Ed explains the fact that he went down and said Ralph didn't mean all of those insults that he wrote in the letter. He felt he had to do it out of niceness. Ed says that Mr. Marshall wants to see Ralph first thing in the morning. Ed: "Whenever you are in trouble, Ed Norton lives upstairs." Ralph faints.

Episode #109
TV: Only seen once. It was shown at a R.A.L.P.H. convention in 1985. One of the people who posted on this board saw it. (I don't know who it was. Might have been Videowack.)
VHS/DVD: For whatever reason, only the older and unfinished version has been released. Not this one. On The Best of Honeymooners Lost Episodes Volume 1, it is attached to ““A Weighty Problem”, “A Little Man Who Wasn’t There” & “Songwriters.” On the Restored Lost Episodes DVD Box Set, it is attached to “Songs & Witty Sayings”, “Boys & Girls Together”, “Letter To The Boss” (‘’55 version), “Principle of the Thing”, “Double Anniversary Party”, “The Check-Up” & “Forgot To Register.”
Color Episode Title: "Two Faces of Ralph Kramden."
Lost Episode Title: "Stand-In For Murder."
Air Date: Sat. 6/4/55

"Stand-In For Boss" ('55):

A mob boss, who is a dead ringer for Ralph, is holed up in his apartment because a rival gang leader, Barney Hackett, wants to bump him off. The guy (played by Jackie Gleason) wants to go to South America with the rest of the gang. Nick, one of his henchmen, just came of a bus in which the driver looks exactly like his boss. I wonder why? Nick (played by George Petrie) says that he offered the driver the idea of being a boss of an insurance executive at an insurance company. When Ralph up in the apartment, the will get the rival mob gang to kill Ralph. (The rival gang will think that Ralph is the boss of the other gang.) Boss: "When that happens, we will all go to South America and it will be a Mardi Gras for the rest of my years."

Alice is home mixing plaster. She dances to music on the radio (it isn’t “In The Mood” like it was in the 1954 version). Ed comes in and dances to the music with the bowl of plaster in his hands. Alice turns off the radio. Ed suggests that they all go out dancing one night. Ralph hates dancing so Ed says to bring the bowl. Ed tastes the plaster thinking it was icing. He tells Alice that. Ralph comes home. Ralph then says that one person offered him the job of being an insurance executive of an insurance company (whose name he doesn't even know). Alice gets suspicious. Ralph says that Alice has got no faith in him. Alice then offers Ralph and Ed some food for dinner. Ed helps himself and takes more on his dish than Ralph does. Ralph: "I'm mad at Alice because she thinks that there is no one stupid enough to offer me a job." Ed: "This guy sounds stupid enough." The guy who offered Ralph the job, Nick along with Frank, come in. They give Ralph the job. Ralph & Ed, being stupid, believe them. Ralph says that he doesn't want to leave the driving job if this job wasn't steady. Man: "I'll tell you, you will have this job for the rest of your life." Ralph asks about salary. If I were offered a job, I wouldn’t ask about salary. They start by offering Ralph $400 a week. Ralph coughs. The money is raised to $500. Ralph coughs more. They raise their offer to $600. Ralph: "Norton, give me some water." Ed: "Keep coughing Ralph. You will be a millionaire in no time." They give him the money in advance. Ralph & Ed, being stupid, still believe them. They also offer Ralph a Park Avenue apartment, and a chauffeured limousine. Alice can't stay with Ralph for the first days because the president will be in town and having Alice around will make the situation worse. Sure, it will. They leave and Alice comes back. Ralph tells Alice what happened and the news about the job and when Ralph shows Alice the money, believe it or not, Alice believes the job is true. She is mad because he has to stay here for the first few days of Ralph’s new job. Now, she believes that the job is phony.

