No no no no no no no no no no

[Kevin M.]

http://www.rollingstone.com/tv/news/cbs-planning-to-reboot-the-honeymooners-w456074

[M-D November]

Someday, somehow, Hollywood will get the message that this is a bad idea.  That day, apparently, is not today.

On Friday, December 16, 2016 at 12:56:03 AM UTC-5, Kevin M. (RPCV) wrote:

http://www.rollingstone.com/tv/news/cbs-planning-to-reboot-the-honeymooners-w456074

[Kevin M.]

Meego was a bad idea. According To Jim was a bad idea. Casting Rosie O'Donnell as Betty Rubble in a live action Flintstones movie was a bad idea.

This idea exceeds badness. At this point I can only conclude Hollywood is actively trying to usher in the Rapture.

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[Bob Jersey]

Kevin, to M-D November:

This idea exceeds badness. At this point I can only conclude Hollywood is actively trying to usher in the Rapture.

Anything to upstage a Trump presidency.  B

[Doug Eastick]

the list of writers (and their other failed show credits) is what made me laugh.

I'm sure the honeymooners was funny back in the original day.   But comedy has evolved.   I barely thought the black and white ones were funny when I watched them on WGRZ or WIVB Buffalo during Saturday afternoon or sunday morning filler time periods.

I wonder how they will deal with the domestic-abuse-catchphrase of "to the moon, Alice!  to the moon!"

On Fri, Dec 16, 2016 at 1:40 PM, Kevin M. <drunkba...@gmail.com> wrote:

Meego was a bad idea. According To Jim was a bad idea. Casting Rosie O'Donnell as Betty Rubble in a live action Flintstones movie was a bad idea.

This idea exceeds badness. At this point I can only conclude Hollywood is actively trying to usher in the Rapture.

On Fri, Dec 16, 2016 at 10:37 AM M-D November <mdnov...@gmail.com> wrote:

Someday, somehow, Hollywood will get the message that this is a bad idea.  That day, apparently, is not today.

On Friday, December 16, 2016 at 12:56:03 AM UTC-5, Kevin M. (RPCV) wrote:

http://www.rollingstone.com/tv/news/cbs-planning-to-reboot-the-honeymooners-w456074

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[do...@flids.net]

"I wonder how they will deal with the domestic-abuse-catchphrase of "to the moon, Alice!  to the moon!"

While I agree that this whole concept ranks pretty high up on the List of Bad Ideas, if the show were to actually come to fruition, I would assume (hope?) that they'd deal with it in the exact same way they did in the original shows:  showing Ralph to be a toothless lion when he makes those empty threats, and showing Alice as a strong woman who doesn't back down from him, hitting back with a "try it and see what kind of frying pan you get to the head, next time you fall asleep" attitude.

I think that would still play just fine, even in today's PC climate.

Doug Fields

Tampa, FL

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[Steve Timko]

The original show was a showcase for Jackie Gleason's talents. Plus some help from Art Carney. Who could be showcased like that today? A younger Jim Carrey. Bernie Mac, but he's dead. There's probably a dozen Broadway stars but they have no name recognition.

Not sent from an iPhone.

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[Tom Wolper]

On Fri, Dec 16, 2016 at 5:34 PM, Steve Timko <steve...@gmail.com> wrote:

The original show was a showcase for Jackie Gleason's talents. Plus some help from Art Carney. Who could be showcased like that today? A younger Jim Carrey. Bernie Mac, but he's dead. There's probably a dozen Broadway stars but they have no name recognition.

Don't overthink it. They only want the name "The Honeymooners," not the format or the episodes. They take two males and two females and write a sitcom around them. That is as much as the new series will have in common with the Gleason version.

[Mark Jeffries]

And it'll probably have the same lame Gen X v. millennial jokes that all of CBS' new multi-cams have this season.  Please tell me that Internet "Community" fans are verbally tearing Joel McHale limb-from-limb over his show.

I assume there is no way the Gleason estate can stop this, since they probably want more money than they get from the MeTV airings of the Classic 39 and the "lost" episodes.

Mark Jeffries
Saints Spotlight Editor
spotl...@gmail.com

--

[Kevin M.]

The Honeymooners was essentially a two-act play in real time, done live, usually with only one cardboard set. It was done at a time when audiences laughed at funny things, whereas now studio audiences are conditioned to clap and cheer. It was 90% dialogue. And Gleason very famously said that, no matter what went right or wrong during the live show, keep the camera on him and trust that he'd make it work, which he always did. The only two living actors I would trust to be the center of such a telecast are Tom Hanks and Steve Martin, and neither are going to be slumming on CBS anytime soon.

CBS will focus on entirely the wrong things (let's make Ed Norton an African American, or -- shudder -- let's make Ralph and Ed females).

It will be the end of all life as we know it. 

On Fri, Dec 16, 2016 at 3:02 PM Mark Jeffries <spotl...@gmail.com> wrote:

And it'll probably have the same lame Gen X v. millennial jokes that all of CBS' new multi-cams have this season.  Please tell me that Internet "Community" fans are verbally tearing Joel McHale limb-from-limb over his show.

