Character page for The Honeymooners
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The Kramdens
Ralph Kramden
Played by: Jackie Gleason
- Acrofatic: Yep. Just watch his cartwheels.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: Ralph can go from calm to extremely angry with minimal provocation and usually deals with it by threatening and insulting others.
- Hypocrite: Ralph regularly accuses Alice of being frivolous with money, while he barely gives her enough to make ends meet and instead spends most of his paycheck on bowling and lodge dues.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: One of the classic examples; he's loud-mouthed, hot-tempered and prone to make get-rich-quick schemes that end in failure, but he's otherwise a loving, caring husband and friend and will always do the right thing whenever he realizes he screwed up.
- No Indoor Voice: Ralph shouts a lot, especially when he gets angry enough, which is relatively common on this show.
Alice Kramden
Alice Kramden (nee Gibson)
Played by: Pert Kelton (original skits), Audrey Meadows (series)
- Closer to Earth: Originally, Pert Kelton's Alice was supposed to be a shrew, and just as bad as Ralph. When Audrey Meadows replaced Kelton (after Kelton got blacklisted), the character was retooled to become the cooler-headed, sarcastic foil to her husband she's forever remembered as.
- Deadpan Snarker: She always responds to Ralph's bluster with biting, deadpan wit.
The Nortons
Ed Norton
Edward Lillywhite/Ethelbert "Ed" Norton
Played by: Art Carney
- Character Catchphrase: (Whenever Ralph yells at him) Gee, what a grouch!
- Cloudcuckoolander: Ed always has his head in the clouds but often...he's right about something.
- Last-Name Basis: Ralph calls Ed Norton "Norton". For that matter, it seems like everyone calls him 'Norton' much more than they do 'Ed'... including Trixie, who only calls him "My Ed" when she's worried about him like when he's sleepwalking.
Trixie Norton
Thelma "Trixie" Norton
Played by: Elaine Stritch, Joyce Randolph
- Satellite Character: She's Ed's wife and Alice's best friend. There's not much else to her than that, and much of her role is to be someone other than Ralph for Ed and Alice to talk to.
