I always thought it would've been funny if Lucy somehow got entangled with Ralph Kramden.
Both larger-than-life character were major over-reactors, and I can just see the two of
them in some sort of scuffle. Alice and Ricky would have to be there, as well, to smooth
things out.
Can't imagine Ball or Gleason really working together. He HATED rehearsals, and Lucy
believed in constant rehearsal (I'm with her).
Thoughts?
Ball, the stickler for rehearsals vs. Gleason who avoided them at all cost. LOL
I have several books about The Honeymooners. The rest of the cast would get together and rehearse without Jackie Gleason. He thought rehearsing ruined the spontaneity of comedy. Luckily he was blessed with a great memory. he'd read a script and have it almost memorized.
Lucille Ball rehearsed, especially those bits of physical comedy, over and over.
I wonder how rehearsals would have gone if these two comedy giants got together? hmmmm....
But in several ways Lucy Ricardo and Ralph Kramden were similar types. Lucy was always trying to make it big in show business and Ralph was always trying to make it big in the business world to make money. The comedy came from their endless failures.
But Ralph could have never dealt with a wife like Lucy. She bought fifty dollar hats and Ralph threw a fit when Alice wanted to get a phone! Their apartment didn't even have curtains. No way could Lucy have lived in two room flat with no furniture.
Yeah, but the Ricardos were much more well-off than the Kramdens. Their apartment was very, very depressing,
whereas the Ricardo apartments were modest, but nicely furnished.
Two bad Gleason quit after that first 39. He figured with the live sketch versions from his TV show, it has all been
done. But I would have no interest in those rehash "specials" with Sheila McCrae. Audrey Meadows was the
ONLY Alice for me!
Yes the Ricardos had more money, no doubt! I just meant that Lucy would not be able to live on a shoestring like Alice!
In one episode Alice does say to Ralph that Norton makes about the same salary as he does. But the Norton apartment was a lot nicer. They had a TV and modern appliances. Ed Norton was willing to buy on credit. Ralph didn't like to spend a nickel! lol
Actually Ralph only liked to spend any extra cash on himself. Alice wanted a TV and he said to Norton that "she wants to use my bowling money and my lodge dues to pay for it."
Ralph paid for his outside interests but he expected Alice to sit alone and wait for him to come home. Lucy was way too strong a personality to sit by passively.
From what I read, Jackie Gleason wanted to keep the Kramden apartment just like the cold water tenement flat where he grew up.
On Youtube recently, someone uploaded a "Christmas Special" from 1977. Audrey Meadows returned as Alice,
although "Trixie" was nowhere in sight (this was a 90-minute special).
To my shock, they recreated the SAME SET (!) and we were supposed to buy Ralph and Alice STILL living in
the same tenement they had lived in twenty years before!
This wasn't funny to me. It was TRAGIC! And Alice was now a bitchy fish wife (and what wife WOULDN'T
be bitter??). Meadows had lost her charm - just had Ball had in her subsequent two series. It just didn't
come off, despite Gleason and Carney still possessing the same old magic.
Again, Elizabeth Montgomery was soooooo smart to not "go there" (unlike Ball, Meadows, Gleason, Mary
Tyler Moore - in TWO series' rehashes - Barbara Eden, Barbara Feldon, etc.).
I saw a few of those Honeymooner specials which aired in the seventies. The Kramdens were STILL living in that dreary tenement with no furniture and no curtains.
It was really stretching credulity to think that they would still be living like that. At the very least I think Alice would have said, "Screw this!" and gotten a job to buy a few sticks of furniture and a TV set.
The series was hilarious in the 1950's but it's hard to believe that a couple in new York City with no children would live like they were so poverty stricken for the rest of their lives!
Yes, Elizabeth Montgomery was wise not to try and rehash Samantha's life after all those years.
I've often thought of this too, and I get the feeling that a crossover eventually would have taken place if The Honeymooners had stuck around a little longer.
We'll never know, but I wonder how the two shows would have meshed. I feel like tonally, they had a very distinct difference; I Love Lucy was a very upbeat show while The Honeymooners could get rather drearily and downright depressing at times.
Also, comparing Lucy to Ralph is interesting. Maybe I'm over thinking this, but I feel like Lucy's schemes were usually better thought out and made a little more sense than some of the stuff that Ralph came up with.