Ralph Kramden

Played by Jackie Gleason, a bus driver for the fictional Gotham Bus Company based in New York City. He is never seen driving a bus (except in publicity photos), but he sometimes is shown at the bus depot. Ralph is frustrated by his lack of success and often develops get-rich-quick schemes. He is short-tempered, frequently resorting to bellowing, insults, and hollow threats. Well hidden beneath the many layers of bluster, however, is a softhearted man who loves his wife and is devoted to his best friend, Ed Norton. Ralph enjoys bowling and playing pool; he is proficient at both and is an enthusiastic member of the Loyal Order of Raccoons (although in several episodes, a blackboard at the lodge lists his dues as being in arrears). Ralph's mother rarely is mentioned, although she appears in one episode. Ralph's father is mentioned in only one episode ("Young Man with a Horn") as having given Ralph a cornet he learned to play as a boy, and Ralph insists on keeping the cornet when Alice suggests it be thrown away.

The Ralph Kramden character was given honorary membership in the real New York City bus drivers' union (Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union) during the run of the show, and a Brooklyn bus depot was named in Gleason's honor after his death.^[7][8] Ralph Kramden was the inspiration for the animated character Fred Flintstone.^[9] An eight-foot-tall bronze statue of a jolly Jackie Gleason in a bus driver's uniform was erected in 1999 in front of Manhattan's midtown Port Authority Bus Terminal. TV Land funded the statue in cooperation with Gleason's estate and the Port Authority.^[10] Also in 1999, Ralph was ranked #13 on TV Guide's list of the 50 greatest TV characters.^[11]

Alice Kramden

Alice (née Alice Gibson), played in the first nine skits from 1951 to January 1952^[12] by Pert Kelton, and by Audrey Meadows for all remaining episodes, is Ralph's patient but sharp-tongued wife of 14 years. She often finds herself bearing the brunt of Ralph's tantrums and demands, which she returns with biting sarcasm. She is levelheaded, in contrast to Ralph's pattern of inventing various schemes to enhance his wealth or his pride. She sees his schemes' unworkability, but he becomes angry and ignores her advice (and by the end of the episode, her misgivings almost always prove correct). She has grown accustomed to his empty threats—such as "One of these days, POW!!! Right in the kisser!", "BANG, ZOOM!" or "You're going to the Moon!"— to which she usually replies, "Ahhh, shaddap!" Upon discovering the failures of his schemes and subsequent cover-ups, she demands to Ralph: "Oh, how I wish you had an explanation for that." Alice runs the finances of the Kramden household, and Ralph frequently has to beg her for money to pay for his lodge dues or crazy schemes. Alice studied to be a secretary before her marriage and works briefly in that capacity when Ralph is laid off. Wilma Flintstone is based on Alice Kramden.^[9]

Another foil for Ralph is Alice's mother, who is even sharper-tongued than her daughter and despises Ralph as a bad provider. Alice's father is occasionally mentioned, but never seen. Alice's sister Agnes appears in episode 22, "Here Comes The Bride". (Ralph jeopardizes his newlywed sister-in-law's marriage after giving some bad advice to the groom, but it all works out in the end). Ralph and Alice lived with her mother for six years after getting married before they got their own apartment. In a 1967 revival, Ralph refers to Alice (played by Sheila MacRae in 1966–70 and once more in 1973) as being one of 12 children, and to her father as never working.

The Honeymooners originally appeared as a sketch on the DuMont Network's Cavalcade of Stars, with the role of Alice played by Pert Kelton (1907–1968). When his contract with DuMont expired, Gleason moved to the CBS network where he had The Jackie Gleason Show, and the Alice role went to Audrey Meadows because Kelton had been blacklisted. According to playwright Arthur Miller, a family friend, writing many years later in his autobiography Timebends: A Life, extensive inquiries finally revealed that her blacklisting was due to the fact that her husband Ralph had, many years earlier, marched in a May Day parade. "Ralph, I knew, had absolutely no leftist connections whatever but had simply thrown himself in with a gang of actors protesting whatever it was that year, and Pert had never even voted in her life."

