Jackie Gleason (left) and THE HONEYMOONERS: Art Carney, Audrey Meadows, and Joyce Randolph (CBS) 1955
A new version will feature two couples, one of whom just remarried four years after getting divorced, and have a modern-setting but still draw inspiration from the 1950s sitcom that starred Jackie Gleason as Ralph Kramden and Audrey Meadows as his wife Alice.
Bob Kushell, executive producer and writer of The Honeymooners reboot, previously oversaw ABC’s relaunch of Muppets, which was canceled after one season. Eric and Kim Tannenbaum are also producers on the new series who previously helped re-launch another classic, The Odd Couple.
The Honeymooners debuted as a sketch in 1951 on the variety show Cavalcade of Stars. When Gleason started his own program, The Jackie Gleason Show, he brought the sketch with him. The Honeymooners became a half-hour sitcom in October 1955 and it ran in that format for just 39 episodes.
Hopefully it’ll do better than Cedric the Entertainer’s “Honeymooners” movie, which bombed at the box office in 2005.