Jackie Gleason: From Earth “to the Moon!”

The Ed Sullivan Theater, currently the home of The David Letterman Show, was, of course, once the home of the Ed Sullivan Show. On the stage where Letterman’s show takes place such acts as Elvis Presley, the Beatles, the Doors, the Rolling Stones, and other notables of stage, screen and music once performed. And the guest list goes on to include countless dancing bears, plate spinners, former vaudeville acts, comedians, and acrobats who were seen. Finally, who among you that watched that show could forget Topo Gigo, the Spanish mouse (puppet) who always ended his act by saying, “Eddie, kiss me goodnight.”

But less known, perhaps, is the fact that The Jackie Gleason Show got its start in this same theater in 1950. Then known as the Adelphi Theater, it was the first home to Gleason’s show, including The Honeymooners. For the next six years this theater would reverberate with the sounds of Ralph Kramden asking Alice, “How would you like to go to the moon?” and lines such as Ed Norton addressing a golf ball by saying, “Hellooooooo, ball!”

There were other characters established here. The Poor Soul, Joe the Bartender, Reginald Van Gleason, Sedgwick Van Gleason (Reginald’s father as played by Art Carney) all got there start on the Cavalcade of Stars, as it was known then.