January 27, 1961: Jackie Gleason Apologizes for "You're In the Picture"

January 20, 1961: You're In the Picture premieres on CBS. It quickly fell out of the Tiffany Network's picture.

Jackie Gleason was a CBS legend. The Jackie Gleason Show -- originally named Cavalcade of Stars, and broadcast on the DuMont Network from 1949 to 1952, and then on CBS through 1957 -- was one of the most popular variety shows in TV history. Its most popular sketch, The Honeymooners, had been spun off into one of the most beloved situation comedies ever. Like later athletes Roberto Clemente and Wayne Gretzky, Gleason became known as "The Great One."

But with You're In the Picture, right away, the odds were against the show. It aired on a Friday night at 9:30, a "death slot" for any show, because anybody who could afford it was out on the town, with a date, or their spouse if already married, or out with "the boys" or "the girls." Plus, John F. Kennedy had been inaugurated as President that day, and the other networks were showing the Inaugural Balls, complete with entertainment led by Frank Sinatra. Sinatra was a friend, as well as the biggest star in the world at the time, and Gleason knew he couldn't compete with him. So the ratings for the premiere were going to be bad, no matter what happened. At the least, CBS should have waited a week to show it.

You're In the Picture was a game show. A four-member celebrity panel would stick their heads into a life-sized illustration of a famous scene or song lyric with a hole cut out, then take turns asking yes-or-no questions to Gleason, to try to figure out what scene they were a part of.

If they were able to figure out the scene, 100 CARE Packages were donated in their name. If they were stumped, the packages were donated in Gleason's name. In other words, no matter who won, charity also won.

Live music was provided by a Dixieland band, under the direction of Norman Leyden, supposedly arranged by Gleason himself, who had some experience in "easy listening" arrangements outside his television work, selling millions of albums. He may have made more money off of that than anything else.

The celebrity panel for the premiere consisted of Pat Harrington Jr., then known as part of the ensemble on shows hosted by Steve Allen and Jack Paar; Pat Carroll, known for her work on Sid Caesar's shows; Jan Sterling, an actress known for her roles in the films Ace in the Hole and The High and the Mighty; and Arthur Treacher, a British actor then known for playing Jeeves in films based on P.G. Wodehouse's Jeeves and Wooster stories.

Among the tableaux-like backdrops featured in the premiere were Pocahontas rescuing John Smith, statues at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and three men staring at a girl in, in the words of a Number 1 hit song of the previous year, "an itsy-bitsy, teenie-weenie, yellow polka-dot bikini." (In spite of The Honeymooners' Ralph Kramden being a devoted, if argumentative, husband, the real-life Gleason had a reputation as a lecher and a womanizer.)

It didn't work. It wasn't funny, and the reviews were atrocious. And Gleason, who knew comedy as well as any human being alive, knew it. He knew he had to do something the next week. So...

January 27, 1961: At 9:30 PM, U.S. Eastern Time, on live national television, Jackie Gleason walked onstage, sat down on a stool... and apologized for the previous week's show:

* "There's nothing here, except the orchestra and myself."

* "We have a creed tonight, and the creed is honesty."

* "Last week, we did a show that laid the biggest bomb. It would make the H-bomb look like a two-inch salute."

* "You don't have to be Alexander Graham Bell to pick up the phone and find out it's dead."

* Having been in a few other flops -- stage shows, films, radio, TV -- he added, "I wish I didn't know so much about these things."

Then he launched into, basically, a talk-show monologue, which inspired what he used to fill the rest of the commitment that CBS had given to the show, through March 24. It was renamed, naturally, The Jackie Gleason Show, and it was a talk show, airing as if that was the plan all along, and as if You're In the Picture had never existed. This was smart: Whatever damage that would be done was unlikely to have been worse than what had already been done, and anything gained from the remaining 9 installments would have been a bonus.

You're In the Picture wasn't the 1st U.S. TV show canceled after 1 episode, especially since, technically, there were 2 episodes, counting the apology show. On June 25, 1951, CBS aired a game show titled Who's Whose, and it was so horribly reviewed that it was canceled after 1 episode.

Still, You're In the Picture was held up as the standard for single-episode bombs until 1969, when ABC tried to rip off NBC's Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In with Turn On, and some affiliates dropped it in mid-episode.

It's worth noting that, while the apology show is available on YouTube, the premiere is not.

Gleason rebounded. On September 25, The Hustler premiered, with Gleason and Paul Newman starring as competitive pool players. Gleason proved he was every bit as good with drama as he was with comedy. He moved down to Miami, and produced a new Jackie Gleason Show there from 1962 to 1970.

Johnny Carson, then known as a game-show host, was supposed to be on the premiere of You're In the Picture, but wasn't. Pat Carroll later confirmed it: "Johnny Carson was supposed to be on it. But he did one rehearsal, and we never saw him again. He knew better than we did. Ha!"

In 1962, Carson became the host of The Tonight Show on NBC. During Gleason's last appearance on The Tonight Show before his death in 1987, at age 71, Carson brought You're In the Picture up. For my generation, knowing Gleason mainly through reruns of The Honeymooners on late-night local TV, this was a mystery. He told the audience, "That show was the biggest bomb in the history of television!" He stretched out the word "bomb" as much as he could, to make the point.

Arthur Treacher was reintroduced to American audiences through playing Constable Jones in the Disney film Mary Poppins, became the announcer/sidekick for The Merv Griffin Show, and lent his name to a restaurant chain, Arthur Treacher's Fish and Chips. He died in 1975, and, like the Western movie and TV star Roy Rogers with his hamburger chain, the chip shops did not long survive their namesake.

Jan Sterling got a regular role on the CBS soap opera Guiding Light, and lived until 2004. Pat Harrington later become best known as handyman Duane Schneider on the sitcom One Day at a Time, and lived until 2016. Pat Carroll rebounded quickly, getting picked up by Danny Thomas for his sitcom Make Room for Daddy. She is now best known as the voice of Ursula in the Disney cartoon The Little Mermaid. As of January 27, 2022, she is still alive. (UPDATE: She died on July 30, 2022, age 95.)

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January 27, 1961 was a Friday. It was the off-season for baseball and football. There were no NHL games scheduled for the day. There were 3 games in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks beat the Philadelphia Warriors, 130-119 at the old Madison Square Garden. The Knicks' Richie Guerin led all scorers on the night with 42 points.

* The Boston Celtics beat the Detroit Pistons, 140-111 at the Boston Garden.

* And the Syracuse Nationals beat the Cincinnati Royals, 138-126 at the Cincinnati Gardens. Dolph Schayes led the Nats with 28 points. In defeat, Jack Twyman scored 37. Oscar Robertson did not appear in the game.