“Ricky Loses His Voice”

(S2;E9 ~ December 1, 1952) Directed by William Asher. Written by Jess Oppenheimer, Madelyn Pugh and Bob Carroll, Jr. Filmed August 22, 1952 at General Service Studios. Rating: 74.1/91

This was the last episode filmed before Lucille Ball’s pregnancy leave, the show’s pregnancy storyline, and ‘flashback’ episodes. 

This episode has the distinction of being the highest rated episode of the half-hour series.  

“One day in Mexico the radio picked up a station from the USA. 
I know the people heard just what occurred a corny program known as ‘Giveaway.’ 
They heard a lady win a diamond pin, a sable, and a brand-new limousine. 
She took home all the loot and more to boot for knowing 12 and 5 are 17.
That day in Mexico the radio was heard by one whose name was Don Jose. 
He said if that’s what goes on all those shows I think I go for visit right away. 
He got his papers quick and then a ticket on a plane for Hollywood and Vine.
He got to town at 8, and sure as fate He wound up in a studio at 9. 
He knew that Mexico would hear the show and he was set to make his family proud.
And so he whistled and he raised his hand and yelled until they picked him from the crowd. 
He got the biggest score and what is more he even won the jackpot of the show.
He blew his top because the prize it was an airplane trip right back…
To Mexico!”

Oops! After Ricky finishes rehearsing the novelty song he asks his accompanist Marco (Marco Rizo) to telephone Lucy. Marco mistakenly responds “Okay, Des” instead of “Okay, Rick.”

While Ricky sings there is a pack of Philip Morris cigarettes (the show’s sponsor) on top of the piano. Not surprisingly, no one ever suggests that Ricky’s vocal problems may be exacerbated by his smoking!  

This opening scene is usually cut from most syndicated reruns.

The next scene opens in the hallway outside the Ricardo apartment. Lucy has trouble getting her key to work in the door. 

LUCY: (to Ethel) “For the rent you charge you could have bigger keyholes.” 

Although this bit takes only ten seconds, one wonders why it is there at all. Surely the door is not REALLY locked and Lucille Ball is just miming putting her key in the lock to open the door. If the moment is scripted – why? For that matter, why have the hallway scene (and set) at all?  

The furniture Lucy won at the Home Show in “Redecorating” (S2;E8) was unveiled for the first time here. The Tropicana set was also given a face lift starting with this episode.  The reason the bedroom furniture was changed was because the network censors wanted to make sure that Lucy and Ricky did not appear to be sleeping in the same bed now that Lucille Ball was pregnant.

This is one of the first times an episode makes a reference requiring viewers to have seen the previous episode. You have to have seen “Redecorating” to fully understand the new furniture that is littering the living room.  As previously noted, the Home Show prize was five rooms of new furniture and the Ricardos only have three rooms. Here we only see two rooms of new furniture. 

Ethel strikes a pose!  

Due to Ricky’s laryngitis, Lucy decides that she will have to stage the new show at the Tropicana. Fred convinces her to revive “The Flapper Follies of 1927,” a fictional revue Fred claims to have performed at the Palace. When Lucy looks suitably impressed (thinking he means the Palace Theatre NYC), he adds that it was The Palace in Jamestown, New York. 

Located in Lucy’s hometown, the real-life venue opened in 1923 and is now known as the Reg Lenna Center For The Arts. In 1956 it was the site of the premiere of Lucy and Desi’s film Forever, Darling. It frequently hosts performances held in connection with Lucy-Desi Days and Lucille Ball’s birthday celebrations.

On the shelf behind Ricky are two Hummel figurines. Hummels gained popularity in the post war years when US soldiers stationed in West Germany began sending them home.

On the left is Hummel #65 “Farewell" and on the right is Hummel #50 "Volunteers.”

The figurines of little children seem to emphasize Ricky’s child-like refusal to take his medicine.

Ethel says that when Fred is sick he is like Baby Snooks, which is a child character made famous by vaudevillian turned stage and screen star Fanny Brice.

We learn that Ethel broke her ankle the year before this episode took place, although we never saw or heard anything about it during season one.

