"Jackie Gleason's American Scene Magazine" was, later under other names, the last revival of Gleason's variety show. It later lost its mojo as Gleason eliminated almost all the features that made it great. This was a great start for it.
It had the sharp June Taylor Dancers, the premiere of it's most popular new character, Crazy Gugenheim, a Honeymooners sketch (with Sue Ann Langdon as Alice), the network premiere of Wayne Newton, who was the star of the Newton Brothers and several Gleason classic characters.
Crazy Gugenheim, portrayed by the now-pretty-much-forgotten Frank Fontaine was quickly dubbed the funniest man in America. This honestly had everything. The only reason I gave it 9 instead of 10 stars was that the Honeymooners sketch was pretty lame.
I know episodes were preserved for posterity as they were featured on PBS long afterward and I had a VHS of this particular one, but good luck finding any of this anywhere. The only DVD I've seen is from the poor later episodes. It's not on Youtube etc.
It had the sharp June Taylor Dancers, the premiere of it's most popular new character, Crazy Gugenheim, a Honeymooners sketch (with Sue Ann Langdon as Alice), the network premiere of Wayne Newton, who was the star of the Newton Brothers and several Gleason classic characters.
Crazy Gugenheim, portrayed by the now-pretty-much-forgotten Frank Fontaine was quickly dubbed the funniest man in America. This honestly had everything. The only reason I gave it 9 instead of 10 stars was that the Honeymooners sketch was pretty lame.
I know episodes were preserved for posterity as they were featured on PBS long afterward and I had a VHS of this particular one, but good luck finding any of this anywhere. The only DVD I've seen is from the poor later episodes. It's not on Youtube etc.