Apology
The debut of You're in the Picture received negative reviews across the board.
| “ | 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. | ” |
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—Jackie Gleason begins his apology for You're in the Picture. |
The following Friday (January 27), instead of the game, the broadcast consisted of Gleason sitting in a chair on the now-bare stage and apologizing for the previous week's show. Stating that the series failed because of "the intangibles of show business", Gleason also noted that more than 300 combined years' worth of show business experience had been involved in the production.
He commented that the program "laid, without a doubt, the biggest bomb in history", adding that it "would make the H-Bomb look like a two-inch salute." Acknowledging the critics, he also stated that "You don't have to be Alexander Graham Bell to pick up the phone and find out it's dead."
He also told stories of his other flops (adding at one point "I wish I didn't know so much about these things"), and had the John Smith/Pocahontas illustration brought out to show what the format was for those "fortunate enough not to see last week's show". He also fulfilled contractual obligations by incorporating live commercials into the broadcast. He also noted that nobody complimented on how the show itself was after it finished airing, instead mentioning how good the commercials were and that the show went off the air at the right time. He ended his commentary with "I don't know what we'll do, but I'll be back".
This comical half-hour apology got much better reviews than the game show, and Gleason finished out his series commitment by renaming the program The Jackie Gleason Show and turning it into a talk/interview show, which lasted until March 24, 1961.
However, due to a moment during the apology in which Gleason hinted that the coffee cup he was sipping from wasn't really filled with "coffee" (he called it "Chock Full O'Booze"), the show's original sponsor, Kellogg's, pulled out of the series a week later and publicly claimed, "This isn't the show we bought". They reportedly told CBS executives they were offended by the coffee cup reference, and wanted no further association with Gleason or the show after that. However, Liggett & Myers, the show's alternate sponsor, continued with the series until it ended.
Read more about this topic: You're In The Picture
Famous quotes containing the word apology:
“Our systems, perhaps, are nothing more than an unconscious apology for our faults—a gigantic scaffolding whose object is to hide from us our favorite sin.”
—Henri-Frédéric Amiel (1821–1881)
“Senators and presidents have climbed so high with pain enough, not because they think the place specially agreeable, but as an apology for real worth, and to vindicate their manhood in our eyes. This conspicuous chair is their compensation to themselves for being of a poor, cold, hard nature.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“It’s no good talking to a man with an apology for a brain.”
—Lester Cole (1904–1985)