'Honeymooners' night at UCLA's Billy Wilder Theater

[Benno123]

The looks of it from this article, it sounds like UCLA has been restoring the "lost episodes" and three will be shown tonight. Though I must point out that "Jellybeans" has been released and is easily available from MPI on VHS.

From the LA Times

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment...,4253077.story

'Honeymooners' night at UCLA's Billy Wilder Theater
Three of the early live sketches from Jackie Gleason's variety show have been restored and will be shown at the theater at the Hammer Museum. How sweet it is indeed.

By Susan King

Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

It was Orson Welles who gave Jackie Gleason the moniker "The Great One" when the filmmaker and the comic genius were out on the town one night.

Gleason, who died in 1987 at age 71, was also known as "Mr. Saturday Night" because he dominated Saturday night programming on CBS from 1951 until 1970. Just as with Lucille Ball in "I Love Lucy," the former nightclub performer became a superstar on TV in the medium's earliest days, creating such beloved characters as the poignant Poor Soul, the exuberant Reggie Van Gleason III and the chatty Joe the Bartender. But he's best remembered for Ralph Kramden, the blustery bus driver who dreamed of a better life and never met a get-rich-quick scheme he didn't like, on "The Honeymooners."

Gleason introduced "The Honeymooners" on Oct. 5, 1951, when he was appearing on the small DuMont Network in the variety show "Cavalcade of Stars." Pert Kelton played Kramden's wife, Alice. Art Carney was his upstairs neighbor, sewer worker Ed Norton, and Elaine Stritch played Norton's wife, Trixie. Stritch was replaced after that first episode by Joyce Randolph.

Less than a year later, Gleason had his own Saturday evening musical-variety series on CBS. "The Honeymooners" went with him, although with Audrey Meadows replacing Kelton. Those sketches continued until "The Honeymooners" became a stand-alone series on CBS in 1955-56 -- those episodes are called the "classic 39" and are constantly seen in reruns -- and continued when Gleason returned to the variety format the following season.

The UCLA Film and Television Archive has restored these early live sketches and is screening three of them Monday at the Billy Wilder Theater in L.A. Among those looking forward to the event is Gleason's daughter, Geraldine Chutuk.

"I haven't seen what the restoration is going to look like," Chutuk says. "It's been a long time coming. Other things I have seen restored makes you think you are looking at a live piece. One of the sketches they are going to be showing, 'Jellybeans,' has never been seen before. It's never been released, so this is going to be fun."

Chutuk donated to the archive copies of the shows from the original kinescopes. "We have done digital restoration on them," says Pauline Stakelon, digital initiatives specialist for the archive. "I think the image itself for a kinescope looks pretty great."

Chutuk says Ralph Kramden was based on people her father knew: "He used to say that Ralph and Alice lived above us in our apartment in Brooklyn. In those days, you could hear everything in those railroad apartments. He knew a lot of people like that, and he took them from real life."

Ron Simon, curator at the Paley Center for Media Study, believes there is a little Ralph Kramden in all of us. "I mean that is part of being an American -- having this great dream. You have a scheme that somehow will make you rich and famous, but somehow it really always thwarts you."

susan.king@latimes.com
Copyright © 2010, Los Angeles Times

[Benno123]

More info about the screening:

From the UCLA Website at http://www.cinema.ucla.edu/calendar/...screening_1484

Monday October 11 2010, 7:30PM ( Free Admission )
Restored by the UCLA Film & Television Archive with funding provided by MPI Home Video. Screening permitted by Jackie Gleason Enterprises, LLC.
THE JACKIE GLEASON SHOW: "THE HONEYMOONERS" 1952-54

Before "The Honeymooners" became a landmark of American television as a sitcom in the mid-1950s, Jackie Gleason developed the show's iconic, unadorned presentation of working-class married life in a series of sketches on "The Jackie Gleason Show." This evening will include a selection of "Honeymooners" sketches restored from 16mm kinescopes and a discussion of the digital techniques required to bring the kinescope image up to today's standards.
"THE NEXT CHAMP"
(1954) Directed by Jack Hurdle

4/10/1954.
Executive Producer: Jack Philbin. Screenplay: Frank Satenstein, Marvin Marx, Walter Stone, Syd Zelinka, Leonard Stein. Cast: Jackie Gleason, Audrey Meadows, Art Carney. DVcam, B/W, 60 min.

Preceded by...
"JELLYBEANS"
(1952)

11/22/1952.
Cast: Jackie Gleason, Audrey Meadows, Art Carney. DVcam, B/W, 8 min.

"THE COLD"
(1952)

11/1/1952.
Cast: Jackie Gleason, Audrey Meadows, Art Carney. DVcam, 8 min.

IN PERSON: Pauline Stakelon, Digital Initiatives Specialist, UCLA Film & Television Archive.
Total Running Time of Program: approx 90 min.

[ChrisTV]

This looks & sounds like the restoration we have been waiting for years for. Let's hope they get everything right!!

Found this link regarding this restoration as well as others...

http://www.variety.com/article/VR111...ryId=2522&cs=1

[Benno123]

Awesome, thanks Chris! When I looked earlier for any additional info I could not find it, so this must have popped up just recently!

*** EDIT ***

I see that this is from July, I don't recall reading this or not, but if it's slipped my mind it's great to see this again! Thanks, Chris!