bed without kissing me good night. J: I can do it. B: You'd better say you're sorry for that, John. J: Okay, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. B: You are not. J: I am too. I'm the sorriest man that was ever born. B: Is there any milk for breakfast? J: No. B: Then you'll have to eat out. J: I don't care, I've been doing it all week. B: What for? I left you enough food for six days. I cooked a whole bathtub full of rice. What happened to it? J: I took a bath in it. B: Why didn't you eat it? J: I've told you a million times I can't stand the sight of rice. B: Why not? J: Because it's connected to the saddest mistake of my life. B: You stopped loving me the day we were married. J: That wasn't the day at all. The flip side Though they spent their allotted time together at each other's throats, assuming always that the shrewish Blanche could awaken John from his snoring, there were moments when the couple showed an uncommon tenderness to each other—particularly in a Christmas skit. (It should have been hinted at the outset by Marvin Miller's atypical introduction: "The Bickersons—have not retired.") After arguing over whether John had sent Blanche a Christmas card (he had, it was buried in a stack of newspapers), they exchanged their gifts to each other... with a twist. Tight in the pocketbook, Blanche had swapped a fur coat to buy her bourbon-loving husband a portable bar; John—although a bourbon lover—had swapped his stock to buy Blanche a matching fur muffler. But the skit ends with the confession that, for all that they're each other's biggest pain in the rump, there really is a love between them. Jackie Gleason probably knew of that Christmas exchange or had also read the short story it was based on, O. Henry's "The Gift of the Magi." A "classic 39" Christmas episode of The Honeymooners involved blustery bus driver Ralph hocking his brand-new bowling ball in a mad dash to get Alice a last-minute Christmas gift, only to learn the hard way that Alice had bought him a stylish new bowling ball bag. Television The Bickersons had at least three television runs. The first was as a segment on Star Time, which ran on Dumont for a half-season, from September 1950