The character's name is mentioned in the 1998 American stoner comedy film Half Baked in the lyrics to the song by the movie's character "Sir Smoka-Alot".

Edward Lillywhite/Ethelbert "Ed" Norton

Actor Art Carney won numerous awards for his portrayal of Ed Norton

Played by Art Carney; a New York City municipal sewer worker and Ralph's best friend (and upstairs neighbor). He is considerably more good-natured than Ralph, but nonetheless trades insults with him on a regular basis. Ed (typically called "Norton" by Ralph and sometimes by his own wife, Trixie) often gets mixed up in Ralph's schemes. His carefree and rather dimwitted nature usually results in raising Ralph's ire, while Ralph often showers him with verbal abuse and throws him out of the apartment when Ed irritates him. In most episodes, Ed is shown to be better-read, better-liked, more worldly and more even-tempered than Ralph, despite his unassuming manner and the fact that he usually lets Ralph take the lead in their escapades. Ed and Ralph both are members of the fictional Raccoon Lodge. Like Ralph, Ed enjoys and is good at bowling and playing pool. Unlike Ralph, Ed is good at ping-pong.^[13]

Ed worked for the New York City sewer department, and described his job as a "Sub-supervisor in the sub-division of the department of subterranean sanitation, I just keep things moving along." He served in the U.S. Navy in World War II, and used his G.I. Bill money to pay for typing school, but felt he was unable to work in an office because he hated working in confined spaces. The relatively few scenes set in the Norton apartment showed it to have the same layout as the Kramdens' but more nicely furnished. Though Norton makes the same weekly $62 salary as Ralph (roughly $680 in current dollars), their higher standard of living might be explained by Norton's freer use of credit; at one point he admits to having 19 charge accounts.^[14]

Ed is the inspiration for Barney Rubble in The Flintstones,^[9] and for Yogi Bear (in terms of design, clothing, and mannerisms).^[15] In 1999, TV Guide ranked him 2nd on its list of the "50 Greatest TV Characters of All Time".^[11] According to Entertainment Weekly, Norton is ranked 8th of the "greatest sidekicks ever".^[16]

Thelma "Trixie" Norton

Played most famously by Joyce Randolph; she was Ed's wife and Alice's best friend. She did not appear in every episode and had a less developed character, though she is shown to be somewhat bossy toward her husband. In one episode, she surprisingly is depicted as a pool hustler. On another episode, Ralph insults Trixie by making a reference to Minsky's (a famous New York City burlesque theater; the original Trixie character was an ex-burlesque dancer). There are a few references to Trixie's burlesque background in the lost episodes (e.g., Norton: "Every night I'd meet her backstage and hand her a rose ... . It was her costume!"). Randolph played Trixie as an ordinary, rather prudish, housewife, complaining to her husband on one occasion when a "fresh" young store clerk called her "sweetie pie". In a 1967 special, Trixie (played by Jane Kean from 1966 to 1970 and 1976 to 1978) resentfully denied Ralph's implications that she "worked in burlesque" to which he replied, "If the shoe fits, take it off." Trixie is the inspiration for Betty Rubble in The Flintstones.

Elaine Stritch was the first and original Trixie Norton in a Honeymooners sketch with Gleason, Carney, and Pert Kelton. The ex-dancer character was rewritten and recast after just one episode with the more wholesome-looking Joyce Randolph playing the character as a housewife.^[17]

Others

Some of the actors who appeared multiple times on the show include George O. Petrie and Frank Marth as various characters, Ethel Owen as Alice's mother, Zamah Cunningham as apartment building neighbor Mrs. Manicotti, and Cliff Hall as the Raccoon Lodge president.

