title: Free will

text: This empiricist view was often denied by trying to prove the so-called apriority of causal law (i.e. that it precedes all experience and is rooted in the construction of the perceivable world):


title: Free will

text: In the 1780s Immanuel Kant suggested at a minimum our decision processes with moral implications lie outside the reach of everyday causality, and lie outside the rules governing material objects. "There is a sharp difference between moral judgments and judgments of fact… Moral judgments… must be "a priori" judgments."


title: Free will

text: Freeman introduces what he calls "circular causality" to "allow for the contribution of self-organizing dynamics", the "formation of macroscopic population dynamics that shapes the patterns of activity of the contributing individuals", applicable to "interactions between neurons and neural masses… and between the behaving animal and its environment". In this view, mind and neurological functions are tightly coupled in a situation where feedback between collective actions (mind) and individual subsystems (for example, neurons and their synapses) jointly decide upon the behaviour of both.


title: Free will

text: Thirteenth century philosopher Thomas Aquinas viewed humans as pre-programmed (by virtue of being human) to seek certain goals, but able to choose between routes to achieve these goals (our Aristotelian telos). His view has been associated with both compatibilism and libertarianism.


title: Free will

text: In facing choices, he argued that humans are governed by "intellect", "will", and "passions". The will is "the primary mover of all the powers of the soul… and it is also the efficient cause of motion in the body." Choice falls into five stages: (i) intellectual consideration of whether an objective is desirable, (ii) intellectual consideration of means of attaining the objective, (iii) will arrives at an intent to pursue the objective, (iv) will and intellect jointly decide upon choice of means (v) will elects execution. Free will enters as follows: Free will is an "appetitive power", that is, not a cognitive power of intellect (the term "appetite" from Aquinas's definition "includes all forms of internal inclination"). He states that judgment "concludes and terminates counsel. Now counsel is terminated, first, by the judgment of reason; secondly, by the acceptation of the appetite [that is, the free-will]."


title: Free will

text: A compatibilist interpretation of Aquinas's view is defended thus: "Free-will is the cause of its own movement, because by his free-will man moves himself to act. But it does not of necessity belong to liberty that what is free should be the first cause of itself, as neither for one thing to be cause of another need it be the first cause. God, therefore, is the first cause, Who moves causes both natural and voluntary. And just as by moving natural causes He does not prevent their acts being natural, so by moving voluntary causes He does not deprive their actions of being voluntary: but rather is He the cause of this very thing in them; for He operates in each thing according to its own nature."


title: Free will

text: Historically, most of the philosophical effort invested in resolving the dilemma has taken the form of close examination of definitions and ambiguities in the concepts designated by "free", "freedom", "will", "choice" and so forth. Defining 'free will' often revolves around the meaning of phrases like "ability to do otherwise" or "alternative possibilities". This emphasis upon words has led some philosophers to claim the problem is merely verbal and thus a pseudo-problem. In response, others point out the complexity of decision making and the importance of nuances in the terminology.


title: Free will

text: Buddhism accepts both freedom and determinism (or something similar to it), but in spite of its focus towards the human agency, rejects the western concept of a total agent from external sources. According to the Buddha, "There is free action, there is retribution, but I see no agent that passes out from one set of momentary elements into another one, except the [connection] of those elements." Buddhists believe in neither absolute free will, nor determinism. It preaches a middle doctrine, named "pratītyasamutpāda" in Sanskrit, often translated as "dependent origination", "dependent arising" or "conditioned genesis". It teaches that every volition is a conditioned action as a result of ignorance. In part, it states that free will is inherently conditioned and not "free" to begin with. It is also part of the theory of karma in Buddhism. The concept of karma in Buddhism is different from the notion of karma in Hinduism. In Buddhism, the idea of karma is much less deterministic. The Buddhist notion of karma is primarily focused on the cause and effect of moral actions in this life, while in Hinduism the concept of karma is more often connected with determining one's destiny in future lives.


title: Free will

text: In Buddhism it is taught that the idea of absolute freedom of choice (that is that any human being could be completely free to make any choice) is unwise, because it denies the reality of one's physical needs and circumstances. Equally incorrect is the idea that humans have no choice in life or that their lives are pre-determined. To deny freedom would be to deny the efforts of Buddhists to make moral progress (through our capacity to freely choose compassionate action). "Pubbekatahetuvada", the belief that all happiness and suffering arise from previous actions, is considered a wrong view according to Buddhist doctrines. Because Buddhists also reject agenthood, the traditional compatibilist strategies are closed to them as well. Instead, the Buddhist philosophical strategy is to examine the metaphysics of causality. Ancient India had many heated arguments about the nature of causality with Jains, Nyayists, Samkhyists, Cārvākans, and Buddhists all taking slightly different lines. In many ways, the Buddhist position is closer to a theory of "conditionality" ("idappaccayatā") than a theory of "causality", especially as it is expounded by Nagarjuna in the "Mūlamadhyamakakārikā".


title: Free will

text: The six orthodox (astika) schools of thought in Hindu philosophy do not agree with each other entirely on the question of free will. For the Samkhya, for instance, matter is without any freedom, and soul lacks any ability to control the unfolding of matter. The only real freedom ("kaivalya") consists in realizing the ultimate separateness of matter and self. For the Yoga school, only Ishvara is truly free, and its freedom is also distinct from all feelings, thoughts, actions, or wills, and is thus not at all a freedom of will. The metaphysics of the Nyaya and Vaisheshika schools strongly suggest a belief in determinism, but do not seem to make explicit claims about determinism or free will.


title: Free will

text: A quotation from Swami Vivekananda, a Vedantist, offers a good example of the worry about free will in the Hindu tradition.


title: Free will

text: However, the preceding quote has often been misinterpreted as Vivekananda implying that everything is predetermined. What Vivekananda actually meant by lack of free will was that the will was not "free" because it was heavily influenced by the law of cause and effect – "The will is not free, it is a phenomenon bound by cause and effect, but there is something behind the will which is free." Vivekananda never said things were absolutely determined and placed emphasis on the power of conscious choice to alter one's past karma: "It is the coward and the fool who says this is his fate. But it is the strong man who stands up and says I will make my own fate."


title: Free will

text: Science has contributed to the free will problem in at least three ways. First, physics has addressed the question of whether nature is deterministic, which is viewed as crucial by incompatibilists (compatibilists, however, view it as irrelevant). Second, although free will can be defined in various ways, all of them involve aspects of the way people make decisions and initiate actions, which have been studied extensively by neuroscientists. Some of the experimental observations are widely viewed as implying that free will does not exist or is an illusion (but many philosophers see this as a misunderstanding). Third, psychologists have studied the beliefs that the majority of ordinary people hold about free will and its role in assigning moral responsibility.


title: Free will

text: Early scientific thought often portrayed the universe as deterministic – for example in the thought of Democritus or the Cārvākans – and some thinkers claimed that the simple process of gathering sufficient information would allow them to predict future events with perfect accuracy. Modern science, on the other hand, is a mixture of deterministic and stochastic theories. Quantum mechanics predicts events only in terms of probabilities, casting doubt on whether the universe is deterministic at all, although evolution of the universal state vector is completely deterministic. Current physical theories cannot resolve the question of whether determinism is true of the world, being very far from a potential theory of everything, and open to many different interpretations.


title: Free will

text: Assuming that an indeterministic interpretation of quantum mechanics is correct, one may still object that such indeterminism is for all practical purposes confined to microscopic phenomena. This is not always the case: many macroscopic phenomena are based on quantum effects. For instance, some hardware random number generators work by amplifying quantum effects into practically usable signals. A more significant question is whether the indeterminism of quantum mechanics allows for the traditional idea of free will (based on a perception of free will). If a person's action is, however, only a result of complete quantum randomness, mental processes as experienced have no influence on the probabilistic outcomes (such as volition). According to many interpretations, non-determinism enables free will to exist, while others assert the opposite (because the action was not controllable by the physical being who claims to possess the free will).


title: Free will

text: Like physicists, biologists have frequently addressed questions related to free will. One of the most heated debates in biology is that of "nature versus nurture", concerning the relative importance of genetics and biology as compared to culture and environment in human behavior. The view of many researchers is that many human behaviors can be explained in terms of humans' brains, genes, and evolutionary histories. This point of view raises the fear that such attribution makes it impossible to hold others responsible for their actions. Steven Pinker's view is that fear of determinism in the context of "genetics" and "evolution" is a mistake, that it is "a confusion of "explanation" with "exculpation"". Responsibility does not require that behavior be uncaused, as long as behavior responds to praise and blame. Moreover, it is not certain that environmental determination is any less threatening to free will than genetic determination.


title: Free will

text: It has become possible to study the living brain, and researchers can now watch the brain's decision-making process at work. A seminal experiment in this field was conducted by Benjamin Libet in the 1980s, in which he asked each subject to choose a random moment to flick their wrist while he measured the associated activity in their brain; in particular, the build-up of electrical signal called the readiness potential (after German Bereitschaftspotential, which was discovered by Kornhuber & Deecke in 1965.). Although it was well known that the readiness potential reliably preceded the physical action, Libet asked whether it could be recorded before the conscious intention to move. To determine when subjects felt the intention to move, he asked them to watch the second hand of a clock. After making a movement, the volunteer reported the time on the clock when they first felt the conscious intention to move; this became known as Libet's W time.


title: Free will

text: Libet found that the "unconscious" brain activity of the readiness potential leading up to subjects' movements began approximately half a second before the subject was aware of a conscious intention to move.


title: Free will

text: These studies of the timing between actions and the conscious decision bear upon the role of the brain in understanding free will. A subject's declaration of intention to move a finger appears "after" the brain has begun to implement the action, suggesting to some that unconsciously the brain has made the decision "before" the conscious mental act to do so. Some believe the implication is that free will was not involved in the decision and is an illusion. The first of these experiments reported the brain registered activity related to the move about 0.2 s before movement onset. However, these authors also found that awareness of action was "anticipatory" to activity in the muscle underlying the movement; the entire process resulting in action involves more steps than just the "onset" of brain activity. The bearing of these results upon notions of free will appears complex.


