A bit of a history lesson comes our way courtesy of the folks out at Warner Brothers, who sent a copy of The Honeymooners Valentine Special for me to review.
See, in 1978, after the original Honeymooners shut down, Jackie Gleason got the old band back together for four hour-long specials that comprised the last performances of The Honeymooners ever. This one, the Valentine’s Special, is the third such performance.
And in this one, the Kramdens–and their neighbors, the Nortons–celebrate Valentine’s Day as only they can. Ralph’s planning a surprise for Alice, but Alice has an even bigger surprise waiting for Ralph. But Alice’s surprise might be a little more than Ralph can stand! Ralph’s convinced that Alice is out to kill him, and as he tries to figure out what’s really going on, what he finds out may not kill him, but it’ll kill the audience with laughter!
Maybe I just haven’t seen many episodes of The Honeymooners, but the Valentine’s Special is an absolute panic. I’ve seen a great many comedies in my day but seldom do I get so many laughs as I did with this one. It’s hard to tell why this is so funny–many of the jokes in here are older than the hills, but the delivery is unaccountably funny.
This is where many of the memes and standards of modern sitcoms emerged–all the mistaken advances, the outlandish situations, and wild misunderstandings often emerged whole and breathing from shows just like this one, so if you’re in the mood to see where they were done first, or you just want a good laugh without committing an hour and a half to two hours to a movie, then pop this sucker in because it will be a laugh.
The Screenhead Ten Scale gives The Honeymooners Valentine Special an eight out of ten for packing plenty of great laughs into an easily accessible package, but it’s over so soon that you can’t help but regret it a little.
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