Ronnie Burns, son of George Burns and Gracie Allen, made a guest appearance on one episode. On another episode, Norton makes a reference to a co-worker "Nat Birnbaum" (as in "'nat," a three-letter word for bug," says crossword puzzle aficionado Norton). George Burns's real name was Nathan Birnbaum. Seasoned actress Eileen Heckart appeared as Alice's mother in the 1978 The Honeymooners Christmas special (who, interestingly, was in reality just three years older than her "daughter", Alice). Strangely, Heckart's character makes several comments in the episode alluding to her desire to become a grandmother by Ralph and Alice; this, despite the fact that Meadows, who played Alice, was in fact 55 years old at that time.

The apartment house

The Kramdens and Nortons lived in an apartment house at 328 Chauncey Street in Bushwick, Brooklyn, New York City (sometimes referred to as Bensonhurst), a nod to the fact that Jackie Gleason lived there after his family moved from his birthplace at 364 Chauncey Street.^[18] In the 1955 episode "A Woman's Work is Never Done", the address is referred to as 728 Chauncey Street. The landlord of the apartment house is Mr. Johnson. In The Honeymooners episodes taped from 1967 to 1970, the address of the apartment house changed to 358 Chauncey Street, and the number of the Kramden apartment is 3B. The actual 328 Chauncey Street is located in the Stuyvesant Heights section of the borough, approximately eight miles northeast of the show's fictional location.

Apartment residents

• Mr. and Mrs. Manicotti: An older couple of Italian descent.
• Tommy Manicotti: He played stickball and contracted the measles. He also left his water pistol in the Kramdens' apartment.
• Garrity: A vocal upstairs neighbor with whom Ralph frequently feuds. He fought with Ralph for disturbing the neighbors with practicing for The $99,000 Answer quiz show. But showing some humor in other episodes, he accused Ralph of renting the tuxedo for his sister-in-law's wedding from an undertaker, and loved Ralph's joke about "sending a knight out on a dog like this."
• Garrity Boy: He played stickball and contracted the measles.
• Mrs. Bennett: Needed her radiator fixed when Ralph was the janitor.
• Johnny Bennett: He played stickball, earned an apple for a home-run—and contracted the measles like the other boys.
• Mrs. Doyle: Mother of Tommy Doyle.
• Tommy Doyle: He was arrested for spending a $100 counterfeit bill that Ralph gave him to take his suits to the cleaners.
• Mrs. Stevens: She gave Alice a box for hairpins that was made of matchsticks for Christmas which was the same exact gift Ralph was about to give her but he vastly overpaid for it and thought he had a great gift rather than an insignificant trinket for Alice. Alice gave Mrs. Stevens a kitchen thermometer.
• Mrs. Olsen: She said that Ralph broke her Venetian blinds instead of repairing them when Ralph temporarily was the building janitor.
• Mrs. Hannah: Needed her bathtub fixed when Ralph was the janitor.
• Mrs. Fogerty: Accused Ralph of taking food out of her ice box when Ralph was the janitor.
• Mrs. Schwartz: The apartment house blabbermouth who reported that the Kramdens had set the all-time lowest gas bill for the building. She also was curious to know if the house phone was able to connect to New Jersey when Ralph was the janitor.
• Mr. Riley: Had a full garbage can that needed to be emptied when Ralph was the janitor.
• Judy Connors: A teenager who did not want her father to meet a boy named Wallace, her date.
• Tommy Mullins: A U.S. Navy service member who was home on leave for Christmas.
• Carlos Sanchez: A mambo dancer who works at night.
• Mr. and Mrs. August Gunther: Former residents of the building. August hit it big with his doughnut business.
• Mr. Johnson: The building's landlord.