title: Free will

text: Some argue that placing the question of free will in the context of motor control is too narrow. The objection is that the time scales involved in motor control are very short, and motor control involves a great deal of unconscious action, with much physical movement entirely unconscious. On that basis "…free will cannot be squeezed into time frames of 150–350 ms; free will is a longer term phenomenon" and free will is a higher level activity that "cannot be captured in a description of neural activity or of muscle activation…" The bearing of timing experiments upon free will is still under discussion.


title: Free will

text: Benjamin Libet's results are quoted in favor of epiphenomenalism, but he believes subjects still have a "conscious veto", since the readiness potential does not invariably lead to an action. In "Freedom Evolves", Daniel Dennett argues that a no-free-will conclusion is based on dubious assumptions about the location of consciousness, as well as questioning the accuracy and interpretation of Libet's results. Kornhuber and Deecke underlined that absence of conscious will during the early Bereitschaftspotential (termed BP1) is not a proof of the non-existence of free will, as also unconscious agendas may be free and non-deterministic. According to their suggestion, man has relative freedom, i.e. freedom in degrees, that can be increased or decreased through deliberate choices that involve both conscious and unconscious (panencephalic) processes.


title: Free will

text: Others have argued that data such as the Bereitschaftspotential undermine epiphenomenalism for the same reason, that such experiments rely on a subject reporting the point in time at which a conscious experience occurs, thus relying on the subject to be able to consciously perform an action. That ability would seem to be at odds with early epiphenomenalism, which according to Huxley is the broad claim that consciousness is "completely without any power… as the steam-whistle which accompanies the work of a locomotive engine is without influence upon its machinery".


title: Free will

text: A study by Aaron Schurger and colleagues published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences challenged assumptions about the causal nature of the readiness potential itself (and the "pre-movement buildup" of neural activity in general), casting doubt on conclusions drawn from studies such as Libet's and Fried's.


title: Free will

text: A study that compared deliberate and arbitrary decisions, found that the early signs of decision are absent for the deliberate ones.


title: Free will

text: It has been shown that in several brain-related conditions, individuals cannot entirely control their own actions, though the existence of such conditions does not directly refute the existence of free will. Neuroscientific studies are valuable tools in developing models of how humans experience free will.


title: Free will

text: For example, people with Tourette syndrome and related tic disorders make involuntary movements and utterances (called tics) despite the fact that they would prefer not to do so when it is socially inappropriate. Tics are described as semi-voluntary or "unvoluntary", because they are not strictly "involuntary": they may be experienced as a "voluntary" response to an unwanted, premonitory urge. Tics are experienced as irresistible and must eventually be expressed. People with Tourette syndrome are sometimes able to suppress their tics for limited periods, but doing so often results in an explosion of tics afterward. The control exerted (from seconds to hours at a time) may merely postpone and exacerbate the ultimate expression of the tic.


title: Free will

text: In alien hand syndrome, the affected individual's limb will produce unintentional movements without the will of the person. The affected limb effectively demonstrates 'a will of its own.' The sense of agency does not emerge in conjunction with the overt appearance of the purposeful act even though the sense of ownership in relationship to the body part is maintained. This phenomenon corresponds with an impairment in the premotor mechanism manifested temporally by the appearance of the readiness potential recordable on the scalp several hundred milliseconds before the overt appearance of a spontaneous willed movement. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging with specialized multivariate analyses to study the temporal dimension in the activation of the cortical network associated with voluntary movement in human subjects, an anterior-to-posterior sequential activation process beginning in the supplementary motor area on the medial surface of the frontal lobe and progressing to the primary motor cortex and then to parietal cortex has been observed. The sense of agency thus appears to normally emerge in conjunction with this orderly sequential network activation incorporating premotor association cortices together with primary motor cortex. In particular, the supplementary motor complex on the medial surface of the frontal lobe appears to activate prior to primary motor cortex presumably in associated with a preparatory pre-movement process. In a recent study using functional magnetic resonance imaging, alien movements were characterized by a relatively isolated activation of the primary motor cortex contralateral to the alien hand, while voluntary movements of the same body part included the natural activation of motor association cortex associated with the premotor process. The clinical definition requires "feeling that one limb is foreign or has a "will of its own," together with observable involuntary motor activity" (emphasis in original). This syndrome is often a result of damage to the corpus callosum, either when it is severed to treat intractable epilepsy or due to a stroke. The standard neurological explanation is that the felt will reported by the speaking left hemisphere does not correspond with the actions performed by the non-speaking right hemisphere, thus suggesting that the two hemispheres may have independent senses of will.


title: Free will

text: In addition, one of the most important ("first rank") diagnostic symptoms of schizophrenia is the patient's delusion of being controlled by an external force. People with schizophrenia will sometimes report that, although they are acting in the world, they do not recall initiating the particular actions they performed. This is sometimes likened to being a robot controlled by someone else. Although the neural mechanisms of schizophrenia are not yet clear, one influential hypothesis is that there is a breakdown in brain systems that compare motor commands with the feedback received from the body (known as proprioception), leading to attendant hallucinations and delusions of control.


title: Free will

text: Experimental psychology's contributions to the free will debate have come primarily through social psychologist Daniel Wegner's work on conscious will. In his book, "The Illusion of Conscious Will," Wegner summarizes what he believes is empirical evidence supporting the view that human perception of conscious control is an illusion. Wegner summarizes some empirical evidence that may suggest that the perception of conscious control is open to modification (or even manipulation). Wegner observes that one event is inferred to have caused a second event when two requirements are met:


title: Free will

text: For example, if a person hears an explosion and sees a tree fall down that person is likely to infer that the explosion caused the tree to fall over. However, if the explosion occurs after the tree falls down (that is, the first requirement is not met), or rather than an explosion, the person hears the ring of a telephone (that is, the second requirement is not met), then that person is not likely to infer that either noise caused the tree to fall down.


title: Free will

text: Wegner has applied this principle to the inferences people make about their own conscious will. People typically experience a thought that is consistent with a behavior, and then they observe themselves performing this behavior. As a result, people infer that their thoughts must have caused the observed behavior. However, Wegner has been able to manipulate people's thoughts and behaviors so as to conform to or violate the two requirements for causal inference. Through such work, Wegner has been able to show that people often experience conscious will over behaviors that they have not, in fact, caused – and conversely, that people can be led to experience a lack of will over behaviors they did cause. For instance, priming subjects with information about an effect increases the probability that a person falsely believes is the cause. The implication for such work is that the perception of conscious will (which he says might be more accurately labelled as 'the emotion of authorship') is not tethered to the execution of actual behaviors, but is inferred from various cues through an intricate mental process, "authorship processing". Although many interpret this work as a blow against the argument for free will, both psychologists and philosophers have criticized Wegner's theories.


title: Free will

text: Emily Pronin has argued that the subjective experience of free will is supported by the introspection illusion. This is the tendency for people to trust the reliability of their own introspections while distrusting the introspections of other people. The theory implies that people will more readily attribute free will to themselves rather than others. This prediction has been confirmed by three of Pronin and Kugler's experiments. When college students were asked about personal decisions in their own and their roommate's lives, they regarded their own choices as less predictable. Staff at a restaurant described their co-workers' lives as more determined (having fewer future possibilities) than their own lives. When weighing up the influence of different factors on behavior, students gave desires and intentions the strongest weight for their own behavior, but rated personality traits as most predictive of other people.


title: Free will

text: Caveats have, however, been identified in studying a subject's awareness of mental events, in that the process of introspection itself may alter the experience.


title: Free will

text: Regardless of the validity of belief in free will, it may be beneficial to understand where the idea comes from. One contribution is randomness. While it is established that randomness is not the only factor in the perception of the free will, it has been shown that randomness can be mistaken as free will due to its indeterminacy. This misconception applies both when considering oneself and others. Another contribution is choice. It has been demonstrated that people's belief in free will increases if presented with a simple level of choice. The specificity of the amount of choice is important, as too little or too great a degree of choice may negatively influence belief. It is also likely that the associative relationship between level of choice and perception of free will is influentially bidirectional. It is also possible that one's desire for control, or other basic motivational patterns, act as a third variable.


title: Free will

text: Other experiments have also been proposed to test free will. Ender Tosun argues for the reality of free will, based on combined experiments consisting of empirical and thought experiments. In the empirical part of these experiments, experimenter 2 is expected to predict which object experimenter 1 will touch. Experimenter 1 is always able to negate the prediction of experimenter 2. In the thought experiment part, Laplace's demon makes the predictions and experimenter 1 is never able to negate his predictions. Based on the non-correspondence of the predictions of experimenter 2 in the empirical experiment with the predictions of Laplace's demon, and contradictions in the possible layers of causality, Tosun concludes that free will is real. He also extends these experiments to indeterministic processes and real-time brain observations while willing, assuming that an agent has every technological means to probe and rewire his brain. In this thought experiment, experimenter 1 notices the "circuit" of his brain which disables him from willing one of the alternatives, then he probes other circuits to see if he can have the will to rewire that circuit. Experimenter 1 notices that all circuits of his brain being so as to prevent him from rewiring or bypassing the circuits which prevent him from willing to touch one of the objects is impossible.


title: Free will

text: Since at least 1959, free will belief in individuals has been analysed with respect to traits in social behaviour. In general, the concept of free will researched to date in this context has been that of the incompatibilist, or more specifically, the libertarian, that is freedom from determinism.


title: Free will

text: Whether people naturally adhere to an incompatibilist model of free will has been questioned in the research. Eddy Nahmias has found that incompatibilism is not intuitive – it was not adhered to, in that determinism does not negate belief in moral responsibility (based on an empirical study of people's responses to moral dilemmas under a deterministic model of reality). Edward Cokely has found that incompatibilism is intuitive – it was naturally adhered to, in that determinism does indeed negate belief in moral responsibility in general. Joshua Knobe and Shaun Nichols have proposed that incompatibilism may or may not be intuitive, and that it is dependent to some large degree upon the circumstances; whether or not the crime incites an emotional response – for example if it involves harming another human being. They found that belief in free will is a cultural universal, and that the majority of participants said that (a) our universe is indeterministic and (b) moral responsibility is not compatible with determinism.


title: Free will

text: Studies indicate that peoples' belief in free will is inconsistent. Emily Pronin and Matthew Kugler found that people believe they have more free will than others.


