Honeymooners Episode Reviews: "The Dinner Guest" & "Manager of Baseball Team" ('53):

[Frank Gannucci]

Honeymooners Episode Reviews: "The Dinner Guest" & "Manager of The Baseball Team" ('53 version):

Episode #51 (Syndicated episode #58)
TV: Attached to "Norton Moves In."
VCR: Attached to "Letter To The Boss" & "Suspense."
DVD: Attached to "Letter To The Boss", "Suspense" & "Ralph Kramden's Greatest Schemes."
Air Date: Sat. 5/2/53

The script for this episode is at UCLA Library Special Collections Box 109 Folder 14 Harry Crane Collection.

This episode opens up with the Kramdens having dinner with the Ralph's boss Freddie Muller and his wife. A different actor is playing Freddie in this episode. In future episodes, the role was filled by George Petrie. Fred says: "I ate so much the lid came of my pot." Ralph laughs and repeats what he said to Alice, the only thing is he gets the words mixed up so Fred corrects him. Ralph says that if Fred doesn't finish his turkey, Alice will make Ralph have turkey on Mon-Wed and have Apple pie on Thursday.

Ralph tries to talk to Fred about getting a promotion, but Alice cuts Ralph off by saying: "Would you two like to wash your hands?" They do just that. Ralph offers Fred a towel that says: "Hers." That's because all the "His"'s are being cleaned.

Ralph orders Alice to shut that door so he can talk to Alice. He says that every time Ralph wanted to talk to Fred about getting a promotion, Alice has cut him off. To some people, on paper this would seem like it's Alice's fault. But is it? The ending of this episode tells us the question. Ralph calls Fred a moax behind his back. Gee, that was very nice was it? Of course not. Ralph says to Alice that since she has been offering Fred food: "Am I trying to get that promotion or are you trying to become Fred's cook?" Fred comes out along with his wife so Ralph sings: "I wish I was in Dixie."

Ralph offers to play poker. The boss says no. He and his wife want to watch TV. Ralph says that if they had a TV Set, it would be getting repaired. The boss has a car and one of the things that he offers is a ride, then he offers to go to a drive-in movie. Ralph says no to both and in response to the latter, he says: "What for? We are all married." Alice says to Ralph to tell them that joke you heard the other day, but Alice accidentally says it herself. Ralph he has heard a 1000 better jokes. He doesn't know where he got that one. Fred: "I told you that joke the other day." Ouch!

Alice turns on the radio so they can listen to music. Ralph tries to talk business with Fred, but he gets cut off when Fred says don't turn the dial that is the type of music that he like, which is Mambo. I kind of like the song that's playing too in a way. All of them end up dancing to the music. When this clip was shown on the “Honeymooners Reunion” special in '85, the music was dubbed over by NBC with similar music. Musical clearances, maybe? Fred dances with Alice and Ralph dances with the boss' wife (Harriett). In the middle of all this, Ed Norton comes down. This is a scene that I like. Imagine if had a friend like Ed Norton, he came down to see you, comes right through your door (and in the process reveals one of their traits, not knocking on their friend's door, just barging right in), and sees you with people that s/he doesn't know and the people who s/he doesn't know doesn't know him either. Ed apologizes because he didn't know the Kramdens had company. He offers to dance to mambo correctly. Ed shows Harriett the right way to mambo. He dances in a very funny way. MPI video said in this episode: "Norton's patented body movements are precious as he steals the scene with his famous Mambo step."

Ed offers to show Ralph the correct way. Yes, he dances with Ralph. Ed accidentally steps on Ralph's foot. So Ralph yells: "AAAAAHHHHHH!" Jackie's facial expressions are great. Ed: "Now you are doing it." Ralph: "You stepped on my foot." Ralph turns off the radio. Ralph embarrasses Ed in front of Ralph's boss by yelling at him. Ed tells Alice the club meeting is tonight. Alice says that because of the company, she can't go. Fred and Harriett say don't worry, they have to go anyway. They leave. Ed leaves, but before he leaves he says his "goodbyes" to the boss and his wife and says that he enjoyed dancing with Harriett more than he did with Ralph. I can't blame him!

After they leave, Ralph gives Alice a tongue lashing about Alice cutting Ralph off whenever he wanted to talk business with the boss. Ralph: "Every time tat I want you to help me out, you fail me." Ralph says that every man in history has had a woman behind him. Ralph brings up Napoleon. Alice: "Don't tell me you are comparing yourself to Napoleon." Ralph: "There's one difference between me and Napoleon. He had his hand in his shirt because his hand was cold. I have my hand in there because my heart aches." Alice: "Why don't you jump out the window." Ralph: "You said that yesterday." Alice: "Yeah, but you didn't do it." I wonder why. Alice says that Ralph doesn't scare her. So Ralph says, that he may never be able to take Alice out. Alice says that the last time they went out, Ralph had a Raccoon coat on and they went to see Rudolph Valentino in "The Sheik."

