Best of Beverly Hillbillies [3 Discs] [DVD]

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This mid-priced DVD is a bit misleading. Although it is never stated explicitly, the disc is comprised of three documentary programs about the show -- albeit with extensive clips -- rather than complete installments of The Honeymooners, with one complete show rounding out the disc. As it happens, this may be the best way to watch this particular body of episodes; rather than the "classic 39" filmed shows that have delighted audiences for nearly a half-century, MPI Home Video has the rights to the "rediscovered" live Honeymooners programs, preserved on kinescopes that turned up in Jackie Gleason's possession in the 1980s. The pacing isn't as careful or the direction as meticulous as components of the filmed shows, and so it is, in many instances, more entertaining to watch the distillation of the shows rather than the complete programs. Additionally, the producers have included clips of Gleason at work outside the boundaries of The Honeymooners sketches, offering glimpses of him in various roles (including The Poor Soul and Reginald Van Gleason III) as well as in his capacity as host of his different television variety shows. It's a little eerie to watch him age a half-dozen years and gain and lose what seems to be as much as 40 pounds from clip-to-clip. The first two documentaries, "The Honeymooners Funniest Moments Volumes 1 and Volume 2," love to dwell on the ad libs, flubbed lines, and miscues on the set. The ad libs include Gleason's spontaneous impersonations of Humphrey Bogart, Jimmy Durante, Peter Lorre, and Charles Boyer, as he tries to fill time around a delay backstage. One further problem with all three of the Honeymooners chronicles being assembled together is that the producers have used several of the same clips, sometimes to make identical points, in all three. The third, "The Wit and Wisdom of Ed Norton," has a little more diversity as it focuses on Art Carney's work, but even here there is overlap. The fourth section, "A Letter to the Boss," is one of the funnier of the so-called "lost" episodes, and it more or less justifies the existence of the DVD, although it might better have been included in a true "Best of the Honeymooners" compilation, not appended to a trio of documentaries. The sound and image are superior to the broadcast versions of these kinescopes, though they in no way match the quality of the 39 filmed shows.