title: Free will

text: Studies also reveal a correlation between the likelihood of accepting a deterministic model of mind and personality type. For example, Adam Feltz and Edward Cokely found that people of an extrovert personality type are more likely to dissociate belief in determinism from belief in moral responsibility.


title: Free will

text: Roy Baumeister and colleagues reviewed literature on the psychological effects of a belief (or disbelief) in free will and found that most people tend to believe in a sort of "naive compatibilistic free will".


title: Free will

text: The researchers also found that people consider acts more "free" when they involve a person opposing external forces, planning, or making random actions. Notably, the last behaviour, "random" actions, may not be possible; when participants attempt to perform tasks in a random manner (such as generating random numbers), their behaviour betrays many patterns.


title: Free will

text: A recent 2020 survey has shown that compatibilism is quite a popular stance among those who specialize in philosophy (59.2%). Belief in libertarianism amounted to 18.8%, while a lack of belief in free will equaled 11.2%.


title: Free will

text: 79 percent of evolutionary biologists said that they believe in free will according to a survey conducted in 2007, only 14 percent chose no free will, and 7 percent did not answer the question.


title: Free will

text: Baumeister and colleagues found that provoking disbelief in free will seems to cause various negative effects. The authors concluded, in their paper, that it is belief in determinism that causes those negative effects. Kathleen Vohs has found that those whose belief in free will had been eroded were more likely to cheat. In a study conducted by Roy Baumeister, after participants read an article arguing against free will, they were more likely to lie about their performance on a test where they would be rewarded with cash. Provoking a rejection of free will has also been associated with increased aggression and less helpful behaviour. However, although these initial studies suggested that believing in free will is associated with more morally praiseworthy behavior, more recent studies (including direct, multi-site replications) with substantially larger sample sizes have reported contradictory findings (typically, no association between belief in free will and moral behavior), casting doubt over the original findings.


title: Free will

text: Moreover, whether or not these experimental findings are a result of actual manipulations in belief in free will is a matter of debate. First of all, free will can at least refer to either libertarian (indeterministic) free will or compatibilistic (deterministic) free will. Having participants read articles that simply "disprove free will" is unlikely to increase their understanding of determinism, or the compatibilistic free will that it still permits. In other words, experimental manipulations purporting to "provoke disbelief in free will" may instead cause a belief in fatalism, which may provide an alternative explanation for previous experimental findings. To test the effects of belief in determinism, it has been argued that future studies would need to provide articles that do not simply "attack free will", but instead focus on explaining determinism and compatibilism.


title: Free will

text: Baumeister and colleagues also note that volunteers disbelieving in free will are less capable of counterfactual thinking. This is worrying because counterfactual thinking ("If I had done something different…") is an important part of learning from one's choices, including those that harmed others. Again, this cannot be taken to mean that belief in determinism is to blame; these are the results we would expect from increasing people's belief in fatalism.


title: Free will

text: Along similar lines, Tyler Stillman has found that belief in free will predicts better job performance.


title: Free will

text: The notions of free will and predestination are heavily debated among Christians. Free will in the Christian sense is the ability to choose between good or evil. Among Catholics, there are those holding to Thomism, adopted from what Thomas Aquinas put forth in the "Summa Theologica." There are also some holding to Molinism which was put forth by Jesuit priest Luis de Molina. Among Protestants there is Arminianism, held primarily by the Methodist Churches, and formulated by Dutch theologian Jacobus Arminius; and there is also Calvinism held by most in the Reformed tradition which was formulated by the French Reformed theologian, John Calvin. John Calvin was heavily influenced by Augustine of Hippo views on predestination put forth in his work "On the Predestination of the Saints." Martin Luther seems to hold views on predestination similar to Calvinism in his "On the Bondage of the Will," thus rejecting free will. In condemnation of Calvin and Luther views, the Roman Catholic Council of Trent declared that "the free will of man, moved and excited by God, can by its consent co-operate with God, Who excites and invites its action; and that it can thereby dispose and prepare itself to obtain the grace of justification. The will can resist grace if it chooses. It is not like a lifeless thing, which remains purely passive. Weakened and diminished by Adam's fall, free will is yet not destroyed in the race (Sess. VI, cap. i and v)." John Wesley, the father of the Methodist tradition, taught that humans, enabled by prevenient grace, have free will through which they can choose God and to do good works, with the goal of Christian perfection. Upholding synergism (the belief that God and man cooperate in salvation), Methodism teaches that "Our Lord Jesus Christ did so die for all men as to make salvation attainable by every man that cometh into the world. If men are not saved that fault is entirely their own, lying solely in their own unwillingness to obtain the salvation offered to them. (John 1:9; I Thess. 5:9; Titus 2:11-12)."


title: Free will

text: ""For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren; and whom He predestined, these He also called; and whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified."" —Romans 8:29–30


title: Free will

text: ""He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will."" —Ephesians 1:5


title: Free will

text: There are also mentions of moral freedom in what are now termed as 'Deuterocanonical' works which the Orthodox and Catholic Churches use. In Sirach 15 the text states:


title: Free will

text: "Do not say: "It was God's doing that I fell away," for what he hates he does not do. Do not say: "He himself has led me astray," for he has no need of the wicked. Abominable wickedness the Lord hates and he does not let it happen to those who fear him. God in the beginning created human beings and made them subject to their own free choice. If you choose, you can keep the commandments; loyalty is doing the will of God. Set before you are fire and water; to whatever you choose, stretch out your hand. Before everyone are life and death, whichever they choose will be given them. Immense is the wisdom of the Lord; mighty in power, he sees all things. The eyes of God behold his works, and he understands every human deed. He never commands anyone to sin, nor shows leniency toward deceivers."


title: Free will

text: In Jewish thought the concept of "Free will" (Hebrew: bechirah chofshit בחירה חפשית, bechirah בחירה) is foundational.


title: Free will

text: The most succinct statement is by Maimonides, in a two part treatment, where human free will is specified as part of the universe's Godly design:


title: Free will

text: In Islam the theological issue is not usually how to reconcile free will with God's foreknowledge, but with God's "jabr", or divine commanding power. al-Ash'ari developed an "acquisition" or "dual-agency" form of compatibilism, in which human free will and divine "jabr" were both asserted, and which became a cornerstone of the dominant Ash'ari position. In Shia Islam, Ash'aris understanding of a higher balance toward predestination is challenged by most theologians. Free will, according to Islamic doctrine is the main factor for man's accountability in his/her actions throughout life. Actions taken by people exercising free will are counted on the Day of Judgement because they are their own; however, the free will happens with the permission of God.


title: Free will

text: The philosopher Søren Kierkegaard claimed that divine omnipotence cannot be separated from divine goodness. As a truly omnipotent and good being, God could create beings with true freedom over God. Furthermore, God would voluntarily do so because "the greatest good… which can be done for a being, greater than anything else that one can do for it, is to be truly free." Alvin Plantinga's free-will defense is a contemporary expansion of this theme, adding how God, free will, and evil are consistent.


title: Free will

text: Some philosophers follow William of Ockham in holding that necessity and possibility are defined with respect to a given point in time and a given matrix of empirical circumstances, and so something that is merely possible from the perspective of one observer may be necessary from the perspective of an omniscient. Some philosophers follow Philo of Alexandria, a philosopher known for his homocentrism, in holding that free will is a feature of a human's soul, and thus that non-human animals lack free will.


title: Your Honor (American TV series)

text: Your Honor is an American drama television series starring Bryan Cranston, adapted from the Israeli TV series "Kvodo" (). It premiered on Showtime on December 6, 2020. While ordered as a miniseries, in August 2021, the series was renewed for a second season which is set to premiere on January 15, 2023. In July 2022, it was reported that it would be its last.


title: Your Honor (American TV series)

text: Michael Desiato is a prominent and respected New Orleans judge. When his teenage son Adam kills another teenager in an accidental hit-and-run collision, Michael encourages his son to turn himself in, but quickly changes his mind when he discovers that the boy that his son hit was the son of a mob kingpin. Michael decides to protect his son which ignites a dangerous game filled with hiding, lies, secret keeping, and very hard and difficult choices.


title: Your Honor (American TV series)

text: The series was first announced as being developed by CBS Studios in August 2017, with a series commitment in October 2017. Bryan Cranston was announced to headline the series in late January 2019. In August 2019, Michael Stuhlbarg, Sofia Black-D'Elia, Carmen Ejogo and Isiah Whitlock Jr. were added to the cast. In September 2019, Hope Davis was cast in a leading capacity, with Lilli Kay and Amy Landecker joining in a recurring role. Tony Curran, Keith Machekanyanga, Lamar Johnson and Benjamin Flores, Jr. were added in October 2019, with Margo Martindale joining in December 2019. In October 2020, Maura Tierney joined the cast in a recurring role.


title: Your Honor (American TV series)

text: Principal photography for the series began on September 16, 2019, in New Orleans, Louisiana, but was suspended in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Production resumed on October 7, 2020, and concluded on November 25, 2020. The series premiered on December 6, 2020 on Showtime.


title: Your Honor (American TV series)

text: On August 24, 2021, Showtime renewed the series for a second season. On July 5, 2022, it was reported that Cranston said that the second season will be its final season on Dax Shepard's "Armchair Expert" podcast. On the same day, it was also announced that filming for the second season has begun, and that Joey Hartstone is the new showrunner with Keith Machekanyanga promoted as a series regular for the second season. The following week, it was reported that Rosie Perez was cast in a recurring role while Andrene Ward-Hammond was promoted to as a series regular for the second season. On August 1, 2022, Jimi Stanton, Kay, and Flores were promoted as series regulars for the second season. On October 11, 2022, Mark Margolis and Mark O'Brien joined the cast in recurring capacities for the second season.


title: Your Honor (American TV series)

text: Filming for the second season began on July 18, 2022 and is scheduled to conclude on December 16, 2022 in New Orleans, Louisiana. The second season is scheduled to premiere on January 15, 2023 on Showtime.