The real 328 Chauncey Street

Origins

In July 1950, Jackie Gleason became the host of Cavalcade of Stars, a variety show that aired on the struggling DuMont Television Network. After the first year, he and his writers Harry Crane and Joe Bigelow^[24][25] developed a sketch that drew upon familiar domestic situations for its material. Based on the popular radio show The Bickersons, Gleason wanted a realistic portrayal of life for a poor husband and wife living in Brooklyn, his home borough. The couple would continually argue but ultimately show their love for each other. After rejecting titles such as "The Beast", "The Lovers" and "The Couple Next Door", Gleason and his staff settled on "The Honeymooners". Gleason took the role of Ralph Kramden, a blustery bus driver, and he chose veteran comedy film actress Pert Kelton for the role of Alice Kramden, Ralph's acerbic and long-suffering wife.^[19]

"The Honeymooners" debuted on October 5, 1951 as a six-minute sketch.^[26] Ensemble cast member Art Carney made a brief appearance as a police officer who is hit with flour that Ralph throws from the window. The tone of these early sketches was much darker than that of the later series, with Ralph exhibiting great bitterness and frustration with his marriage to an equally bitter and argumentative middle-aged woman (Kelton was nine years older than was Gleason). The Kramdens' financial struggles mirrored those of Gleason's early life in Brooklyn, and he took great pains to model the set on his memory of the apartment where he had lived.^[26] The Kramdens—and later the Nortons when those characters were added—are childless, an issue only occasionally explored, but a condition upon which Gleason insisted. Ralph and Alice did legally adopt a baby girl whom they named Ralphina. However, the biological mother requested to have her baby returned. A few later sketches had Ralph mistakenly believe that Alice was pregnant.

Early cast additions in later sketches were upstairs neighbors Ed and Trixie Norton. Ed was a sewer worker and Ralph's best friend, although his innocent and guileless nature was the source of many arguments between the two men. Trixie (maiden name never mentioned), Ed's wife, was originally portrayed by Elaine Stritch as a burlesque dancer, but was replaced after just one appearance by the more wholesome-looking Joyce Randolph. Trixie is a foil to Ed, just as Alice is to Ralph, but often offscreen.^[20][26]

With the colorful array of characters whom Gleason had invented, including the cast of "The Honeymooners" sketches, Cavalcade of Stars became a great success for DuMont and increased its audience share from 9% to 25%. Gleason's contract with DuMont expired in the summer of 1952, and the financially struggling network (which suffered through ten rounds of layoffs from July through October 1953) was unable to retain him, and he moved to CBS.

Move to CBS

In July 1952, CBS president William S. Paley sent Gleason and his cast on a highly successful nationwide five-week promotional tour, performing musical numbers and sketches (including the popular "The Honeymooners"). However, Kelton who played Alice Kramden and other roles, was blacklisted and replaced on the tour by Beulah actress Ginger Jones, who also became blacklisted (having earlier been named on the Red Channels blacklist) by CBS. As a result, yet another Alice was needed.^[20][21]

Ralph Kramden (Jackie Gleason) with Ed Norton (Art Carney), Alice Kramden (Audrey Meadows) and Trixie Norton (Joyce Randolph) in a Honeymooners scene.

Jones's replacement was Audrey Meadows, known for her work in the 1951 Broadway musical Top Banana and on the Bob & Ray television show. However, Gleason was concerned that Meadows was too attractive to make a credible Alice. To convince him, Meadows hired a photographer to take pictures of her in the early morning with no makeup, clad in a torn housecoat and with her hair undone.^[21][27] When Gleason saw the photos, he said, "That's our Alice." When he learned that it was Meadows in the photos, he reportedly said, "Any dame who has a sense of humor like that deserves the job."^[21] The lineup of Gleason, Carney, Meadows and Randolph was now in place.

The increasingly popular "The Honeymooners" sketches were prominent in episodes of The Jackie Gleason Show variety show. During the first season, they appeared on a regular basis (although not weekly) as a series of short sketches ranging in length from seven to thirteen minutes. For the 1953–54 season, the shorter sketches were outnumbered by ones that ran for 30 minutes or longer. During the 1954–55 season, most episodes of The Jackie Gleason Show consisted entirely of "The Honeymooners". Fan response became overwhelming, and Meadows received hundreds of curtains and aprons in the mail from fans who wanted to help Alice lead a fancier life. By January 1955, The Jackie Gleason Show was competing with—and sometimes beating—I Love Lucy as the most-watched television show in the United States. Audience members would queue around the block hours in advance in order to attend the show.^[19]

The "Classic 39" episodes

The "Classic 39" episodes of The Honeymooners are those that originally aired as a weekly half-hour sitcom on CBS from October 1955 to September 1956.