Examining Ricky, Lucy says his throat is as colorful as the Carlsbad Caverns. 

The real-life New Mexico National Park is famous for its colorful caves. 

With his scratchy voice, Ricky tries to croon a few notes of “Babalu,” which Lucy says sounds pretty “Baba-lousy!” 

Ricky goes from not wanting to eat breakfast at all to asking Lucy for orange juice, coffee, buttered toast, bacon, and poached eggs.  

Arthur Q. Bryan (Mr. Chambers, the new owner of the Tropicana) had appeared with Lucille Ball in Look Who’s Laughing (1941). He is best remembered as the original voice of Elmer Fudd in the Warner Brothers cartoons. He also was an accomplished radio actor appearing for ten seasons as Doc Gamble on “Fibber McGee and Molly.” Mr. Chambers (a former vaudevillian himself) is the new owner of the Tropicana, but we never learn why Alvin Littlefield (played by Gale Gordon) is no longer around. This is the first and last time we will ever see or hear about Mr. Chambers. The next owner of the Tropicana is Ricky Ricardo himself, who purchases the club at the start of season six and re-names it Club Babalu.

The rest of the episode (7 minutes of air time) takes place at the newly redecorated Tropicana and is devoted to the “Flapper Follies of 1927″.  

One of the patrons at the Tropicana is Bert Stevens, who in real-life was the younger brother of Barbara Stanwyck. He was an extra in hundreds of movies and television shows, including nine episodes of “The Lucy Show,” several of which with his wife, Caryl Lincoln. Some of his most famous films include Citizen Kane (1941), North by Northwest (1959), and The Sound Of Music (1965).

Renita Reachi is also in the audience. She was a costumer for “The Lucy Show” from 1966 to 1968. She was also Vivian Vance’s camera and lighting stand-in for “I Love Lucy” and “The Lucy Show.” She was a costumer and/or made crowd appearances on “Here’s Lucy” and the Lucille Ball films Yours, Mine and Ours (1968) and Mame (1974).  

Joan Carey (Tropicana Patron) was born Joan Somerville Norbury in Yorkshire, UK. She carved out a brief career as an actress and dancer before moving to small roles in front of and behind the camera. In 1952, she became a regular fixture as a “Lucy” background artist through 1974. She served as Lucille Ball’s stand-in from the fourth season of “The Lucy Show” until at least the penultimate season of “Here’s Lucy.” [Thanks to The Lucy Lounge for this Joan Carey siting!]

Lucy calls the transformation ‘colorful’ but since we are watching in black and white, we’ll have to take her word for that. We do see the huge conga drum center stage and the hands playing it on the back wall.  

The show begins with a now-recovered Ricky crooning to the original follies girls of 1927, now considerably older. “Sweet and Lovely” is credited to Gus Arnheim and Neil Moret with lyrics by Harry Tobias. In fact, Arnheim, for whom this work became a theme song for his orchestra, was not a composer and probably was not involved in the song’s composition. Neil Moret is a pseudonym of Charles N. Daniels, who is probably the sole composer of the music for the song.  

The aging Flapper Chorus Girls include Barbara Pepper, Hazel Pierce, Gertrude Astor, and Helen Dickson.

• Gertrude Astor was the first actress to sign a contract with Universal in 1915, although she began screen acting in 1911. She began her career playing trombone on a riverboat.
• Barbara Pepper (above right) makes her third of nine appearances on the series. She’s the flapper who can’t remember what year it is. A friend of Lucille Ball’s from their Goldwyn Girl days, she was considered for the role of Ethel Mertz in 1951, but her depression over the death of her husband and her subsequent addiction to drink lost her the role. She went on to play Arnold the Pig’s mother, Florence Ziffel, on "Green Acres.”
• Hazel Pierce (above left) was Lucy’s camera and lighting stand-in and appears in dozens of episodes in the background, occasionally getting a line as well. She is the flapper who says “I’m an angel!” 

  Pierce, who is usually a poker faced performer who has trouble with focus during scenes, is here having the time of her life singing and dancing!  She also played the heavily bandaged Mrs. Peterson on “The Quiz Show” (S1;E5) and the woman who wins the TV raffled off by the Ladies Overseas Aid in “Ricky’s European Booking” (S5;E10). 

