The early Honeymooners episodes are a trial to watch in this modern day. They are limited, crude and lacking in the subtleties and themes of the famous episodes to come. On top of that, they aren't very funny. They are 8-10 minutes in length and all of the 'action' takes place in the Kramden's cramped and unglamorous apartment. The idea is that every neighborhood has one couple that is always arguing and always making up. They must love each other, or they wouldn't make up. They must be on a perpetual honeymoon. (Thus the title.) The skits are about the argument, which begins with Ralph upset over something and ends with ralph being humbled as his concerns are relieved or he finds that he and Alice are disadvantaged in some way by Ralph's overreaction. He then delivers a heartfelt, semi-comical apology and the sketch ends with a clinch and a kiss.
It was all very one-note, with Ralph coming off as a loud grouch and a fool. Alice, as played by veteran actress Pert Kelton, is the sort of gravelly-voiced battle axe you'd expect a guy like Ralph to be married to. Originally there were no Nortons, (Art Carney plays a policeman in the first sketch). They show up in the fourth episode, (the third still available) and are also very crudely presented and unrealized. Elaine Stritch plays Trixie in that first appearance, looking like a roller derby competitor. The biggest problem modern audiences have with this show is the threats of physical violence Ralph constantly makes to Alice. It's later recognized as being phony and not anything he actually means but in these early episodes, that's not clear and in the Norton's first appearance, it's Ed who threatens Trixie and he seems dead serious, as if this was his normal method of dealing with her. The dialog seems to suggest that a husband beating his wife to keep her in line was a normal and accepted thing at the time. People watching these ancient episodes and expected to see a 'classic' will be sorely disappointed, which is why these episodes were not included in the initial release back in the 1980's.
The one valuable thing to an afficionado of the later episodes is to see the early evolution of the show - to get the whole history of it. The sentimentality and duration of the ending increases as we go along, which makes Ralph somewhat more sympathetic. The 8th episode, the first version of "The Quiz Show" has the first really funny comeuppance for Ralph as he's been berating Alice for getting an answer wrong but it turns out she was right and he now has to answer a new question -and can't. A huge development was the decision on December 21, 1951 to have the whole show become a Honeymooner's episode in which all of Jackie Gleason's famous characters put in an appearance at the Kramden's apartment at Christmas time. It shows the Kramdens on a happy occasion, which doesn't prevent them from having an argument about where to get potato salad. But it was quite a break from the drone of the normal argument sketches and gave the characters more dimension.
Several episodes we associate with the Audrey Meadows Era were first done with Pert Kelton in the shows done for Dumont, (an early TV network broadcasting mostly in the east). The Christmas Party was redone in 1952 and 1953. In the initial 1980's release, the earliest episode was "The Cold" from 11/1/52 with Meadows but we now know it was done 2/8/52 with Kelton, although that is a truly lost episode. "Manager of the Baseball Team" was first done 5/16/52 with Kelton and redone 5/9/53 with Meadows and then done a third time on 6/1/57 as the final episode of the 1950's, (which they seem have known it would be in performing it). "Vacation at Fred's Landing", the first known episode other than the Christmas Parties to take up the whole show and to have scenes outside of the Kramden apartment, was first done with Kelton on 5/30/52, then redone with Meadows 6/20/53 and 6/19/54. A television classic was beginning to peck away at the unpromising egg we see in the early episodes.