Fort Lauderdale FL—Jackie Gleason’s wife, Marilyn Taylor Gleason, and his stepson, Craig Horwich, will participate in the U.S. Postal Service’s South Florida salute to The Honeymooners, one of 20 shows featured in the Early TV Memories commemorative stamp set.
Today Fort Lauderdale Postmaster Mike Fortunato welcomed the Gleason Family to a First-Day-Of- Sale stamp ceremony in the lobby of the Fort Lauderdale Main Post Office, 1900 West Oakland Park Blvd, Fort Lauderdale.
The Honeymooners grew out of a six-minute sketch first broadcast in 1951 on Cavalcade of Stars. Jackie Gleason starred as hot-tempered bus driver Ralph Kramden, who lived in a cramped Brooklyn apartment with his wife, Alice. Ralph was a schemer whose dreams of hitting the jackpot were constantly frustrated. Alice was more pragmatic, standing firm in the face of her husband’s rage. Art Carney, who appeared as a policeman in the initial sketch, was cast as Ed Norton, Ralph’s neighbor, friend, and co-conspirator, who managed to leave him holding the bag.
As a half-hour series, The Honeymooners ran for only one season, 1955-1956. It presented viewers with a comic view of working-class life. Hemmed in by circumstance, Ralph would threaten to send his wife to the moon, only to be reconciled by the end of the episode, when he would tell her, “Baby, you’re the greatest.”
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An independent federal agency, the U.S. Postal Service is the only delivery service that reaches every address in the nation, 149 million residences, businesses and Post Office Boxes, six days a week. It has 34,000 retail locations and relies on the sale of postage, products and services, not tax dollars, to pay for operating expenses. Named the Most Trusted Government Agency five consecutive years by the Ponemon Institute, the Postal Service has annual revenue of $75 billion and delivers nearly half the world’s mail.