The boss comes up to pick up his wife's purse. Ralph tries to talk business again but Alice cuts him off again. Fred says that he had to go to other dinners with some other bus drivers who work for the Gotham Bus Company and all they wanted to do was talk business but Ralph never said a word. It looks like Ralph is going to get his promotion after all. Right? Right? The boss leaves and then Ralph apologizes to Alice. Alice: "I love you Napoleon." Ralph: "Josephine, you're the greatest." They hug and kiss

Episode #52 (Syndicated episode #65)
TV: Attached to "Income Tax."
VCR: Attached to "Cupid."
DVD: Attached to "Teamwork Beats The Clock", "Quiz Show" & "The Wit & Wisdom of Ed Norton."
Air Date: 5/9/53

The script for this episode is at UCLA Library Special Collections Box 109 Folder 17 Harry Crane Collection. I don’t know if it’s the 1952 or 1953 version.

Before I start this review, let me say this. MPI has received a lot of complaints about accidentally attaching the 1953 version to "Hero" (where on the box, it advertises the 1957 version). They also have gotten a lot of complaints when they accidentally attached the 1953 episode to the DVD release that has "Teamwork Beats The Clock", "Quiz Show" & "The Wit & Wisdom of Ed Norton" (where once again on the box, it advertises the 1957 version.) MPI probably did it by mistake since the both versions of this episode are very much alike. In 2002, I managed to get the MPI cassette Vol. 28 that has the 1957 version of this episode (even though some versions of Vol. 28 have the '53 version on it.)

The episode opens up with Alice worrying about where Ralph is. Ed and Trixie come down. Alice says that she is worried about Ralph. He was supposed to come home a while ago. So, Trixie asks Ed to go outside and come back when he comes home. Ed says no because what's going to happen if he is in the hospital, he would have stayed out for nothing. Ed also says that because Ralph is married, he probably ran away. Ha! That's a very nice thing to say. Ed brings up a story about what happened to a person he knew. That person ran away and when the cops asked him questions, he didn't know anything. He was 3 years old. Ha!

Ralph comes home and has champagne for everyone. In fact, in the 1953 version of this episode, Ralph tires to open the bottle, but has a hard time doing so. That wasn't supposed to happen, so to cover it up, he says: "We will be drinking champagne if I can ever get this bottle open." He does. Ralph says that he is now the new manager of the Gotham Bus Depot. He always knew that he had the right qualifications. Yeah, sure he did. When Alice asks Ralph, how did he find out, Ralph says he heard it while walking by the president of the bus company's office. He later hears that a telegram will come tonight to confirm the whole thing. Ralph mentions that with him becoming the manager, he might even become the president. When he does become president, he's going to make some changes like having pretty stewardess on each bus and to make sure that those people who happened to miss the bus by one minute, he's going to make sure every bus starts a minute late. Question: Wouldn't that rule make some people a little angry that they might be one minute late to go to whatever they are going to? Just a thought. Ralph says that the salary he gets for being a manager is big. He says that with the money, he and Alice are going to go on a second honeymoon with Ed and Trixie and that Alice is going to get that bunion removed off her foot. Ralph also says that now that he's in the money, should he and Alice move out of this joint. He later says no. That place has been awful lucky to them. Yeah, sure it has.

After Ralph leaves, the telegram arrives saying that Ralph has become the manager all right. The manager of the Gotham City Baseball Team. Alice, Ed, and Trixie are all upset thinking that Ralph was becoming manager of the company and that all the plans that Ralph had for becoming president were not going to come to fruition for a while.

Ralph comes home and mentions about the respect Alice will get when she goes down to the store Ralph was just at. Ralph says with the money he's going to get, since it gets hot in the summertime, he's going to buy a mattress for this place. Yeah, Jackie made a blooper when he said that. Alice presents Ralph with the telegram and when Ralph reads it he's disappointed and apologizes to Alice. Alice says that Ralph is the most important thing in her life. They hug and kiss.

When I rented the video entitled: "Cupid/Manager of The Baseball Team (1953 version)" in 1996, I originally thought I was going to get a thirty-minute episode of Ralph being the baseball manager. (Imagine how funny that would be.) You can imagine my disappointment when I found out that the episode was less than fifteen minutes long.

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

[Frank Gannucci]

Bump