title: Your Honor (American TV series)

text: For the first season, review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported an approval rating of 50% based on 50 critic reviews, with an average rating of 6.1/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "Bryan Cranston is powerful as yet another father with nothing to lose, but "Your Honor" too closely resembles other, better shows about good men doing bad things to warrant its relentlessly grim proceedings." Metacritic gave the first season a weighted average score of 60 out of 100 based on 29 critic reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".


title: Sana Khan

text: Sana Khan (born 21 August 1988) is an Indian Businesswoman and a former actress. She predominantly worked in Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu language films.


title: Sana Khan

text: Khan began her career in modeling and went on to appear in advertisements, feature films, and television shows. She has acted in 14 films across 5 languages and has appeared in over 50 ad films. She was a contestant on the reality show "Bigg Boss 6" in 2012 and became a finalist.


title: Sana Khan

text: Sana Khan was born and raised in Mumbai (Dharavi). Her father is a Malayali Muslim from Kannur, Kerala, and her mother, Saeeda, is from Mumbai.


title: Sana Khan

text: Sana Khan made her acting debut in the 2005 low-budget adult Hindi film "Yehi Hai High Society". She subsequently started appearing in television commercials and other ads.


title: Sana Khan

text: Khan's debut Tamil film "Silambattam", produced by Lakshmi Movie Makers, was released in December 2008. Silambarasan, the film's lead actor, who had previously signed and then dropped her for a role in his film "Kettavan", called her again for the female lead role in "Silambattam" after seeing her ad with Shah Rukh Khan. She said in an interview with "The Hindu", "Silambarasan came to Mumbai looking for a fresh face for his film "Silambattam". There he saw me and selected me. I knew I had to work hard to make it big in the Tamil film industry". Khan regards the film as her first break. She received praise for her portrayal of Janu, a talkative, tomboyish brahmin village girl, and won the 2009 ITFA Best New Actress Award in Singapore.


title: Sana Khan

text: In March 2010, her next Tamil film, "Thambikku Indha Ooru", was released. Later that year, Khan ventured into the Telugu film industry, appearing in Nandamuri Kalyan Ram's "Kalyanram Kathi", released in November 2010. Khan's next release was the February 2011 bilingual thriller "Gaganam" / "Payanam" – shot in Telugu and Tamil, respectively – which was based on an aircraft hijack theme.


title: Sana Khan

text: In May 2011, Khan stepped into Kannada films with Golden Movies' "Kool...Sakkath Hot Maga". In September 2011, her next Tamil film, "Aayiram Vilakku", was released, in which she played a Madurai girl. In the March 2012 Telugu film "Mr. Nookayya", Khan played a waitress in a pub, adding glamour to the film. Khan made her Malayalam film debut with Climax (2013 film), loosely based on the Hindi film "The Dirty Picture", playing the South Indian actress Silk Smitha. Khan was also signed to her sixth Tamil film, Thalaivan, produced by Blue Ocean Pictures.


title: Sana Khan

text: Khan plays a daughter of main antagonist Danny Denzongpa in the Bollywood film "Jai Ho", released on 24 January 2014. She did the film "Wajah Tum Ho" opposite Sharman Joshi and Gurmeet Choudhary. The film was a flop at Box Office India. Her bold scenes with Gurmeet and Rajneesh Duggal in the film were much discussed after the trailer was released on YouTube. Khan did a special appearance in "" in which she was seen portraying Akshay Kumar's girlfriend. Her upcoming film is "Tom, Dick and Harry 2" in which shares the screen with Aftab Shivdasani and Sharman Joshi.


title: Sana Khan

text: Khan has acted in over 50 ad films, including a cosmetic commercial directed by Shirish Kunder in July 2007. She has also done ads for the deodorant brand Secret Temptation, Yatra.com, and the Xbox 360 video game console.


title: Sana Khan

text: In March 2007, Khan's TV commercial for the men's underwear brand Amul Macho showed her provocatively scrubbing and washing some underwear, simulating an orgasm. It created great controversy and was banned by the Indian government on the grounds of sexual profanity. Khan remarked, "Forget about the ban and people taking out "morchas" (protests) against me and burning my posters in Bombay. At the end of it people from the creative field have loved it." The company rehired Khan, shot a sequel to the commercial with a different theme, and released it in February 2008.


title: Sana Khan

text: In October 2012, Khan was a celebrity contestant in the sixth season of the Indian version of the reality TV show "Big Brother", "Bigg Boss". Before entering the show, she said, "I am going to flaunt my age and the fact that I am the youngest. I am going into the house without any preparation. I want to be spontaneous and show the world the real me." She gained a lot of popularity from the show and managed to stay in the show till the end, though she finished in third place. She told PTI, "I am happy to have reached top three. I did not expect this."


title: Sana Khan

text: In February 2019, Khan confirmed her relationship with choreographer Melvin Louis. They are separated as of February 2020.


title: Sana Khan

text: On 8 October 2020, Khan posted a message on Instagram saying that she was quitting the entertainment industry and would "serve humanity and follow the order of her Creator."


title: The Honeymooners

text: The Honeymooners is an American television sitcom which originally aired from 1955 to 1956, created by and starring Jackie Gleason, and based on a recurring comedy sketch of the same name that had been part of Gleason's variety show. It follows the lives of New York City bus driver Ralph Kramden (Gleason), his wife Alice (Audrey Meadows), Ralph's best friend Ed Norton (Art Carney) and Ed's wife Trixie (Joyce Randolph) as they get involved with various schemes in their day-to-day living.


title: The Honeymooners

text: Most episodes revolve around Ralph's poor choices in absurd dilemmas which frequently show his judgmental attitude in a comedic tone. The show occasionally features more serious issues such as women's rights and social status. The sketches first aired on the DuMont network's variety series "Cavalcade of Stars", which Gleason hosted, and subsequently on the CBS network's "The Jackie Gleason Show" which was broadcast live in front of a theater audience.


title: The Honeymooners

text: The popularity of the sketches led Gleason to rework "The Honeymooners" as a filmed half-hour series which debuted on 1 October 1955 on CBS, replacing the variety series. It was initially a ratings success as the No. 2 show in the United States, facing stiff competition from "The Perry Como Show" on NBC. Gleason's show eventually dropped to No. 19, and production ended after 39 episodes (now referred to as the "Classic 39 episodes").


title: The Honeymooners

text: The final episode of "The Honeymooners" aired on 22 September 1956, and Gleason sporadically revived the characters until 1978. "The Honeymooners" was one of the first U.S. television shows to portray working-class married couples in a gritty, non-idyllic manner, as the show is mostly set in the Kramdens' kitchen in a neglected Brooklyn apartment building. One of the sponsors of the show was Buick.


title: The Honeymooners

text: The majority of "The Honeymooners" episodes focus on four principal characters and generally use fixed sets within their Brooklyn apartment building. Although various secondary characters make multiple appearances and occasional exterior shots are incorporated during editing, virtually all action and dialogue is "on stage" inside the normal backdrop.


title: The Honeymooners

text: Played by Jackie Gleason—a bus driver for the fictional Gotham Bus Company based in New York City. He is never seen driving a bus (except in publicity photos), but he sometimes is shown at the bus depot. Ralph is frustrated by his lack of success and often develops get-rich-quick schemes. He is very short-tempered, frequently resorting to bellowing, insults, and hollow threats. Well hidden beneath the many layers of bluster, however, is a softhearted man who loves his wife and is devoted to his best pal, Ed Norton. Ralph enjoys bowling and playing pool; he's proficient at both, and he is an enthusiastic member of the Loyal Order of Raccoons (although in several episodes, a blackboard at the lodge lists his dues as being in arrears). Ralph's mother rarely is mentioned, although she does appear in one episode. Ralph's father is only mentioned in one episode ("Young Man with a Horn") as having given Ralph a cornet he learned to play as a boy, and Ralph insists on keeping the cornet when Alice suggests it be thrown away.


title: The Honeymooners

text: The Ralph character was given honorary membership in the real New York City bus drivers' union (Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union) during the run of the show, and a Brooklyn bus depot was named in Gleason's honor after his death. Ralph Kramden was the inspiration for the animated character Fred Flintstone. An eight-foot-tall bronze statue of a jolly Jackie Gleason in the bus driver's uniform was also erected in 1999 in front of Manhattan's midtown Port Authority Bus Terminal. TV Land funded the statue in cooperation with Gleason's estate and the Port Authority.


title: The Honeymooners

text: Alice (née Alice Gibson), played in the first nine skits from 1951 to January 1952 by Pert Kelton, and by Audrey Meadows for all remaining episodes, is Ralph's patient but sharp-tongued wife of 14 years. She often finds herself bearing the brunt of Ralph's tantrums and demands, which she returns with biting sarcasm. She is levelheaded, in contrast to Ralph's pattern of inventing various schemes to enhance his wealth or his pride. She sees his schemes' unworkability, but he becomes angry and ignores her advice (and by the end of the episode, her misgivings almost always prove correct). She has grown accustomed to his empty threats—such as "One of these days, POW!!! Right in the kisser!", "BANG, ZOOM!" or "You're going to the Moon!"— to which she usually replies, "Ahhh, shaddap!" Alice runs the finances of the Kramden household, and Ralph frequently has to beg her for money to pay for his lodge dues or crazy schemes. Alice studied to be a secretary before her marriage and works briefly in that capacity when Ralph is laid off. Wilma Flintstone is based on Alice Kramden.


title: The Honeymooners

text: Another foil for Ralph is Alice's mother, who is even sharper-tongued than her daughter and despises Ralph as a bad provider. Alice's father is occasionally mentioned, but never seen. Alice's sister Agnes appears in episode 22, "Here Comes The Bride". (Ralph jeopardizes his newlywed sister-in-law's marriage after giving some bad advice to the groom, but it all works out in the end). Ralph and Alice lived with her mother for six years after getting married before they got their own apartment. In a 1967 revival, Ralph refers to Alice (played by Sheila MacRae in 1966–70 and once more in 1973) as being one of 12 children, and to her father as never working.


