Great Old TV Episodes...from The Honeymooners

YOUNG MAN WITH A HORN from The Honeymooners, originally aired in March, 1956

My mother was approaching three months of pregnancy with me when this episode was first shown...not that this has much to do with anything other than that I first saw it many years later as a syndicated rerun.  Ralph and Alice Kramden, played by Jackie Gleason and Audrey Meadows, live frugally in their bare New York City apartment with their upstairs neighbors Ed and Trixie Norton, played by Art Carney and Joyce Randolph, representing the rest of the show's regular cast. Ralph is a city bus driver and in this particular episode (warning: this article contains a plot spoiler) has gone on a self-improvement kick as he has his eyes set on an open civil service vacancy...but first he has to score high on the written exam and needs to study for it.  Ralph's push to get this better paying job has expanded to him bettering his life on a number of fronts...his assiduous goals and record-keeping even impress usually skeptical Alice, and that's something to behold.  In the end he doesn't pass the test and doesn't get the new job...but although he feels a failure and that everything he's done was for nothing, his wife consolingly tells him his changes have transformed him into a new Ralph Kramden...and the old one had better not show his face again.  As for the episode's title, Ralph has an old trumpet on which he has practiced for years but was never able to hit the "high" note...after Alice sweetly encourages him at the end, he picks up the horn for one more try. I always valued this episode among the brief Honeymooners "Classic" series...there were many more episodes and skits over the years about the Kramdens and Nortons.  Usually they featured Ralph with his pride and foolishness, but this one showed me that by pursuing worthwhile goals and disciplining myself to achieve them, I can transform my whole life in the process...and often if not usually it's the change in lifestyle and attitude that endures far beyond the immediate objective...