Gleason and Meadows as Ralph and Alice, 1955

Before Gleason's initial three-year contract with CBS expired, he was offered a much larger contract by CBS and General Motors' Buick division. The three-year contract, reportedly valued at $11 million, was one of the largest in showbusiness history at the time. It called for Gleason to produce 78 filmed episodes of The Honeymooners over two seasons, with an option for a third season of 39 more. He was scheduled to receive $65,000 for each episode ($70,000 per episode in the second season), but he had to pay all production costs out of that amount. Art Carney received $3,500 per week, Audrey Meadows $2,000, and Joyce Randolph (who did not appear in every episode) $500 per week. Production was handled by Jackie Gleason Enterprises Inc., which also produced Stage Show, a program that aired directly before episodes of or The Honeymooners and starred the Dorsey Brothers.^[19][26] Meadows, who later became a banker, was reportedly the only cast member to receive residuals when the "Classic 39" episodes were rebroadcast in syndication because her brother Edward, a lawyer, had inserted language to that effect into her contract.^[28] Randolph received royalty payments when the "lost" Honeymooners episodes from the variety shows were released.^[29]

The first episode of the new half-hour series aired on Saturday, October 1, 1955 at 8:30 p.m. Eastern Time opposite Ozark Jubilee on ABC and The Perry Como Show on NBC. Because the show was sponsored by Buick, the opening credits originally ended with a sponsor identification by announcer Jack Lescoulie ("Brought to you by your Buick dealer. And away we go!"), and the show concluded with a brief Gleason sales pitch for the company, all common practices at the time. All references to Buick were removed when the show entered syndication in 1957,^[27] although Gleason frequently said "And away we go!" frequently in various shows, and the quote is inscribed on his gravestone.

The initial critical reaction to the half-hour sitcom Honeymooners was mixed. The New York Times and Broadcasting & Telecasting Magazine wrote that it was "labored" and lacked the spontaneity of the live sketches. But TV Guide praised it as "rollicking", "slapsticky" and "fast-paced".^[19] In February 1956, the show was moved to the 8:00 p.m. ET timeslot, but it already had begun losing viewers to the hugely popular Perry Como Show.^[2][3] Gleason's writers also had begun to feel confined by the restrictive half-hour format—in previous seasons, "The Honeymooners" sketches typically ran 35 minutes or more—and Gleason felt that were beginning to exhaust original ideas. After just one season, Gleason and CBS agreed to cancel The Honeymooners, which aired its 39th and final original episode on September 22, 1956. In explaining his decision to end the show with $7 million remaining on his contract, Gleason said, "The excellence of the material could not be maintained, and I had too much fondness for the show to cheapen it."^[19] Gleason subsequently sold the films of the "Classic 39" episodes of the show to CBS for $1.5 million.^[26]

The Flintstones

In 1960, the Hanna-Barbera-produced animated sitcom The Flintstones debuted on ABC. Many critics and viewers noted the close resemblance of the show's premise and characters to those of The Honeymooners,^[49] and William Hanna and Joseph Barbera have both stated that The Honeymooners was among their inspirations for The Flintstones. Gleason later said that he considered suing but decided that becoming known as "the guy who yanked Fred Flintstone off the air" was not worth the negative publicity.^[50] The Honeymooners had been compared in its day to the similar comedy series The Bickersons as well as to the work of Laurel and Hardy (particularly Sons of the Desert). The Flintstones series and its spinoffs changed over the years and deviated from the similarities to The Honeymooners.

