You're In The Picture

[Matt Ottinger]

While Google concerns itself over a much less significant 50th anniversary (Kennedy's innauguration), I think it's important that we take a moment to recognize someting truly meaningful.  Fifty years ago today, specifically fifty years ago tonight at 9:30pm ET, Jackie Gleason gave us the wonder that was You're In the Picture.  Such magnificence, of course, cannot be duplicated, so they didn't try.  The following week, realizing he couldn't possibly top perfection, Gleason "apologized" instead and never tried a game show again.

[J.R.]

You just made my day. I lol'd very hard.

[tvrandywest]

Gleason or the Kennedy gala, and no Tivo? I'd still choose Gleason!

Thanks for the reminder Matt. It means we're only a week away from another great TV anniversary:

At 9:30 p.m. on January 27, Johnny O. welcomed viewers at the show’s opening to
“…what will probably prove to be a very unusual program.” Then, Gleason appeared
live from CBS’ Studio 52 on West 54th Street at Broadway, standing on a naked
stage adorned only with a comfortable chair, two small tables, an ashtray, a cigarette
lighter, and a coffee cup containing an undisclosed liquid. In a half-hour, hysterical,
off-the-cuff monologue about good ideas gone wrong, he apologized to the audience
for what he called “the biggest bomb ever put on television.”

Gleason said, “Honesty is the best policy…Last week, we did a show called 'You’re
In The Picture' that laid, without a doubt, the biggest bomb in the history of television!
I’m telling you friends, that I’ve seen bombs in my day. Th s would make the
H-bomb look like a two-inch salute.” He continued, “You don’t have to be Alexander
Graham Bell to pick up the telephone and find out it’s dead.”


Love it!

Randy
tvrandywest.com

[MikeK]

I have never seen You're in the Picture.  Was the show that bad or was it massacred by JFK's inauguration gala in the ratings, or a little of column A and a little of column B?

[Matt Ottinger]

[quote name=\'MikeK\' post=\'255144\' date=\'Jan 20 2011, 05:36 PM\']I have never seen You're in the Picture.  Was the show that bad or was it massacred by JFK's inauguration gala in the ratings, or a little of column A and a little of column B?[/quote]
There have certainly been worse game shows.  It was a panel show with a ridiculous gimmick and no contestants, neither of which helped, but there are definitely laughs to be had.  And while there was indeed live coverage of inaugural balls that night, I'm not sure that ratings were a factor in the decision.  I think it was more the savage reviews and Gleason's clear discomfort with the format.

I don't know if there's any game play in this ten minute piece, but there's a little of the set-up and then some of Gleason's apology.

[DrBear]

Matt, that first post was the most accurate summation of an event I've seen since ... oh, pick any political talk show you wish.

[Eric Paddon]

This appearance of Gleason on the Tonight Show reveals something I hadn't known before, that a *second* episode had been taped that night with Johnny Carson as a panelist for use at a later airdate but obviously that tape never got to be used because of the disaster of the first show that had aired live.      Carson says that Milt Kamen and Arthur Treacher were on his spot (though Johnny acts under the assumption years later that his show was the one that aired instead of the one held back).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyhQQhIys9Q