• Helen Dickson had appeared in three films with Lucille Ball: Carnival (1935), The Big Street (1942), and Two Smart People (1946).

Oops!  The microphone cord gets underfoot when Pierce is bringing off and nearly trips up Ricky.  But since the act is supposed to feel impromptu, it works perfectly. 

Fred and Ethel sing “Carolina in the Morning,” a song famously recorded by Al Jolson. William Frawley always claimed to have introduced this song to the world in his vaudeville act. The rivalry between the two also surrounded "My Mammy,” which Frawley claimed Jolson also ‘stole’ from him. “Carolina in the Morning” was written by Walter Donaldson and Gus Kahn and turned up on Broadway in The Passing Show of 1922. Frawley sang it in The Lemon Drop Kid (1934), as well as in “Lucy’s Show Biz Swan Song” (S2;E12), which also featured a roaring ‘20s revue. 

Frawley sang the song he so loved one more time on screen in a 1963 episode of "My Three Sons.”

The episode is one of the few where the date (year) is specifically mentioned.  Generally, mentioning the year was discouraged as it might ‘date’ the show for future broadcasts.  Here, the flappers introduce Lucy as “We’d like to have you meet a little bit of heaven – the queen of all the flappers of 1952.” But Barbara Pepper goes on autopilot and says 1927 instead. Since ‘heaven’ and ‘twenty seven’ are the better rhyme, she can be forgiven!  

Lucy plays the ukulele and sings "Has Anybody Seen My Girl?” written by Ray Henderson, Sam Lewis, and Joe Young in 1925. 

A backstage look at Lucille Ball’s preparation for this scene. 

Due to Lucille Ball being pregnant at the time, her flapper costume included a giant bow across her stomach to hide her ‘baby bump’!  

“The Charleston” was composed in 1923, with lyrics by Cecil Mack and music by James P. Johnson. Ginger Rogers danced to the music in 1942’s Roxie Hart. In the 1946 films Margie and It’s a Wonderful Life the song was played during the school dance scenes.

Even Mr. Chambers gets into the act doing the Charleston.  When Ricky sees him dancing, he says out loud “Mr. Chambers!”  It was obviously not loud enough to be heard over the orchestra, so the line was dubbed during post-production. This is a process known as ADR (automated dialog replacement). It was rarely done on “I Love Lucy” except when it was vital for the audience to understand a joke or plot point. 

FAST FORWARD FLAPPERS!

In “Lucy’s Show Biz Swan Song” (S2;E12), Ethel asks to Lucy if she can borrow the cloche that she wore in the Flapper Follies. Technically, it is not the exact same wardrobe item from the previous season.

Lucy would later perform this same song (again with ukulele) in “Little Ricky Gets Stage Fright” (S6;E4). Lucy again performed the song on a December 1963 episode of “The Lucy Show.”

The 1920s were a frequent source of inspiration when Lucycoms wanted a musical or dramatic entertainment.

On a 1968 episode of “The Lucy Show”, Lucy Carmichael, Viv, and Joan Crawford perform “Speak Easy Daze” set during prohibition. It also includes “The Charleston”. 

Lucy also played a 1920s flapper named Rusty two years earlier in “Lucy the Gun Moll” (TLS S4;E25), a satire on the Desilu TV show “The Untouchables” (1959-63).

In a 1970 episode of “Here’s Lucy” the Carters (and Robert Alda) perform a 1928 college musical that Harry authored. 

In a 1972 episode of “Here’s Lucy” Lucy, Kim, Harry and Ruth Buzzi perform in a 1920s musical comedy sketch. 

In a 1973 episode of “Here’s Lucy” Mary Jane Croft and Vanda Barra are flappers as part of the Girl Friday Follies. 

In 1977, Lily Tomlin used audio from this episode for her one woman show Lily Tomlin: Appearing Nitely. Time Magazine’s cover piece on the show calls her the new “Queen of Comedy”, a title generally accorded to Lucille Ball.