Spoofs, parodies and importation

• In the Futurama episode "The Series Has Landed", Ralph Kramden is believed to have been an early astronaut, due to his catchphrase (which Fry protests was "a metaphor for beating his wife".)
• In the episode "Spanish Fry" of the same show, Lrrr says, "One of these days, Ndnd, bang! zoom! straight to the third moon of Omicron Persei 8!!"
• The Moonlighting episode "A Trip To The Moon" contains a lengthy parody of The Honeymooners as The Bluemooners, with Bruce Willis as Ralph, Charles Rocket as Norton, Allyce Beasley as Trixie, and Cybill Shepherd as Alice.
• The sitcom The King of Queens was partially inspired by The Honeymooners.^[51]The Honeymooners, among other shows, was parodied directly in a dream sequence in the episode "Inner Tube".
• The show was parodied in a series of animated Looney Tunes shorts, in which the principal characters, Ralph and Alice Crumden and Ned and Trixie Morton, are depicted as mice and Ralph's "big dream" is to get enough cheese to impress Alice. These cartoons are The Honey-Mousers (1956), Cheese It, the Cat! (1957), and Mice Follies (1960). The Sylvester and Tweety short Red Riding Hoodwinked (1955) has the usually-cheerful Granny character taking on the role of blustery, female Ralph. Ralph and Ed are caricatured as train-riding hoboes and pitted against Bugs Bunny in the 1956 Warner cartoon Half-Fare Hare. And in another Sylvester-Tweety cartoon, A Bird in a Bonnet (1958), when Sylvester falls into an open manhole, inside a voice like Ed Norton's says, "Whoo-hoo-hoo! Hey, look at this, Ralph, a pussycat." To which Sylvester simply peers out of the sewer to the audience.
• The writer/comic Louis C.K. stated in an interview that he based the layout of Louie's apartment in the HBO show Lucky Louie on the Kramdens' apartment, in contrast to other shows such as The King of Queens that have very nicely decorated apartments despite the characters' professed low incomes.^[52]
• Stan Freberg created a brief audio skit titled "The Honeyearthers", in which Ralph, Alice, Norton, and Trixie are aliens living on the moon. In keeping with the 1950s ideas of what aliens would look like, they have two heads, one eye, one ear, four hands, three feet and antennae. Ralph drives a rocket ship and Norton works in a "green cheese mine". At the end of the skit, Ralph offers to take Alice on a "honeyearth" to renew their marriage.
• In Back to the Future (1985) George McFly (Crispin Glover) and his older son Dave (Marc McClure) are seen cracking up in nerdy fashion while watching the episode "The Man from Space". After his younger son Marty (Michael J. Fox) goes back in time to November 5, 1955, he watches the same episode at the home of his then-teenaged mother Lorraine Baines (Lea Thompson), where her father (George DiCenzo) wheels their newly acquired television set in front of the family table, saying giddily: "Now we can watch Jackie Gleason while we eat!" – a reference to the TV series. In real life though, November 5, 1955 was the day "The Sleepwalker" aired, while "The Man from Space" aired on December 31.
• In the 21 Jump Street season 3 episode "High High" (where the Jump Street team is assigned to go undercover at a performing arts school), Doug Penhall cites The Honeymooners as one of his favorite shows growing up. Towards the end, he reenacts a scene from the episode "Young Man with a Horn" for acting class.
• The Honeymooners was spoofed in an episode of Perfect Strangers as a result of the character Balki Bartoukomos (Bronson Pinchot)'s spinning an extended metaphor about the characters' existential situation to an episode of The Honeymooners he had once seen; Balki's description of the episode is shown in a black-and-white flashback.
• As Ralph Kramden was a New York City bus driver, one of the service depots in Brooklyn was renamed the Jackie Gleason Bus Depot in 1988. All buses that originate from the bus depot bear a sticker on the front that has a logo derived from the "face on the Moon" opening credits of The Honeymooners. The MTA also took 1948 GM-TDH5101 bus number 4789, renumbered it to 2969 and made it the 'official Jackie Gleason bus'.
• A statue of Gleason as Ralph Kramden stands at the Eighth Avenue entrance to the Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York City. The plaque on the base of the statue reads, "Jackie Gleason as Ralph Kramden — Bus Driver — Raccoon Lodge Treasurer — Dreamer — Presented by the People of TV Land"^[53]
• The Toronto Coach Terminal included a restaurant and bar named Kramden's Kafe from 1990 until 2013.
• An episode of The Simpsons, "The Ten-Per-Cent Solution", includes a fictional rip-off of The Honeymooners called The Adventures of Fatso Flannigan.
• In 2011, an adult parody titled The Honeymoaners was released by DreamZone Entertainment, with Peter O'Tole as Ralph and Anthony Rosano as Ed. Both actors also played Fred and Barney in The Flintstones – A XXX Parody, an adult parody of the Flintstones, which have a resemblance to the show (as mentioned above). The plot of the parody is similar to the episode "The $99,000 Answer", only here the show is called "The $69,000 Answer" and Ralph is answering questions about sex.
• The Honeymooners was spoofed in episode 22 of the first season of Saturday Night Live (then known as NBC's Saturday Night) in a sketch featuring The Killer Bees (referenced as 'The Bees' in this particular episode). John Belushi took the role of Ralph, with Gilda Radner as Alice, Dan Aykroyd as Norton, and Jane Curtin as Trixie.
• The first adult film parody of the show, Honeymooners, premiered in 1976 and starred John Leslie as the Ralph Kramden character.
• In 1988 Ron Jeremy led a cast of adult performers in the critically panned The Horneymooners.
• The Honeymooners was partly the inspiration for the Nickelodeon series Kenan and Kel.
• Seth MacFarlane's "Family Guy" has parodied it on numerous occasions.

