Reviewed by Colin Jacobson (December 7, 2021)
Although The Honeymooners officially left the air in 1956, the property didn’t go dormant. The characters popped up sporadically for years, and as part of this expansion, 1977 brought a TV special called A Christmas Carol.
As bus driver Ralph Kramden (Jackie Gleason) prepares to take a holiday trip with wife Alice (Audrey Meadows), his boss Mr. Marshall (Gale Gordon) relates that he needs someone to direct a play for his wife’s charity. Because he senses a chance to earn points with Marshall, Ralph lies about his theatrical experience to get the gig.
However, this production will run over the same span he and Alice planned to go to Florida, and she reacts negatively to the development. This means Ralph needs to deal with friction on the home front as he makes his haphazard attempt to stage A Christmas Carol.
Given this DVD’s title, I went into it with the expectation that it would offer an adaptation of Charles Dickens’ Christmas Carol that featured the Honeymooners cast. That does occur, but it becomes a fairly minor aspect of the special, as this “stage play” only takes up eight of the show’s 49 minutes.
This leaves most of the program about Ralph and the rest as they work through his scheme. Initially the choice to largely skip a Honeymooners-based take on A Christmas Carol disappointed me, but as I watched the special, I changed my mind about that.
Mainly I altered my view because a little of the Kramden Carol goes a long way. Most of the comedy we find in that brief production stems from goofs and silliness, so a full-length version probably would’ve worn out its welcome pretty quickly.
Mainly, though, I appreciated the choice to essentially make this a Christmas-oriented episode of The Honeymooners because the special proves fairly amusing – though not without problems. In particular, Gleason’s choice to make Carol a filmed stage production in front of a live audience becomes a drawback.
Throughout the show, the crowd claps and cheers for a variety of reasons, and these damage the special’s pacing, especially in terms of comedic timing. In addition, the format forces the actors to play their roles big.
Of course, plenty of TV sitcoms shoot in front of studio audiences, but Carol doesn’t work in the standard way. Instead, it truly offers a “stage play” version of Honeymooners that just happens to be filmed as well.
This just doesn’t work for me. It probably was a lot of fun in person, but the aforementioned issues that stem from the format make it less appealing than it would’ve been if shot in a more standard manner.
One should also expect a fair number of jokes that haven’t aged well. If you didn’t live through 1977, you seem unlikely to get cracks about Anita Bryant, Billy Carter and others.
Nonetheless, Carol manages decent entertainment, mainly due to the charms of the cast. It remains unclear why Jane Kean substitutes for prior Trixie Norton Joyce Randolph – who is still alive in 2021 as I write! – but she proves an underwhelming replacement.
At least Kean doesn’t get much to do, as the focus remains on Ralph, Ed and Alice. Gleason and Meadows do fine, but Carney knocks it out of the park.
Even when fed some fairly lame jokes, Carney produces laughs. He takes mediocre material and makes it good.
Outside of Carney, I find The Honeymooners Specials: A Christmas Carol to feel moderately entertaining and not much more. It’s fun to see these legends together years after their heyday, but the program doesn’t quite connect on a consistent basis.
