Summary

The premiere of this comedy/variety series featuring Jackie Gleason, with topical humor that satirizes current events. This program includes a sketch of "The Honeymooners," based on the series of programs about Ralph Kramden, a blustery bus driver, his long-suffering wife Alice, and their neighbors Ed and Trixie Norton. Guest star Art Carney reprises his role as Ed Norton and Gleason reprises his role as Ralph Kramden. In this sketch, Alice (played here by Sue Ane Langdon) and the Nortons want to go to Atlantic City for a vacation, but Ralph insists that they spend their vacation in the cellar practicing civil defense by trying to survive in the simulated air raid shelter for a week. After the women refuse to participate, Ralph and Ed go into the cellar, and Ralph locks the door and throws away the key. Also featured is a sketch entitled "The Retouchables," a musical-comedy spoof about the violence on the program "The Untouchables," with Reginald Van Gleason III as Eliot Flesh. Flesh goes undercover to discover the identity of "Mr. Big," the boss of a group of gangsters, and meets a brash chanteuse, Blanche La Touche. Other highlights of the program include a dance number by the June Taylor Dancers, whom Gleason later joins in a kickline; the Newton Brothers -- featuring a young Wayne Newton singing lead on banjo and guitar in his television debut-- perform "Ma, She's Makin' Eyes at Me," "Baby Face," and "Love Makes the World Go Round" from the musical "Carnival." Gleason also makes an appearance as Joe the Bartender, who talks with Crazy Guggenheim about pay television and the movie "The Hustler," starring Gleason and Paul Newman. Includes commercials.