Adaptations and remakes

The success of The Honeymooners in countries outside the United States has led to the production of new shows based entirely on it.

International remakes

Polish tram driver, Karol Krawczyk (Cezary Żak), inspired by Ralph Kramden in Miodowe lata

 Indonesia

Two series, 26 episodes in all were made for R.C.T.I. in 1996. It was the first sitcom of that style ever attempted in Indonesia. It was titled Detak Detik (Ticking Seconds) and starred Mat Sola as the Jackie Gleason character. Art Carney rang the cast prior to production to give them his best wishes. It was decided to make Mat Sola a Silver Bird taxi driver, as they had a bit more prestige in Indonesia. They left Nurbuat, who mirrored Ed Norton, as a sewerage worker. The chemistry worked well. The series had to remove any references to alcohol, as Indonesia is a country with a Muslim majority population.

 Canada

French Canada was entertained for years in the 1960s and '70s by a sitcom titled Cré Basile, with Olivier Guimond, Béatrice Picard, Denis Drouin and Amulette Garneau, which was an uncredited Quebecois version of The Honeymooners. It could, by contemporary standards, qualify as plagiarism.

 Netherlands

In 1994, the Dutch broadcasting network KRO produced a version of The Honeymooners titled Toen Was Geluk Heel Gewoon (Back then happiness was common), using translated scripts of the original series but changing its setting to 1950s Rotterdam. After the original 39 scripts were exhausted, the series' lead actors, Gerard Cox and Sjoerd Pleijsier, took over writing, adding many new characters and references to Dutch history and popular culture. The series was a hit in the Netherlands and it finished its run after 16 years and 229 episodes in June 2009.^[54] The actors reprised their characters five years later in a feature-length movie.

 Sweden

In 1994, the Swedish network TV4 produced a version of The Honeymooners titled Rena Rama Rolf, but changing its setting to contemporary Gothenburg, where Rolf (Ralph), played by Lasse Brandeby, is working as a streetcar driver. The show ran until 1998.^[55]

 Poland

In 1998, the Polish network Polsat produced a version of The Honeymooners titled Miodowe lata which translates to "Honey years", using both translated scripts of the original series and new ones, but changing its setting to modern-day Warsaw. The original series ran until 2003 and was continued in 2004 as Całkiem nowe lata miodowe.^[56]