“The Camping Trip”

(S2;E29 ~ June 8, 1953) Directed by William Asher. Written by Jess Oppenheimer, Madelyn Pugh and Bob Carroll, Jr. Filmed May 8, 1953 at General Service Studio. Rating: 51.5/58

Synopsis ~ Lucy is afraid that she and Ricky no longer have anything in common, so she plans to tag along on the boys’ camping trip next summer. In order to dissuade her, Ricky takes her on a ‘trial’ camping trip, which he plans to make as tough as possible. Naturally, Lucy finds out about his plan and (with Ethel’s help) turns the tables! 

This episode is based on Lucy’s radio show, “My Favorite Husband” #93, “Be a Pal” broadcast June 18, 1950. This is also the name of a similarly themed TV episode that has Lucy wondering how to spend more time with her husband. 

During season 4, this episode was rerun with a new flashback intro. 

The night this episode was filmed, Danny Thomas and representatives of the William Morris talent agency were in the audience. Thomas’s new sitcom Make Room for Daddy had just been sold to ABC, and Desilu would be handling the production chores.

In the ‘First Time / Last Time’ Department…

• We hear of Fred’s brother, who will accompany them on next summer’s big camping trip. 
• Ethel knows how to drive – but only a year and a half later, she claims she’s never learned. 
• Ethel tells Fred she’ll be visiting her mother – a character we never meet or even talk about when the gang passes through Albuquerque on their way to Hollywood.

The show opens with the girls playing cards. The fourth player with Caroline, Lucy, and Ethel is named Sally played by June Whitley Taylor, who briefly appeared on “No Children Allowed” (S2;E22) and would go on to appear in two episodes of “Here’s Lucy.” The opening also features Doris Singleton in her third of ten appearances as Caroline Appleby. In the original broadcast, while waiting for Lucy to make her move during the card game, she quipped “Play it while you’re still young,” a line that was cut for syndication.

The girls discuss the break-up of the marriage of Joanne and Gregg, which just happens to also be the name of head writer Jess Oppenheimer’s children.

Trying to make conversation, Ricky asks Lucy “What do you think of the new tax law?” In 1952, President Eisenhower proposed reorganization of tax laws, including re-naming the Bureau of the Internal Revenue the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Most importantly, starting in 1954, he changed the date tax returns were due from March 15th to April 15th. Both of these facts were part of “Lucy Gets Ricky on the Radio” (S1;E32) during Freddy Filmore’s “Mr. & Mrs. Quiz” program.

Although Little Ricky is heard crying in the next room, he does not appear on screen. His cry was likely supplied by Jerry Hausner, who also played Jerry the agent. 

The Sports Page

While reading the sports pages together, Ricky refers to Grantland Rice. Lucy says “Sure, I’ve heard of it, but I’ve never tasted it.” Grantland Rice (1880–1954) was a sportswriter known for his elegant prose. 

His writing was published in newspapers around the country and broadcast on the radio. He died a year after this episode aired. These lines, too, were cut for syndication, either for time, or feeling that Rice’s name was no longer recognizable enough for the joke to be funny.

When Lucy reads that they’re racing ‘maidens’ at Churchill Downs, she is upset about racing three year-old little girls.  Ricky corrects her that these are horses. Churchill Downs is the racetrack that has served as the site of the Kentucky Derby since 1875. The 1953 race was just six days before filming of this episode. Horse racing was a favorite pastime of Desi Arnaz, who was a regular visitor at Del Mar Racetrack. Episodes dealing with horse racing include “The Loving Cup,” “Lucy Wins a Racehorse” “Lucy and the Countess Have a Horse Guest”. 

Also in the sports pages, Lucy reads about a boxing match where “Williams won in a TKO”, which she pronounces as “tuh-koh” until Ricky corrects her.  A year earlier, a B-movie titled Breakdown starred William Bishop as prizefighter Terry Williams. Boxing was also the subject of “The Girls Want to Go to a Nightclub”,   “Ricky and Fred are TV Fans”, 

“Lucy, the Fight Manager”, and “K.O. Kitty.”  In 1961, Lucille Ball presented boxer Floyd Patterson with a Sports  Award on television. 

When Ethel first sees Lucy in her full camping regalia, she says:

LUCY: “Well, do I look like I stepped out of ‘Field & Stream’?”
ETHEL: “You look more like you fell in.” 

Field & Stream magazine was founded in 1895. Depending on the season and the availability of information, the magazine may offer advice on bass, birds, deer, trout, rifles, and shotguns. The magazine also offers tricks, survival tips, miscellaneous facts, and wild game recipes.

In January 2017, owing to financial woes, publishing frequency was scaled back from nine issues a year to six, and several longtime members of its staff were let go,

For More About the Magazines of “I Love Lucy” Click Here!

When Ethel tells Lucy that the real purpose of their camping trip, she says that “He’s sick and tired of you and him being the Bobbsey Twins.” The Bobbsey Twins are the principal characters of a long-running series of children’s novels written under the pseudonym Laura Lee Hope. There were a total of 72 books published from 1904 to 1979. There was also a separate series of 30 books paperbacks published from 1987 through 1992. 

The stories relate the adventures of the children of the upper-middle-class Bobbsey family, which included two sets of fraternal twins: Bert and Nan, and Flossie and Freddie. At the time this episode aired, the 47th book The Bobbsey Twins at Big Bear Pond had just been published. While camping, Ricky warns Lucy to “look out for bears”!

Lucy “catches” fish, tossed to her buy Ethel, who bought them at the market. She realizes that she has to “hook” them for the fib to be convincing. 

RICKY: “You know, that’s pretty good shooting. You not only shoot the duck, but you knocked the feathers off, and you cleaned it, too!” 

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FAST FORWARD!

Lucy and Desi (as Susan and Lorenzo Vega) also went camping in the feature film Forever Darling (1956). 

On a “The Lucy Show,” Lucy Carmichael goes duck hunting with boyfriend Bill (Keith Andes) in 1963 just as Lucy and Ricky did a decade earlier. 

In 1964, Lucy Carmichael, Viv, and Mr. Mooney chaperone a cub scout camping trip on “The Lucy Show.”

Also in 1964,

when Lucy and Viv’s sons Jerry and Sherman went to camp, their mothers followed them and became the camp cooks!

The great outdoors was quite popular in 1964, when Lucy Carmichael accompanies her son Jerry on a father / son camping trip, she really does encounter bears – just like Ricky warned Lucy Ricardo about in 1953. The premise of Mr. Mooney scheming to make Lucy regret coming on the camping trip is the same as this “I Love Lucy” episode.

Traveling to the Air Force Academy in a camper in 1969, Lucy and Harry Carter camp out in the Colorado wilderness. 

In the next episode, the Carters end up camping out on the shores of the Colorado River in “Lucy Runs the Rapids” (HL S2;E4). 

Speaking of bears…