title: The Honeymooners

text: "The Honeymooners" originally appeared as a sketch on the DuMont Network's "Cavalcade of Stars", with the role of Alice played by Pert Kelton (1907–1968). When his contract with DuMont expired, Gleason moved to the CBS network where he had "The Jackie Gleason Show", and the Alice role went to Audrey Meadows because Kelton had been blacklisted. According to playwright Arthur Miller, a family friend, writing many years later in his autobiography "Timebends: A Life", extensive inquiries finally revealed that her blacklisting was due to the fact that her husband Ralph had, many years earlier, marched in a May Day parade. “Ralph, I knew, had absolutely no leftist connections whatever but had simply thrown himself in with a gang of actors protesting whatever it was that year, and Pert had never even voted in her life”.


title: The Honeymooners

text: The character's name is mentioned in the 1998 American stoner comedy film "Half Baked" in the lyrics to the song by the movie's character “Sir Smoka-Alot”.


title: The Honeymooners

text: Played by Art Carney; a New York City municipal sewer worker and Ralph's best friend (and upstairs neighbor). He is considerably more good-natured than Ralph, but nonetheless trades insults with him on a regular basis. Ed (typically called "Norton" by Ralph and sometimes by his own wife, Trixie) often gets mixed up in Ralph's schemes. His carefree and rather dimwitted nature usually results in raising Ralph's ire, while Ralph often showers him with verbal abuse and throws him out of the apartment when Ed irritates him. In most episodes, Ed is shown to be better-read, better-liked, more worldly and more even-tempered than Ralph, despite his unassuming manner and the fact that he usually lets Ralph take the lead in their escapades. Ed and Ralph both are members of the fictional Raccoon Lodge. Like Ralph, Ed enjoys and is good at bowling and playing pool.


title: The Honeymooners

text: Ed worked for the New York City sewer department, and described his job as a "Sub-supervisor in the sub-division of the department of subterranean sanitation, I just keep things moving along." He served in the U.S. Navy in World War 2, and used his G.I. Bill money to pay for typing school, but felt he was unable to work in an office because he hated working in confined spaces. The relatively few scenes set in the Norton apartment showed it to have the same layout as the Kramdens' but more nicely furnished. Though Norton makes the same weekly $62 salary as Ralph (roughly $ in current dollars), their higher standard of living might be explained by Norton's freer use of credit; at one point he admits to having 19 charge accounts.


title: The Honeymooners

text: Ed is the inspiration for Barney Rubble in "The Flintstones," and for Yogi Bear (in terms of design, clothing, and mannerisms). In 1999, "TV Guide" ranked him 20th on its list of the "50 Greatest TV Characters of All Time." According to "Entertainment Weekly", Norton is ranked 8th of the "greatest sidekicks ever."


title: The Honeymooners

text: Played most famously by Joyce Randolph; Ed's wife and Alice's best friend. She did not appear in every episode and had a less developed character, though she is shown to be somewhat bossy toward her husband. In one episode, she surprisingly is depicted as a pool hustler. On another episode, Ralph insults Trixie by making a reference to Minsky's (a famous New York City burlesque theater; the original Trixie character was an ex-burlesque dancer). There are a few references to Trixie's burlesque background in the lost episodes (e.g., Norton: "Every night I'd meet her backstage and hand her a rose ... . It was her costume!"). Randolph played Trixie as an ordinary, rather prudish, housewife, complaining to her husband on one occasion when a "fresh" young store clerk called her "sweetie pie." In a 1967 special, Trixie (played by Jane Kean from 1966–1970 and 1976–1978) resentfully denied Ralph's implications that she "worked in burlesque" to which he replied, "If the shoe fits, take it off." Trixie is the inspiration for Betty Rubble in "The Flintstones".


title: The Honeymooners

text: Elaine Stritch was the first and original Trixie Norton in a "Honeymooners" sketch with Jackie Gleason, Art Carney, and Pert Kelton. The ex-dancer character was rewritten and recast after just one episode with the more wholesome-looking Randolph playing the character as a housewife.


title: The Honeymooners

text: Some of the actors who appeared multiple times on the show include George O. Petrie and Frank Marth as various characters, Ethel Owen as Alice's mother, Zamah Cunningham as apartment building neighbor Mrs. Manicotti, and Cliff Hall as the Raccoon Lodge president.


title: The Honeymooners

text: Ronnie Burns, son of George Burns and Gracie Allen, made a guest appearance on one episode. On another episode, Ed Norton makes a reference to a co-worker "Nat Birnbaum" (as in "'nat," a three-letter word for bug," says crossword puzzle aficionado Norton). George Burns's real name was Nathan Birnbaum.


title: The Honeymooners

text: The Kramdens and Nortons lived in an apartment house at 328 Chauncey Street in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, New York City, a nod to the fact that Jackie Gleason lived there after his family moved from his birthplace at 364 Chauncey Street. In the 1955 episode "A Woman's Work is Never Done," the address is referred to as 728 Chauncey Street. The landlord of the apartment house is Mr. Johnson. In the "Honeymooners" episodes taped from 1967 to 1970, the address of the apartment house changed to 358 Chauncey Street, and the number of the Kramden apartment is 3B. The actual 328 Chauncey Street is located in the Stuyvesant Heights section of the borough, approximately eight miles northeast of the show's fictional location.


title: The Honeymooners

text: Most of "The Honeymooners" takes place in Ralph and Alice Kramden's small, sparsely furnished two-room apartment. Other settings used in the show included the Gotham Bus Company depot, the Raccoon Lodge, a neighborhood pool parlor, a park bench where Ralph and Ed occasionally meet for lunch, and on occasion the Nortons' apartment (always noticeably better-furnished than the Kramdens'). Many episodes begin with a shot of Alice in the apartment awaiting Ralph's arrival from work. Most episodes focus on Ralph's and Ed's characters, although Alice played a substantial role. Trixie played a smaller role in the series, and did not appear in every episode as did the other three. Each episode presented a self-contained story, which rarely carried over into a subsequent one. The show employed a number of standard sitcom clichés and plots, particularly those of jealousy, get-rich-quick schemes, and comic misunderstanding.


title: The Honeymooners

text: As to the occasional plot continuations, there were two such sequences—one concerning Ralph being sent to a psychiatrist because of "impatient" behavior during work that resulted in several passengers lodging complaints about his professional demeanor, and one that continued for two sequential shows in which Aunt Ethel visited and Ralph hatched a scheme to marry her off to the neighborhood butcher.


title: The Honeymooners

text: The series presents Ralph as an everyman and an underdog who struggles to make a better life for himself and his wife, but who ultimately fails due to his own shortcomings. He, often along with Ed, devises a number of get-rich-quick schemes, none of which succeed. Ralph would be quick to blame others for his misfortune until it was pointed out to him where he had fallen short. Ralph's anger then would be replaced by short-lived remorse, and he would apologize for his actions. Many of these apologies to Alice ended with Ralph saying in a heartfelt manner, "Baby, you're the greatest," followed by a hug and kiss.


title: The Honeymooners

text: In most episodes, Ralph's short temper got the best of him, leading him to yell at others and to threaten comical physical violence, usually against Alice. Ralph's favorite threats to her were "One of these days ... One of these days ... Pow! right in the kisser!" or to knock her "to the Moon, Alice!" (Sometimes this last threat was simply abbreviated: as "Bang, zoom!") On other occasions, Ralph simply told Alice, "Oh, are you gonna get yours." All of this led to criticism, more than 40 years later, that the show displayed an ironic acceptance of domestic violence. But Ralph never carried out his threats, and others have pointed out that Alice knew he never would because of their deep love for each other. In retaliation, the targets of Ralph's verbal abuse often responded by simply joking about his weight, a common theme throughout the series. Incidentally, Alice never was seen to back down during any of Ralph's tirades.


title: The Honeymooners

text: For the "Classic 39" episodes of "The Honeymooners", there was no continuing story arc. Each episode is self-contained. For example, in the series premiere episode "TV Or Not TV," Ralph and Norton buy a television set with the intent to share it. By the next week's show, the set is gone although in later episodes a set is shown in the Nortons' apartment. In the installment "The Baby Sitter," the Kramdens get a telephone, but in the next episode, it is gone. And, in the episode, "A Dog's Life," Alice gets a dog from the pound which Ralph tries to return. But, in the end, Ralph finds himself growing to love the dog and decides to keep it along with a few other dogs. However, in the next episode, the dogs are nowhere to be seen and are never referred to again.


title: The Honeymooners

text: Occasionally, references to earlier episodes were made, including to Ralph's various "crazy harebrained schemes" from the lost episodes. Norton's sleepwalking in "The Sleepwalker" was referenced in "Oh My Aching Back." But, it was not until the 1967 "Trip To Europe" shows that a "Honeymooners" story arc is finally used.


title: The Honeymooners

text: In July 1950, Jackie Gleason took over as the host of "Cavalcade of Stars", a variety show that aired on the struggling DuMont Television Network. After the first year, he and his writers Harry Crane and Joe Bigelow developed a sketch that drew upon familiar domestic situations for its material. Based on the popular radio show "The Bickersons", Gleason wanted a realistic portrayal of life for a poor husband and wife living in Brooklyn, his home borough. The couple would continually argue, but ultimately show their love for each other. After rejecting titles such as "The Beast," "The Lovers," and "The Couple Next Door," Gleason and his staff settled on "The Honeymooners." Gleason took the role of Ralph Kramden, a blustery bus driver, and he chose veteran comedy movie actress Pert Kelton for the role of Alice Kramden, Ralph's and long-suffering wife.


title: The Honeymooners

text: "The Honeymooners" made its debut on October 5, 1951, as a six-minute sketch. Ensemble cast member Art Carney made a brief appearance as a police officer who gets hit with flour Ralph had thrown out the window. The tone of these early sketches was much darker than the later series, with Ralph exhibiting extreme bitterness and frustration with his marriage to an equally bitter and argumentative middle-aged woman (Kelton was nine years older than Gleason). The Kramdens' financial struggles mirrored those of Gleason's early life in Brooklyn, and he took great pains to duplicate on set the interior of the apartment where he grew up (right down to his boyhood address of 328 Chauncey Street). The Kramdens—and later the Nortons when those characters were added—are childless, an issue only occasionally explored, but a condition on which Gleason insisted. Ralph and Alice did legally adopt a baby girl whom they named Ralphina (because he actually wanted a baby boy he could name after himself but fell in love with the baby girl the agency had placed with them). However, the biological mother requested to have her baby returned, and the agency asked whether the Kramdens would be willing to do so even though they were the legal parents. Ralph agreed and stated that they would visit her and she would have a real-life Santa Claus every Christmas. A few later skits had Ralph mistakenly believe for a while that Alice was pregnant.


