Pat Sajak, left, and Joe Moore star in "The Honeymooners."
2 TV icons bring
back ’50s classicMoore and Sajak tap an enduring
friendship for 'Honeymooners'
The camaraderie is evident as Joe Moore and Pat Sajak talk about their experiences as TV celebrities, their love of acting and the 25 pounds Moore has packed on to get in character as loud-mouthed bus driver Ralph Kramden in their production of "The Honeymooners: The Lost Episodes," opening Thursday at the Hawaii Theatre.
"The Honeymooners: The Lost Episodes"
Presented by Manoa Valley TheatreWhere: Hawaii Theatre
When: 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday; also matinees at 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday
Tickets: $37, $27.50 and $17.50 (discounts available for MTV season subscribers, PBS Hawaii member card holders, Hawaii Theatre Center members and seniors)
Call: 528-0506 or visit www.hawaiitheatre.com
Jackie Gleason, who created the character 50 years ago, was a big man, and Moore decided last fall that wearing a "fat suit" would leave him with thin arms and a face that wouldn't match a fat belly. He gained 25 pounds and has been "maintaining" his bulk for the role.
Sajak mentions cheerfully that he's lost a few pounds to help increase the physical contrast between them. "He looks thinner just by standing next to me now because I'm such a tub," Moore says.
The two have been friends since they met in Vietnam almost 40 years ago, and Sajak says they've drawn on their lives in exploring the unlikely friendship between Kramden and sewer worker Ed Norton.
"One of the things you wonder about them is why exactly are they friends? (Kramden is) a bully who's always whacking (Norton) and throwing him out of the apartment and screaming at him, and the other one is a moron. What brings these two together? We kind of understand that -- not that one of us is a moron, I'm not going to point fingers," Sajak says.
"Well, one of us might be," Moore adds jokingly before explaining the special dynamic involved between "two guys who just spend the day kind of grousing at each other and needling each other and pointing out the foibles of the other one -- and yet with affection. It's not foreign at all to us."
He adds that because the 1950s are ancient history to growing numbers of Americans, an alternative show title could have been "Dumb and Dumber" because Kramden and Norton "are not the brightest guys to get off the train."
"But each of them thinks he is the bright one," Sajak says.
"That's the key to a lot of the humor," Moore adds. "They think they've got the greatest thing going, and everybody watching thinks what dummies these guys are."
Another key to "The Honeymooners'" success, he said, is that there's no mean humor in it. "It's not the vicious, cutting stuff that you see today. There's no profanity in this play, not a single curse word. I think people will walk out feeling, 'That was a good fun night.'"
JEANNIE ROGERS and Yvette Ortega-Garrison play the characters' respective wives, Alice Kramden and Trixie Norton, with George O'Hanlon, Scott Moura, Eden-Lee Murray and Greg Howell as supporting cast. The Hawaii production is the first to be authorized by CBS, with approval conditional on the show being staged as a fund-raiser for a nonprofit community theater group, in this case, Manoa Valley Theatre. The script is an adaptation of four episodes -- "Stars over Flatbush," "Letter to the Boss," "Hair Raising Tale" and "Songwriters" -- Gleason kept off the market for 30 years before making them available on home video in the mid-1980s.
Who's going to the moon--Joe Moore as Ralph Kramden or Jeannie Rogers as his wife Alice?
"We do it to raise money for the theater, and I do it as an excuse to come to Hawaii, but we like doing this," Sajak said. "We're essentially doing 'The Honeymooners' when we're together anyway. We're always trying to insult the other ..."
"... in a good-natured manner," Moore interjects.
Although they expect to see an older audience, they're hoping a younger crowd will take a chance on what to them is unfamiliar material. The two have been interviewed by reporters who hadn't heard of "The Honeymooners" and didn't understand the concept until Sajak explained "The Flintstones," with bellowing Fred Flintstone and easygoing Barney Rubble, was an "unacknowledged rip-off" of "The Honeymooners."
One reporter even asked if "young people would get (the humor)," and Moore believes they will. "When you're looking at something (they do), you put yourself in that role, and either you say, 'What just happened ... has happened to me or someone I know' or 'I hope what happened ... never happens to me!'"
The comedy transcends trendy topical humor that tends to have a short life span, Sajak said. "'All in the Family' was a brilliant show but a flop in syndication because it was too topical. ... The humor in 'The Honeymooners' is timeless, unless it's the fact that things were cheaper then."
SAJAK AND MOORE enjoy the challenge of stepping into characters that have been defined by other actors. "Your choices are a little more limited because you can't suddenly decide to reinvent the character," Sajak said. "Art Carney is Ed Norton, so you have to take the same take he took, but without trying to be a caricature. You find the two or three things that made them work as characters -- it has to do with attitude.
"Norton/Carney may have been stupid, but he was a happy guy, he was happy with his lot in life. He had no money ... but he was a rich-spirited guy."
It's the same with Kramden/ Gleason, Moore said. "He's this bombastic person but basically a good person. He's loud and thinks he knows it all and has all these schemes and ideas."
A few lines have been added to ease transitions between scenes, Moore says, but the work otherwise is classic 1950s Jackie Gleason comedy as originally written. Period references to prices and the cost of living have been left intact.
Some aspects of the show reflect past values as well. A man who threatens to send his wife "to the moon" today might find himself facing criminal charges, but in the show's context it's clear Ralph Kramden is never going to take a swing at Alice.
"You know there's no way (Kramden) is going to follow through," Sajak says. "And not only is it just a threat, but if anyone is going to send anyone to the moon, it's going to be Alice sending him to the moon, and he knows that and the audience knows he knows that.
"People are going to find this a great escape for a night that will take them back to a simpler time," Sajak said. "There are no messages, there are no lessons, no heavy-handedness. It's an evening of escape."
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