On the first day of the job, the boss is talking with one of his henchmen about how they are going to knock of Ralph. They are going to put Ralph in there as bait and when he opens up the blinds that will be the signal for the Hackett mob to shoot and kill. A knock on the door is heard, so the boss hides in back of a screen. The henchman takes his time to answer the door. He probably did that to give Jackie more time to go into his Ralph Kramden character. (Remember back then, they didn't have the technology to put two characters played by one person in the same room on TV plus this episode was done live.) Ralph Kradmen comes in (complete with audience applauding) and says that this apartment looks nicer than his old one when it was brand new. They just revealed the fact that there was a passageway that led to the apartment hallway. He gets shown the bedroom, while the henchman talks from the main room what Ralph can find in the bedroom. He locks the bedroom door while the boss emerges (complete with audience applauding) from in back of the screen. That's revealing the fact that the "bedroom" had a passageway that lead to the back of the screen. Ed Norton comes in and talks to the boss thinking that it is Ralph. He even takes the bosses hat and "improves" it. That's funny. The boss and the henchman leave. Ralph emerges from the bedroom which by this time was unlocked by Frank. Ralph greets Ed and asks him when he got here. Ed says that he was just talking to him. Ralph: "I guess I didn't hear you." Nick comes by and said that he spoke to Hackett personally and that he was double crossing the boss. Right now, the Hackett mob is staked out in a room across from the apartment and that when they leave they are going to call Ralph and get him to open the shades and that is when Ralph will get killed. (Hackett isn’t wise to the switch. They soon leave. The phone rings and its Nick. He says that they just got Ralph a new car. Ralph goes to the window to open the blinds but changes his mind when Ed says that they can view it outside. They leave and slam the door which causes the blinds to open and the mob from across the street (which incidentally is the Hackett mob) starts shooting. Things are knocked down, yet aside from the window, no other bullet holes are shown. Ralph & Ed don’t suspect a thing.

Next, Nick sends Ralph to Hackett's headquarters (a bar), to "sell him insurance." (One of the characters who played part of the other gang is also playing parts of Barney Hackett’s gang. One of them is actually playing Barney Hackett. Ed & Ralph walk in. A fly is heard. Ed is trying to swat it. The fly is buzzing real loud. So loud that it couldn’t be a real one. When Ralph & Ed speak to the bartender and ask for Barney Hackett, Ed swats the fly and scares the bartender into getting Barney Hackett. Somehow, the bartender doesn’t think that Ed was swatting a fly. When Ralph walks in, Hackett thinks it's his archenemy looking for a showdown. Ralph doesn't suspect a thing. Barney's gang is shown to Ralph and Hackett calls him his family. Ralph: "Lovely family." Just as Ralph is invited to step into the back room, a cop walks in and insists that Ralph move his car.

When Ralph shows up at the apartment again with Ed, Nick decides they'll have to bump off Ralph themselves, and then dump his body in front of Hackett's joint. He mistakes his boss for Ralph, “knocks him cold”, and deposits him in the bedroom. They leave and Ralph hears a knock on the door. It's Alice. Alice comes by to visit Ralph on his first day on the job. She now believes that the job is real. Another knock on the door is heard and it's the boss' girlfriend. She hugs Ralph (thinking he is the boss) and Alice sees it and spark fly. Ralph says that he doesn't know her while the girl claims that he does. She leaves. Ralph then spots the boss on the bed. Alice then calls the cops in the den. Nick & Frank come in. They think that they are talking to Ralph & try to explain what they did. They give Ralph the gun so they can shoot “Ralph.” Ralph gets the gun and points it at them and tells them to get their hands up. Alice takes the gun. A police siren is heard. The episode ends. Ralph’s “new career” comes to an end.

On the Lost Episodes DVD Box Set, we get the curtain call. Jackie comes out and joked that he hasn’t made that many costume changes since he was six. He brings out Audrey and Art for their bow. He then talks about last week’s episode of the Jackie Gleason Show and how he forgot to thank the Disc Jockeys of America. He then plugs next week’s episode of the Jackie Gleason Show that is going to feature the other Gleason characters that the people have asked to see. He also mentioned to the people next week to help out the people like bus drivers because it is National Safety Week. He then talks about how last year’s version of this episode ran overtime and this one has ran long on time. He tries to eat up some time by telling a story about Ray being in a bar in Las Vegas and having a drink during the time that the A-Bomb was heard. Due to the abundance of time, Jackie made a joke when he said that he wished he was there. He gets the cue from a person off stage to end the show. He then jokes that now he doesn’t want to leave and they can run the credits off of him. Ha! With that, that is the end.

Credit I think goes to (the original) Bill's 'Mooners Archives, eBay.com, the now defunct tv.com, Honeymooners Lost Episodes Book, tvguide.com, honeymooners.net, Honeymooners Lost Episodes DVD booklet, Wikipedia.org, the now defunct Yahoo Groups You're A Riot! & Amazon.com.

[Frank Gannucci]

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