title: The Honeymooners

text: Early cast additions in later sketches were upstairs neighbors Ed and Trixie Norton. Ed (Carney) was a sewer worker and Ralph's best friend, although his innocent and guileless nature was the source of many arguments between the two. Trixie (maiden name never mentioned), Ed's wife, originally portrayed by Elaine Stritch as a burlesque dancer, but was replaced after just one appearance by the more wholesome-looking Joyce Randolph. Trixie is a foil to Ed, just as Alice is for Ralph, but derivatively, and almost always off-screen.


title: The Honeymooners

text: Due in part to the colorful array of characters Gleason invented (including the cast of "The Honeymooners"), "Cavalcade of Stars" became a huge success for DuMont. It increased its audience share from nine to 25 percent. Gleason's contract with DuMont expired in the summer of 1952, and the financially struggling network (which suffered through ten layoffs from July through October 1953) was unable to re-sign him so he moved on to CBS.


title: The Honeymooners

text: CBS president William S. Paley in July 1952 made sure the cast of the former DuMont ensemble that was becoming "The Jackie Gleason Show" embarked on a highly successful five-week promotional tour across the United States, performing a variety of musical numbers and sketches (including the popular "Honeymooners"). However, actress Pert Kelton who played Alice Kramden and other roles, was blacklisted at the time and was replaced on the tour by "Beulah" actress Ginger Jones, who subsequently also was blacklisted (having earlier been named on the "Red Channels" blacklist) by CBS. All this political maneuvering meant yet another new Alice was needed.


title: The Honeymooners

text: Jones's replacement was Audrey Meadows, known for her work in the 1951 Broadway musical "Top Banana" and on the Bob and Ray television show. However, before being cast for CBS, Meadows had to overcome Gleason's reservations about her being too attractive to make a credible Alice. To accomplish this, she hired a photographer to come to her apartment early in the morning and take pictures of her wearing no make-up, clad in a torn housecoat, and with her hair undone. When the pictures were delivered to Gleason, he looked at them and said, "That's our Alice." When it was explained who it was, Gleason reportedly said, "Any dame who has a sense of humor like that deserves the job." With the addition of Meadows the now-iconic "Honeymooners" lineup of Gleason, Carney, Meadows, and Randolph was in place.


title: The Honeymooners

text: The rising popularity of "The Honeymooners" was reflected in its increasing prominence of the sketches as part of "The Jackie Gleason Show" variety lineup. During the first season, it appeared on a regular basis (although not weekly) as a series of short sketches ranging in length from seven to thirteen minutes. For the 1953–54 season, the shorter sketches were outnumbered by ones that ran for a half-hour or longer. Playing off its growing popularity, during the 1954–55 season most episodes of "The Jackie Gleason Show" consisted entirely of "The Honeymooners". Fan response became overwhelming. Meadows received hundreds of curtains and aprons in the mail from fans who wanted to help Alice lead a fancier life. By January 1955, "The Jackie Gleason Show" was competing with—and sometimes beating—"I Love Lucy" as the most-watched TV show in the United States. Audience members lined up around the block hours in advance to attend the show.


title: The Honeymooners

text: The "Classic 39" episodes of "The Honeymooners" are the ones that originally aired as a weekly half-hour sitcom on CBS from October 1955 to September 1956.


title: The Honeymooners

text: Before Gleason's initial three-year contract with CBS expired, he was offered a much larger one by CBS and General Motors' Buick division (the carmaker having dropped their sponsorship of Milton Berle's "Buick-Berle Show" after two seasons on NBC). The three-year contract, reportedly valued at $11 million, was at the time one of the largest in show business history. It called for Gleason to produce 78 filmed episodes of "The Honeymooners" over two seasons, with an option for a third season of 39 more. He was scheduled to receive $65,000 for each episode ($70,000 per episode in the second season), but had to pay all production costs out of that amount. Art Carney received $3,500 per week, Audrey Meadows $2,000, and Joyce Randolph (who did not appear in every episode) $500 per week. Production for "The Honeymooners" was handled by Jackie Gleason Enterprises Inc., which also produced the show's lead-in, "Stage Show", which starred The Dorsey Brothers. Reportedly, only Audrey Meadows, who later became a banker, received residuals when the "Classic 39" episodes were rebroadcast in syndicated reruns. Her brother Edward, a lawyer, had inserted language to that effect into her contract. However, Joyce Randolph, who played Trixie Norton, did receive royalty payments when the "lost" "Honeymooners" episodes from the variety shows were released.


title: The Honeymooners

text: The first episode of the new half-hour series aired on Saturday, October 1, 1955, at 8.30 pm Eastern Time (during prime time), opposite "Ozark Jubilee" on ABC and "The Perry Como Show" on NBC. Because it was sponsored by Buick, the opening credits originally ended with a sponsor identification by announcer Jack Lescoulie ("Brought to you by ... your Buick dealer. And, away we go!"), and the show concluded with a brief Gleason sales pitch for the company, all common practices at the time. However, all references to the carmaker were removed when the show entered syndication in 1957, although "And, away we go!" was a phrase Gleason frequently used in various shows and is inscribed at his gravesite as his memorial catchphrase.


title: The Honeymooners

text: The initial critical reaction to the half-hour sitcom "Honeymooners" was mixed. "The New York Times" and "Broadcasting & Telecasting Magazine" wrote that it was "labored" and lacked the spontaneity of the live sketches. But "TV Guide" praised it as "rollicking," "slapsticky" and "fast-paced." In February 1956, the show was moved to the 8 p.m. (EST) timeslot, but already had begun losing viewers to the hugely popular "Perry Como Show". Gleason's writers also had begun to feel confined by the restrictive half-hour format—in previous seasons, "Honeymooners" sketches typically ran 35 minutes or more—and Gleason felt they were beginning to run out of original ideas. So, after just one season, Gleason and CBS agreed to cancel "The Honeymooners", which aired its 39th and last original episode on September 22, 1956. In explaining his decision to end the show with $7 million remaining on his contract Gleason said, "The excellence of the material could not be maintained, and I had too much fondness for the show to cheapen it.” Gleason subsequently sold the films of the "Classic 39" episodes of the show to CBS for $1.5 million.


title: The Honeymooners

text: In 1955, many television shows (including "The Jackie Gleason Show") were performed live and recorded using kinescope technology, though sitcoms already largely were recorded on film, e.g., "Amos 'n' Andy", "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet", "My Little Margie", and "I Married Joan". "I Love Lucy", which was recorded directly onto 35mm film, had influenced television production companies to produce directly on film. For "The Honeymooners", Gleason utilized the Electronicam TV-film system, developed by DuMont in the early 1950s, which allowed for a live performance to be directly captured on film. As a result of the superior picture and sound quality afforded by the system, episodes of "The Honeymooners" were much more suitable for rebroadcast than were most other "live" shows of the era.


title: The Honeymooners

text: All 39 episodes of "The Honeymooners" were filmed at the DuMont Television Network's Adelphi Theatre at 152 West 54th Street in Manhattan, in front of an audience of 1,000. Episodes were never fully rehearsed because Gleason felt rehearsals would rob the show of its spontaneity. A result was that, while the cast was able to bring a fresh approach to the material, mistakes often were made. Lines either were recited incorrectly or altogether forgotten, and actors did not always follow the scripted action directions. To compensate, the cast developed visual cues for each other. For example, Gleason patted his stomach when he forgot a line, while Meadows would glance at the icebox when someone else was supposed to retrieve something from it.


title: The Honeymooners

text: In contrast to other popular comedies of the era (such as "Father Knows Best", "Leave It to Beaver", and "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet"), which depicted their characters in comfortable, middle class suburban environments, Richard Rychtarik's set design for "The Honeymooners" reflected the blue collar existence of its characters. The Kramdens lived in a small, painfully sparsely furnished two-room apartment (the main set) in a tenement building at least four stories high (the Kramdens were on the third floor and the Nortons' were one floor above them), badly aired and with insufficient lighting. They used the single main room as the kitchen, dining and living room. It consisted of a functional table and chairs, a plain chest of drawers, a curtainless window with a view of a fire escape, a noisy sink, and an outdated icebox. The Kramdens' bedroom never was seen, although in the episode about Ed Norton's sleepwalking the Nortons' bedroom is. One of the few other sitcoms about a blue-collar family was "The Life of Riley", whose first season (1949–50) had featured Jackie Gleason in the lead role, although veteran movie actor William Bendix, who had originated the role of Chester A. Riley on the radio show, thereafter took over the role on television.


title: The Honeymooners

text: The instrumental theme song for "The Honeymooners", called "You're My Greatest Love," was composed by Gleason and performed by an orchestra led by Ray Bloch—who previously had been the orchestra leader on Gleason's variety show, as well as "The Ed Sullivan Show". Although lyrics were composed, they were never sung. Sammy Spear, who later became Gleason's musical director, provided the arrangement. The music heard in the episodes was not performed during the show, so to enhance the feeling of a live performance for the studio audience an orchestra performed before filming and during breaks. The show's original announcer was Jack Lescoulie, who also was a spokesman for the sponsor, Buick. For the non-sponsored syndicated version, the introduction was voiced by CBS staff announcer Gaylord Avery.


title: The Honeymooners

text: On September 29, 1956, one week after "The Honeymooners" ended as a weekly 30-minute series, "The Jackie Gleason Show" returned. The "Honeymooners" were brought back as part of the revived variety show. Many of these episodes were, for the first time, produced as original musicals with music and lyrics by Lyn Duddy and Jerry Bresler. The stories featured the Kramdens and Nortons touring Europe after winning a contest. Live musicals had become extremely popular on live television in the mid-fifties due to the success of the 1954 and 1955 live broadcasts of Mary Martin in Peter Pan as well as several Max Leibman original musicals.


title: The Honeymooners

text: In 1959, "TV Guide" magazine mentioned Gleason's interest in producing new "Honeymooners" shows. This did not happen for several years, but he did team up with Art Carney to revive an old Honeymooners scene for an October 1960 CBS special called "The Big Sell", poking fun at US salespeople.


