Wait till your father gets home

Sure, I remember it. By a "more serious" version of The Simpsons, I take it you didn't think it was as funny. I agree -- which is why I didn't watch it very often.

Of course, that's just me.

Quack, Don

Wasn't this just another remake of the Flintstones? Just like the Roman Holidays, and/or, the Barkleys. (Of course, a lot of people realize that the Flintstones themselves were a remake of Jackie Gleason's The Honeymooners.)

I thought of Roman Holidays as more of an All in the Family knock-off; and The Barkleys could have been based on any one of a half-dozen sitcoms. As for Wait 'Til Your Father Gets Home, I don't know. I didn't see enough of it to peg it to anything.

Quack, Don

Don;

I guess my point is that they all were, in a sense, a remake of Gleason's The Honeymooners. Which was an atypical family sitcom for it's era, (or, even our era.) It seems to me, for the most part the father in all, was a "blue collar" worker, or, some low level "white collar" worker, who tried to be the "King" of the castle (home,) but events around the family usually proved what ever he tried to proclaim to be wrong.

I know that that is a generalization, but doesn't it fit most all "family" sitcoms, and, like I said, isn't Gleason's The Honeymooners said to teh the prototype for sitcoms, animated, or, "live", of that type?

I didn't say I didn't think it was as funny, by 'more serious' I meant that it was a more down to earth show, and not as surreal as The Simpsons or Family Guy. I've seen some clips on YouTube, and it would seem to lean towards All in the Family, although the 'father' was voiced by Tom Bosley, who, in my mind, is more of an anti Archie Bunker.

Chuck, I'm not quite sure what you mean by saying in one paragraph that The Honeymooners was atypical, and in the next that it was a prototype. I'll cite The Life of Riley as a counter-example to both. It was earlier -- in fact, it started on radio (where there were a lot of sitcoms, by the way), so if either was a prototy[e (which I don't think is the case), Riley was it; and it seemed pretty normal to me. I don't know -- I'm not a sitcom maven; that's just what it seems to me.

Red, calling Tom Bosley the anti-Archie Bunker is spot on. The fact that you didn't mean "serious" the way I interpreted it is noted, but I still didn't like the show very much.

Quack, Don

Okay, I probably confused myself with those two statements. I think I meant atypical in that Honeymooners was set in a real locale, as opposed to Leave it to Beaver 's Springfield. Ralph was a Bus Driver, as opposed to an insurance man of some type in Beaver or, Father Knows Best. And, Ralph and Alice seemed to be almost co-leads,

Prototype, since many "family" sitcoms today from All in the Family , to Roseanne all seem to draw upon the Gleason model, in some significant way, for their shows.

Hope I've cleared up my thoughts for everyone, including myself.

Much clearer, Chuck. Thanks. Y'know, it's not uncommon for writing something to clarify my own thinking on the subject. That's one reason I write something practically every day of my life.

But I still think of "prototype" as being the very first use of something, not just an early example. Riley is an earlier example of a blue-collar sitcom star (he worked on an assembly line in an aircraft factor, as I recall -- we were always seeing him and his pal Gillis riveting something above their heads), so he's a better candidate for the prototype -- not that I think either actually is the first.

That's just semantics, sure, but when a guy is writing all the time, semantics can seem kind of important. Sorry.

Quack, Don

Don, absolutely no problem. In fact it probably forced me to concentrate my thoughts on the thread. (which I presume is a very useful thing for a professional writer in any medium.)

And, as for Riley, as opposed to Honeymooners, being the prototype, one can say six of one, half dozen of another. Bendix's show WAS similar in to Gleason's in someways. In fact, though I'd have to check into sources on "old time radio," I think Gleason might've done a turn as Riley while the show was still on radio.

I was right, and, wrong, about Gleason doing a turn as Riley. According to Wikipedia, Gleason was the first Riley on television, the '48-'49 season, which aired on DuMont, (the first "fourth network.") DuMont was also the network where Gleason's Honeymooners first aired.
(adding this in trying to be accurate, as you usually are, Don.)