TV Quote of the Day (‘The Honeymooners,’ With Ralph on How ‘The Squeeze Play’ Works in Salary Negotiations)

Ralph Kramden [played by Jackie Gleason]: “I go right over to see Mr. Marshall, my boss. I tell Mr. Marshall that I have this other offer and that it offers me 40, maybe 50 dollars a day. Therefore, I'll have to leave the bus company, otherwise he'll have to give me my promotion and raise. And that's what you call ‘the squeeze play.’ You know he's not gonna get rid of me.”

Alice Kramden [played by Audrey Meadows]: “It's not gonna work, Ralph.”

Ralph: “What do you mean, it's not gonna work? I'm going to squeeze Mr. Marshall. He's in no position to squeeze me.”

Alice: “Of course not. He couldn't even get his arms around you!”—The Honeymooners, Season 1, Episode 35, “Mind Your Own Business,” original air date May 26, 1956, teleplay by Leonard Stern, Sydney Zelinka and Jackie Gleason (uncredited), directed by Frank Satenstein

TV Quote of the Day (‘The Honeymooners,’ on ‘The Biggest Thing’ Ralph Ever Got Into)

Ralph Kramden [played by Jackie Gleason]: “Two thousand dollars, Alice! That's big, big, big! This is probably the biggest thing I ever got into.”

Alice Kramden [played by Audrey Meadows]: “The biggest thing you ever got into was your pants.”—The Honeymooners, Season 1, Episode 7, “Better Living Through TV,” original air date Nov 12, 1955, teleplay by Marvin Marx, Walter Stone, and Jackie Gleason (uncredited), directed by Frank Satenstein

TV Quote of the Day (‘The Honeymooners,’ As Alice Accounts for a Mystery Bothering Ralph)

Alice Kramden [played by Audrey Meadows]: “I suppose you were cold sober, Ralph, the other night when you came charging in the house, ran in the bedroom, flung the window open, stuck your head out and started yelling, ‘Hey, Mrs. Gallagher, what's this cat doing in this apartment?’"

Ralph Kramden [played by Jackie Gleason]: “Well, I'll ask it again: What was the cat doing in this apartment?”

Alice: “It wasn't her cat. You had your raccoon hat on backwards.”— The Honeymooners, Season 1, Episode 30, “The Loudspeaker,” original air date Apr. 21, 1956, teleplay by Marvin Marx, Walter Stone and Jackie Gleason (uncredited), directed by Frank Satenstein

Quote of the Day (William Hazlitt, on Why Women Often Have More Good Sense Than Men)

“Women have often more of what is called good sense than men. They have fewer pretensions; are less implicated in theories; and judge of objects more from their immediate and involuntary impression on the mind, and, therefore, more truly and naturally. They cannot reason wrong; for they do not reason at all. They do not think or speak by rule; and they have in general more eloquence and wit, as well as sense, on that account. By their wit, sense and eloquence together, they generally contrive to govern their husbands. Their style, when they write to their friends (not for the booksellers), is better than that of most authors.”—English essayist William Hazlitt (1778-1830), “On the Ignorance of the Learned,” in Table-Talk: or, Original Essays, Vol. 2 (1822)

Naturally, women reading the above would argue with the point that women “do not reason at all.” But, in the context of the true subject of Hazlitt’s piece—theory, classical education and these realms' distance from actual practice (“the most learned man…knows the most of what is farthest removed from common life and actual observation, that is of the least practical utility”)—they are far more likely to nod in agreement with everything else in that paragraph. 

(Well, with one other exception: they might substitute "usually" for "often" in that first sentence.)

What better illustration of what Mr. Hazlitt is talking about concerning men without sense and women with it than the picture next to this post?

Well, maybe there is one—this bit of dialogue from The Honeymooners:

Ralph: “What's the matter? Aren't you up on current events? Don't you read the papers? Don't you read comic books? That's the trouble with you; you don't know the latest developments.”

Alice: “I don't know the latest developments? Who is it that lets your pants out every other day?”

This demonstrates why, on more than one occasion, Ralph shows that he has a "BIG mouth"—big enough to put his foot in it.

TV Quote of the Day (‘The Honeymooners,’ As Ralph Tries Out an Anger-Management Technique on Norton)

Ralph Kramden [played by Jackie Gleason][reciting a mantra he’s been given to deal with his anger and nervousness]: “ ‘Pins and needles, needles and pins, it's a happy man that grins.’ Now, what am I mad about?”

Ed Norton [played by Art Carney]: “They raised the rent 15%.”

[Immediately, a dark cloud crosses Ralph’s face.]—The Honeymooners, Season 1, Episode 24, “Please Leave the Premises,” original air date Mar. 10, 1956, teleplay by Marvin Marx and Walter Stone, directed by Frank Satenstein

TV Quote of the Day (‘The Honeymooners,’ on ‘Poor Little Pizza’)

[Alice has just left the room, after telling Ralph he should eat the salad in the refrigerator rather than the pizza Ed Norton has brought in.]

Ed Norton [played by Art Carney]: “You want me to take the pizza upstairs—you know, sort of remove the temptation?”

Ralph Kramden [played by Jackie Gleason]: “What do you think I am, a child or something? That if anything’s in front of me, I’ve gotta eat it? Who needs it? I’ve got a salad.”  [Goes to refrigerator, takes it out, puts it in the table, while Ed plays with the pizza.] “Not a bad one, either. Everything on here is good for you. Got carrots for your eyes, got beets for your blood, lettuce for your teeth. Everything’s good. Everything’s good for something on this plate.”

Ed [picking up the pizza, laughing]: “Poor little pizza, ain’t good for nothin’. I’m telling ya, if pizzas were manhole covers, sewers would be a paradise!” [Ralph fumes as Ed bites eagerly into it, then finally bursts out with:]

Ralph: “Will ya stop waving that thing?!!!!”—The Honeymooners, Season 1, Episode 25, “Pardon My Glove,” original air date Mar. 17, 1956, teleplay by A.J. Russell and Herbert Finn, directed by Frank Satenstein