title: The Honeymooners

text: After the spectacular failure of Gleason's 1961 game show "You're in the Picture", and the relative success of the eight-episode talk show that Gleason used to fill its time slot, Gleason's variety show returned in 1962 under the title "Jackie Gleason and His American Scene Magazine". The "Honeymooners" sketches returned as part of that show whenever Carney was available. However, Audrey Meadows and Joyce Randolph were replaced as Alice and Trixie by Sue Ane Langdon and Patricia Wilson, respectively, for two sketches.


title: The Honeymooners

text: In January 1966, Meadows again returned on Gleason's "American Scene Magazine" variety series as Alice for "The Honeymooners: The Adoption", a re-enactment of a 1955 non-musical sketch of the same name with original songs added by Duddy and Bresler.


title: The Honeymooners

text: When "The Jackie Gleason Show", by then based in Gleason's relocated headquarters in Miami Beach, Florida, returned in 1966, the "Honeymooners" sketches, in color for the first time, featured Sheila MacRae and Jane Kean in, respectively, the roles of Alice and Trixie, because Audrey Meadows and Joyce Randolph declined to relocate to Miami. Gleason raised no objections to recasting but was adamant that the Ed Norton role never be played by anyone other than Art Carney.


title: The Honeymooners

text: The 1966 videotaped "Honeymooners" were also musical episodes, covering 10 of the first season's thirty-two shows. Most of these were updated remakes of 1956-57 musical episodes with songs by Duddy and Bresler, expanded with new material. These programs were syndicated for local stations as "The Honeymooners Go To Europe" and released on DVD as "The Color Honeymooners", the latter being the general term assigned to them.


title: The Honeymooners

text: One notable 1967 segment featured the return of Pert Kelton (in one of her last performances before her death in 1968 of heart disease at the age of 61), but this time she played Alice's mother, Mrs. Gibson.


title: The Honeymooners

text: "The Honeymooners" ended again when CBS announced the cancellation of "The Jackie Gleason Show" on February 16, 1970, the result of a disagreement in direction between Gleason and the network. Gleason wanted to continue interspersing "The Honeymooners" within the confines of his regular variety show, while CBS wanted a full-hour "Honeymooners" every week. (CBS's ongoing effort to move its product toward younger audiences and away from established variety show stars was another potential factor in the show's demise.) On October 11, 1973, Gleason, Carney, MacRae and Kean reunited for a "Honeymooners" skit called "Women's Lib" as part of a Gleason special on CBS. The Kramdens and Nortons were brought back for four final one-hour specials on ABC, which aired from 1976 to 1978. Alongside Gleason and Carney, Audrey Meadows returned as Alice. Meanwhile, Jane Kean continued to play Trixie. (Joyce Randolph, the actress most identified as Trixie, never played the part again after the 1950s.) These four specials came at a time when Gleason and Carney were each achieving new-found expanded fame, with Gleason's prominent role in the box office smash "Smokey and the Bandit" and Carney winning an Academy Award for his leading role in "Harry and Tonto", which brought some more attention to these series of specials. These were the final original "Honeymooners" productions.


title: The Honeymooners

text: Art Carney won five Emmy Awards for his portrayal of Ed Norton—two for the original "Jackie Gleason Show", one for "The Honeymooners", and two for the final version of "The Jackie Gleason Show". He was nominated for another two (in 1957 and 1966), but lost. Gleason and Meadows both were nominated in 1956 for their work on "The Honeymooners". Gleason was nominated for Best Actor–Continuing Performance, but lost to Phil Silvers, while Meadows was nominated for Best Actress-Supporting Role but lost to Nanette Fabray. Meadows also was nominated for Emmys for her portrayal of Alice Kramden in 1954 and 1957.


title: The Honeymooners

text: The following table summarizes award wins by cast members, both for "The Honeymooners" and "The Jackie Gleason Show".


title: The Honeymooners

text: "The Honeymooners" gained its greatest fame in syndication, where it has aired continually since its original cancellation. WPIX in New York City has aired the series for more than five decades (after initially running in 1957–1958 on WRCA-TV, which now is WNBC), with occasional brief breaks. It regularly airs on WPIX with a marathon that begins on the final hour of New Year's Eve and runs well into New Year's Day. In the United Kingdom it originally aired on ITV between 1958–1963. BBC Two aired 38 of the original 39 episodes beginning in 1989 and ending in 1991. The show also has aired in Australia, Iran, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Ireland, and Suriname. It previously was seen on WGN America from June 2008 to September 2009 and on Me-TV from December 2010 to September 2011. In April 2012, the show returned to Me-TV. The show currently airs on the network on Sunday nights.


title: The Honeymooners

text: In 1984, the Museum of Television and Radio announced the "discovery" of four original "Honeymooners" sketches from the original series "The Jackie Gleason Show". Later, when they held a public viewing for three of them the response was overwhelmingly positive. In January 1985, Gleason announced the release of an additional group of "lost" episodes from his private vault. As with the previously released sketches, these "lost episodes" actually were kinescopes of sketches from the 1952–55, 1956–57 run of "The Jackie Gleason Show". Because the prints had not been stored under ideal conditions, parts of the soundtracks of three episodes were unusable, and the voices had to be redubbed. Gleason personally approved the soundalike actors, with noted voice actor Joe Alaskey providing Kramden's lines.


title: The Honeymooners

text: Gleason sold the broadcast rights to the so-called "lost" episodes to Viacom, and they first were aired from 1985–1986 as a series of sixty-eight 22-minute episodes on the Showtime cable network. They since have joined the original 39 episodes in syndication, and also have been released on VHS and DVD. In September 2004, another "lost" episode reportedly was discovered at the Peabody Award archives in Georgia. This episode, titled "Love Letter," originally aired on "The Jackie Gleason Show" on October 16, 1954. It aired for the first time since then on October 16, 2004, its 50th anniversary, on TVLand. CBS Media Ventures (the modern-day successor to Viacom), via CBS Broadcasting, owns the "Classic 39" series outright, while the Gleason estate owns the "lost episodes" (although CMV does distribute them).


title: The Honeymooners

text: Paramount Home Entertainment/CBS DVD released the six-disc DVD box set "The Honeymooners "Classic 39" Episodes" in November 2003 (only available in Region 1). The set contains all 39 episodes from the series' original 1955–56 broadcast run. Also included in the set is an edited version of a 1990 anniversary special hosted by Audrey Meadows, as well as original show openings and closings sponsored by Buick that were removed when the show went into syndication.


title: The Honeymooners

text: MPI Home Video released 80 of the "lost episodes" in Region 1 DVD format during 2001–02, spread out on 24 single-disc volumes. MPI subsequently re-packaged the 24 volumes into six 4-disc box sets. Both the 24 individual volumes and the six 4-disc box sets went out of print during the course of 2008. However, MPI has since renewed its deal with Jackie Gleason Enterprises LLC and has continued to release new editions of the "lost episodes" and other "Honeymooners" material not currently owned by CBS. On July 28, 2011, MPI Home Video announced the release of a completely restored set of all existing "Honeymooners Lost Episodes" from 1951 to 1957. The 50-hour, 15 DVD set would contain 107 "Honeymooners" sketches, included the home video debut of the nine existing original DuMont Network sketches, six other sketches never before released on home video and the eight musical "Honeymooners" episodes from 1957, which are collectively known as the "Trip To Europe" shows that have been long sought after by "Honeymooners" fans. The new restored set of "Lost Episodes" was released on October 4, 2011, sixty years after the first "Honeymooners" sketch aired.


title: The Honeymooners

text: In June 2006, MPI Home Video released "The Color Honeymooners – Collection 1" (NTSC and PAL), which collects the "Trip to Europe" story arc presented on "The Jackie Gleason Show" in 1966. It has since released an additional three volumes featuring additional episodes from this story arc. AmericanLife TV Network has also aired "The Color Honeymooners" shows under license from Gleason Enterprises and Paul Brownstein Productions.


title: The Honeymooners

text: In May 2022, MPI Home Video released Jackie Gleason TV Treasures, which includes three never before released Honeymooners sketches from the early 1960's, the 1966 musical remake of The Adoption Honeymooners episode, and seven color Honeymooners episodes not included in previous Color Honeymooners Collections.


title: The Honeymooners

text: In Australia (Region 4), Shock Entertainment released "The Honeymooners - Classic 39 Episodes" 5-Disc Set in NTSC format on November 13, 2009, and a re-release on August 5, 2020.


title: The Honeymooners

text: Steven Sheehan explains the popularity of "The Honeymooners" as the embodiment of working-class masculinity in the character of Ralph Kramden, and postwar ideals in American society regarding work, housing, consumerism, and consumer satisfaction. The series visually demonstrated the burdens of material obligations and participation in consumer culture, as well as the common use of threats—even though "The Honeymooners" never showed or even hinted at actual violence—of domestic violence in working class households.


title: The Honeymooners

text: Due to its enduring popularity, "The Honeymooners" has been referenced numerous times in American pop culture, and has served as the inspiration for other television shows, most notably "The Flintstones". The show also introduced memorable catchphrases into American culture, such as "Bang, zoom, straight to the Moon!", "One of these days... one of these days...," "Homina, homina, homina," and "Baby, you're the greatest".


title: The Honeymooners

text: In 1960, the Hanna-Barbera-produced animated sitcom "The Flintstones" debuted on ABC. Many critics and viewers noted the close resemblance of that show's premise and characters to that of "The Honeymooners". In various interviews over the years, creators and founders of their production company William Hanna and Joseph Barbera each stated that "The Honeymooners" was one of the inspirations for "The Flintstones". Gleason later said that he considered suing, but decided that becoming known as "the guy who yanked Fred Flintstone off the air" was not worth the negative publicity. Historically, "The Honeymooners" itself was compared in its day to the similar comedy series The Bickersons as well as Laurel and Hardy (particularly Sons of the Desert), and while "The Flintstones" made no secret of hiring some of the writers and being inspired by the premise, "The Flintstones" original series and its spinoffs changed over the years, ultimately having more differences than similarities, starting with its setting and artistic approach.


title: The Honeymooners

text: The success of "The Honeymooners" in countries outside the United States has led to the production of new shows based entirely on it.