I assume there is no way the Gleason estate can stop this, since they probably want more money than they get from the MeTV airings of the Classic 39 and the "lost" episodes.

Mark Jeffries
Saints Spotlight Editor
spotl...@gmail.com

On Fri, Dec 16, 2016 at 4:40 PM, Tom Wolper <two...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Fri, Dec 16, 2016 at 5:34 PM, Steve Timko <steve...@gmail.com> wrote:

The original show was a showcase for Jackie Gleason's talents. Plus some help from Art Carney. Who could be showcased like that today? A younger Jim Carrey. Bernie Mac, but he's dead. There's probably a dozen Broadway stars but they have no name recognition.

Don't overthink it. They only want the name "The Honeymooners," not the format or the episodes. They take two males and two females and write a sitcom around them. That is as much as the new series will have in common with the Gleason version.

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[Jim Ellwanger]

> On Dec 16, 2016, at 8:41 PM, Kevin M. <drunkba...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> It will be the end of all life as we know it.

This film was released in 2005, and yet somehow we're still living (if you call this living):
http://www.impawards.com/2005/posters/honeymooners_ver2_xlg.jpg


---
Jim Ellwanger <trai...@ellwanger.tv>
<http://www.ellwanger.tv>

[Dave Sikula]

I will never understand people getting upsets over reboots. Granted, "The Honeymooners" is a near-perfect series, but if the new version works, we get a good new TV series. If it doesn't, it'll vanish.

If it weren't for doing new versions of things, my business of the theatre would basically not exist.

We survived the "Bewitched" movie, we'll survive this.

--Dave Sikula

[Steve Timko]

To me, what it represents is a lack of originality and a fear of
risk-taking. This is why broadcast TV is losing viewers. Or part of
the reason. No one is going to get fired with a reboot of a
well-respected series. This has failure etched on it from the start. I
hope I'm wrong. But I don't watch a single broadcast TV drama or
comedy today.
Sisket & Ebert used to wonder why they don't remake bad movies and get
it right the second time. That may make sense here.

[Kevin M.]

I agree with Steve here, and as he pointed out earlier, the original series was built upon what Gleason could do. In theater, plays are rarely written for only one individual to play a role. Current accusations not withstanding, "The Cosby Show" remade without Bill Cosby would be stupid. Same would be true about "The Bob Newhart Show" without Bob. Just because Gleason's name wasn't in the Honeymooners title doesn't mean he wasn't fundamental to what the series was. 

I'm all for a fresh take on a classic concept. If CBS decided to greenlight a live sitcom centered    around two low income couples in a tiny apartment building, good for them. But taking the name of Gleason's series ought not need to be a part of that. 

[PGage]

First, haven't they basically remade The Honeymooners a dozen times already? I liked it when they called it the Fintsontones, and the Simpsons. Second, The Hooneymooners might be the most over-rated piece of popular entertainment in the mass media era. I'm not saying it wasn't funny, just that it was never nearly as funny, or filled with as much pathos, as its partisans claim. Gleason himself was something of an asshole. I grew up with grandparents and a mother from Brooklyn, and they loved the show, and Gleason (I had to watch the Miami Beach show every week, puzzled and oddly fascinated by the June Taylor dancers) and heard so much about the original Honeymooners that maybe it was inevitable that I would be a little underwhelmed when I eventually saw them for myself. Again, not bad television, given the time, and Gleason's aversion to rehearsal, but I would argue with anyone who wanted to make it a top ten sitcom. 

I agree that Ralph's bluster and Alice's competence softens the domestic violence themes, but that partalways makes me uncomfortable anyway. The classic obersvaton about the Simpson's is that we love Homer because Marge loves him (or is it the other way round?), but I never do understand why Alice loves Ralph (she outclasses him in so many ways), which makes actual or threatened abuse to real an option. It is also a bit off putting to see the super rich Gleason (how much did he get paid for that show? I forget but it was a hell of a lot) getting rich alternatingly making fun of and sentimentally idealizing the lower working class.

A real re-make of this show today would be set in Staten Island and the Cramdens would be Trump voters, and he would be making jokes about beating his wife and immigrants who threaten his bus driver job, tragically and violently unable to accurately make sense of the reasons and culprits in his chronic financial instability, and I am not sure how funny or heart warming that would be. In the early 70s we could make fun of Archie Bunker, but today Ralph and Archie have had their revenge, and it's not funny ha ha.

Sent from Gmail Mobile

[Diner]

A stage musical version of The Honeymooners has been in development for a few years now, though it seems to have been getting closer to an actual production lately.
I'm surprised CBS would want to have a different version of the same property competing with it.

http://www.playbill.com/article/michael-mcgrath-and-laura-bell-bundy-sing-in-musical-honeymooners-lab-today

To give you an idea of how long this has been kicking around: when Michael McGrath, who has been playing Ralph in all the workshops, won his Tony Award in 2012, he sneaked a Honeymooners reference into the end of his acceptance speech.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LP-OHqL7Eb8