'Mooners Monday: Leave it there; the cat'll get it!

I really didn;t know about the rich history of ad-libs in The Honeymooners until I plowed through The Official Honeymooners Treasury and read all kinds of anecdotes about bloopers and mishaps and cast's reactions to them as the cameras kept rolling. One of the most famous ad-libs in the series' run comes in Alice and the Blonde. Bert Weedemeyer is bringing out refreshments to the gang:

Suddenly he knocks into the coffee table and spills a little.

Art Carney as Ed Norton leans over and says in classic animated Norton fashion: "Leave it there; the cat'll get it!"

In itself, that isn't so hilarious if you don't know it's an unscripted reaction to Bert's accident. However, once you know it isn't supposed to happen, it becomes one of the more fascinating moments in 'Mooners lore.

First, I love Ralph's over-the-top reaction to Norton's comment. With a huge smile, he cackles, "Leave it there; the cat'll get it!"

He turns to Alice and repeats it with a tone of, "Come on, didn't you hear his hilarious remark?"

Gleason's reaction is entirely in character because Ralph is in classic "sucking up and trying to be charming" mode, in which he exaggerates everything to demonstrate what a good time he's having.

However, Alice is already fed up with this, so Audrey Meadows' stern, "I heard him," is also in character:

And check out Ralph's chagrined face after Alice kills the moment:

Again, by itself, this isn't hilarious stuff, though it is amusing and totally in keeping with the rest of the scene. But when you think that this is all done on the fly, it seems perfect, an amazing sequence of talented performers taking something unexpected and turning it into something entertaining and 100% appropriate to the larger purpose of the story.

In The Official Honeymooners Treasury, Art Carney himself tells the authors they didn't do a lot of ad-libbing and mostly stuck to the script, but Gleason trusted him and knew he wasn;t trying to upstage him or steal his thunder." He also tells them, "I still use that line." Even away from Norton, he would throw that into a rehearsal or scene when something fell, and sometimes, he said, they would keep it in."

Freda Rosen, who plays Rita, says in the book:

The unusual thing is that when somebody comes out with an ad-lib to save something, then usually that's it, they go back to the script. With The Honeymooners, the unusual thing is that you ad-libe, and then the other guy picks up on it, and they really turn it into something funny. You'd never know it was an ad-lib  if you didn't study this stuff and get it under your skin.