title: The Honeymooners

text: Two series, 26 episodes in all were made for R.C.T.I. in 1996. It was the first sitcom of that style ever attempted in Indonesia. It was titled "Detak Detik" ("Ticking Seconds") and starred Mat Sola as the Jackie Gleason character. Art Carney rang the cast prior to production to give them his best wishes. It was decided to make Mat Sola a Silver Bird taxi driver, as they had a bit more prestige in Indonesia. They left Nurbuat, who mirrored Ed Norton, as a sewerage worker. The chemistry worked well. The series had to remove any references to alcohol, as Indonesia is a country with a Muslim majority population.


title: The Honeymooners

text: French Canada was entertained for years in the 1960s and '70s by a sitcom titled "Cré Basile", with Olivier Guimond, Béatrice Picard, Denis Drouin and Amulette Garneau, which was an uncredited Quebecois version of "The Honeymooners". It could, by contemporary standards, qualify as plagiarism.


title: The Honeymooners

text: In 1994, the Dutch broadcasting network KRO produced a version of "The Honeymooners" titled "Toen Was Geluk Heel Gewoon" ("Then happiness was common"), using translated scripts of the original series but changing its setting to 1950s Rotterdam. After the original 39 scripts were exhausted, the series' lead actors, Gerard Cox and Sjoerd Pleijsier, took over writing, adding many new characters and references to Dutch history and popular culture. The series was a hit in the Netherlands and it finished its run after 16 years and 229 episodes in June 2009. The actors reprised their characters five years later in a feature-length movie.


title: The Honeymooners

text: In 1994, the Swedish network TV4 produced a version of "The Honeymooners" titled "Rena Rama Rolf", but changing its setting to modern-day Gothenburg, where Rolf (Ralph) is working as a streetcar driver. The show ran until 1998.


title: The Honeymooners

text: In 1998, the Polish network Polsat produced a version of "The Honeymooners" titled "Miodowe lata" which translates to "Honey years", using both translated scripts of the original series and new ones, but changing its setting to modern-day Warsaw. The original series ran until 2003 and was continued in 2004 as "Całkiem nowe lata miodowe".


title: The Honeymooners

text: Vince Musacchia created a comic book series based on "The Honeymooners" for Hypergraphics between 1987 and 1989.


title: The Honeymooners

text: On June 10, 2005, a feature film remake of "The Honeymooners" was released, featuring a predominantly African American cast. The roles of Ralph, Alice, Ed, and Trixie were played by Cedric the Entertainer, Gabrielle Union, Mike Epps, and Regina Hall, respectively. The movie was a critical and commercial failure, earning slightly more than US$13 million worldwide. The film was released by Paramount Pictures.


title: The Honeymooners

text: In 1988, First Row Software released a "Honeymooners" computer game for the Commodore 64 and DOS systems. The game involves the Kramdens and Nortons trying to earn $223 for train fare to Miami Beach, where Ralph wants to host the annual Raccoon Lodge convention, by playing a variety of mini-games related to the series. Additionally, players have the option of trying to double their money after each round by answering a "Honeymooners"-related question in a bonus round based on "The $99,000 Answer" episode.


title: The Honeymooners

text: In December 2016, a CBS reboot of "The Honeymooners" with Bob Kushell writing and executive producing the series was announced but it never came to fruition. Producers Sarah Timberman, Carl Beverly, Eric & Kim Tannenbaum, and Jeff Greenstein were also announced as part of the development deal.


title: The Honeymooners

text: In January 2022, a CBS reboot of "The Honeymooners" with Damon Wayans Jr. executive producing the series was announced.


title: The Honeymooners

text: In September 2017, Paper Mill Playhouse produced the world-premiere of a musical adaptation of "The Honeymooners", starring Michael McGrath as Ralph, Michael Mastro as Ed, Leslie Kritzer as Alice, and Laura Bell Bundy as Trixie. The musical had a book by Dusty Kay and Bill Nuss, with music by Stephen Weiner and lyrics by Peter Mills. It was directed by John Rando and choreographed by Joshua Bergasse.


title: WestJet

text: WestJet Airlines Ltd. is a Canadian airline headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, near Calgary International Airport. It is the second-largest Canadian airline, behind Air Canada, operating an average of 777 flights and carrying more than 66,130 passengers per day. In 2018, WestJet carried 25.49 million passengers, making it the ninth-largest airline in North America by passengers carried.


title: WestJet

text: WestJet was founded in 1994 and began operations in 1996. It began as a low-cost alternative to the country's competing major airlines. WestJet provides scheduled and charter air service to more than 100 destinations in Canada, the United States, Europe, Asia, Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean.


title: WestJet

text: WestJet is owned by Kestrel Bidco Inc., a subsidiary of Onex Corporation. Although not a formal member of any airline alliance, WestJet has codeshare agreements with many other airlines. It operates two variants of the Boeing 737 Next Generation family, the Boeing 737 MAX, as well as a Boeing 787 aircraft, on select long-haul routes. WestJet has two direct subsidiaries: WestJet Encore, which operates the Bombardier Q400; and WestJet Link, which operates the Saab 340B through a seat capacity purchase agreement with Pacific Coastal Airlines.


title: WestJet

text: Westjet was founded on June 27, 1994, by Clive Beddoe, David Neeleman, Mark Hill, Tim Morgan, and Donald Bell. WestJet was based on the low-cost carrier business model pioneered by Southwest Airlines and Morris Air in the United States. Its original routes were all located in Western Canada, which gave the airline its name.


title: WestJet

text: On February 29, 1996, the first WestJet flight (a Boeing 737-200) departed. Initially, the airline served Calgary, Edmonton, Kelowna, Vancouver and Winnipeg with a fleet of three used Boeing 737-200 aircraft and 225 employees. By the end of that same year, the company had added Regina, Saskatoon and Victoria to its network.


title: WestJet

text: In mid-September 1996, WestJet's fleet was grounded due to a disagreement with Transport Canada over maintenance schedule requirements. The airline suspended all service for two weeks before resuming flights.


title: WestJet

text: In early 1999, Clive Beddoe stepped down as WestJet's CEO and was replaced by former Air Ontario executive Steve Smith. In July 1999, WestJet made its initial public offering of stock at 2.5 million shares, opening at $10 per share. The same year, the cities of Thunder Bay, Grande Prairie, and Prince George were added to WestJet's route map.


title: WestJet

text: In 2000, WestJet CEO Steve Smith was released from WestJet after 18 months in the position, apparently due to differences about management style; Smith went on to head rival Air Canada's low-cost subsidiary Zip. After Smith's departure, Clive Beddoe again became CEO of the company, a position he held until July 2007.


title: WestJet

text: Due to restructuring in the Canadian airline industry resulting from Air Canada's takeover of Canadian Airlines in 2000, WestJet expanded into Eastern Canada, beginning service to the cities of Hamilton and Ottawa, Ontario, and Moncton, New Brunswick. The airline selected John C. Munro Hamilton International Airport to be the focus of its Eastern Canadian operations and its main connection point in Eastern Canada.


title: WestJet

text: In 2001, WestJet's expansion continued with routes to Fort McMurray and Comox. It also added Sault Ste. Marie, Sudbury, Ontario, Thompson and Brandon, Manitoba; however, service to each of these four cities has since been withdrawn. Service to Brandon, Manitoba and Sudbury, Ontario, was subsequently resumed by WestJet's wholly owned subsidiary, WestJet Encore.


title: WestJet

text: In 2002, the airline also added another two new Eastern Canadian destinations: the Ontario cities of London and Toronto. In April 2003, WestJet added Windsor, Montreal, Halifax, St. John's and Gander.


title: WestJet

text: WestJet entered into a two-year agreement with Air Transat in August 2003 whereby WestJet aircraft would be filled by Transat's two main tour operators, World of Vacations and Transat Holidays. These chartered flights operated largely to destinations in Mexico and the Caribbean and the planes were operated by WestJet crews. This agreement between WestJet and Air Transat was amicably terminated in February 2009.


title: WestJet

text: In 2004, rival airline Air Canada accused WestJet of industrial espionage and filed a civil suit against WestJet in Ontario Superior Court. Air Canada accused WestJet of accessing Air Canada confidential information via a private website in order to gain a business advantage. On May 29, 2006, WestJet admitted to the charges leveled by Air Canada and agreed to pay C$5.5 million in legal and investigation fees to Air Canada and donate C$10 million to various children's charities in the names of Air Canada and WestJet.


title: WestJet

text: In January 2004, WestJet announced that it was moving the focus of its Eastern operations from Hamilton to Toronto the following April, fully moving into the lucrative Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal triangle and tripling the total number of its flights out of Toronto Pearson International Airport.


title: WestJet

text: In 2004, a number of U.S. destinations were added or announced. These included San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Tampa, Fort Lauderdale, Orlando and LaGuardia Airport in New York City. In early 2005, Palm Springs and San Diego were added to the company's list of destinations, while New York-LaGuardia was dropped. In April 2005, it announced new seasonal service to Charlottetown and ceased service to Gander. In fall 2005, Ft. Myers and Las Vegas were added to the growing list of destinations.


title: WestJet

text: In late August 2005, WestJet flew to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, transporting members of a Vancouver-based urban search and rescue team to assist with Hurricane Katrina relief efforts.


title: WestJet

text: After rumours and speculation surrounding the implementation of extended-range twin-engine operations (ETOPS), WestJet announced new service to the Hawaiian Islands from Vancouver on September 20, 2005. In December 2005, the airline began flying from Vancouver to Honolulu and Maui.


title: WestJet

text: WestJet's first scheduled service outside Canada and the United States began in 2006, to Nassau, Bahamas. This was considered a huge milestone within the company's long-term destination strategy and was a vital goal for future international market presence.


title: WestJet

text: On October 26, 2006, WestJet announced that it had its best quarterly profit to date, of C$52.8 million.


title: WestJet

text: In 2007, WestJet announced that it would begin flights from Deer Lake in Newfoundland, Saint John in New Brunswick and Kitchener-Waterloo in Ontario. In June 2007, WestJet added seven new international seasonal flights to Saint Lucia, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, Mexico as well as a third Hawaiian destination, Kona.