1955-1956 CBS
THE CRUMMYMOONERS
MAD #260, January 1986
w: Larry Siegel
a: Sam Viviano
From a feature they had in MAD for a while called A Bad Case of the Re-Runs. The show only lasted one season but is famous because it lived a life for decades in syndication. This program about two working class couples in Brooklyn starred Ralph Kramden (Jackie Gleason), his wife Alice (Audrey Meadows), and their neighbors Ed Norton (Art Carney) and Trixie (Joyce Randolph).
The opening panel shows Fred and Ethel Mertz from I Love Lucy and 80s New York mayor Ed Koch. The show has become more controversial lately because Ralph was always threatening to punch Alice. The joke was that he talked big but was too meek to ever really go through with it,and she was always the smarter and stronger one. You may have a different perspective but regardless of how you see it, you can still enjoy the show if you can overlook that.
THE JACKIE GLEASON SHOW
1952-1970 DuMont, CBS
THE JACK E. GLISTEN STORY
MAD #25, September 1955
w: Harvey Kurtzman
a: Wallace Wood
There were two Warner Brothers cartoons that spoofed the show.
UPDATE:
BIG JOHN IS COMING
Cracked #31, September 1963
a: John Severin
This is attributed to Jackie Gleason though I don't know how much he had to do with it.
THE HONEYMOANERS Cracked Monster Party #7, December 1989
w: Rich Kriegel (lou Silverstone)
a: Win Mortimer
Gleason might have been the first celebrity to write to Mad in mock outrage. In the issue after the profile, they ran a letter from him threatening to sue "for your accurate portrayal of my private and business life." (Kurtzman later got Gleason to pose for a cover of Help, so I guess The Great One really did take this with good humor.)
ReplyDeleteAt the top of page 4, Gleason is accompanied by John Foster Dulles, and is being greeted by world leaders including Harold MacMillan, Winston Churchill, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Chiang Kai-shek. (Also, Joe McCarthy is lurking at the bottom of page 3.)