“Baby Pictures”

“Television
isn’t going to last. It’s just a fad. Like flagpole-sitting or
swallowing goldfish.”

(S3;E5 ~ November 2, 1953) Directed by William Asher. Written by

Jess Oppenheimer, Madelyn Pugh and Bob Carroll, Jr. Filmed October 1, 1953 at Ren-Mar Studios. 

Rating: 61.4/82

Synopsis ~ Who has the cuter baby: the Ricardos or the Applebys? In this episode, Lucy’s motherly pride may just lose Ricky a chance at his own TV variety show.

Coincidentally, on the day this episode first aired, Time Magazine did a cover story on the advent of the amateur photographer – “every man his own artist.”  This is certainly true of Ricky and Charlie Appleby, who are camera crazy with the birth of their sons.  

At the start of the episode Lucy and Ricky can’t wait to look at the new pictures of Little Ricky. At first, Lucy thinks they’ve given Ricky the wrong photos:

LUCY: “They gave you the wrong pictures!  This is a picture of twins!” 

Well, Lucy isn’t far from wrong. The photos are of twins – Michael and Joseph Mayer.  The snapshot is actually a double-exposure. The Mayer Twins will play the role until the end of season five when Keith Thibodeaux assumes the role. 

Technically speaking, the close-up insert shots of the photographs were done without the studio audience present and then edited into the scene in post-production.   

In one of the baby pictures, Little Ricky is playing with the “I Love Lucy” baby doll, which was commercially available to viewers. The doll was offered just after Lucy announced her pregnancy.  The doll was sexless to appeal to both girls and boys and not give away the sex of the unborn Ricardo baby. In the photo, the doll’s outfit is embroidered “Ricky Jr.”  Ethel remarks on it. 

Nudity on “I Love Lucy”?  Yep!  Albeit, just a glimpse of Little Ricky’s bare behind. Lucy says the photo is good enough to be on the cover of Body Beautiful magazine!  

Although it was a made up magazine at the time, one year later to the day Body Beautiful, a ‘physique magazine’, premiered. Definitely not what the writers  intended!  They might also have been thinking about the B-movie Miss Body Beautiful aka The Body Beautiful, released just a month before this episode was filmed. 

Cleaning up Little Ricky’s toys for the Appleby’s visit, Lucy holds a Roly Poly Panda made by Softskin as well as a Turtle toy. Both toys have been seen in other episodes. 

This is Doris Singleton’s fifth of ten appearances as Caroline Appleby, although this is the first time we sense a genuine rivalry between Lucy and

Caroline. This is the first time we get to see her husband, local TV station manager Charlie Appleby (Hy Averback), although he was mentioned in “Lucy and Ethel Buy the Same Dress” (S3;E3). Averback returned to the show to play another Charlie, Charlie Pomerantz, in “The Hedda Hopper Story” (S4;E20), although the next time we see Charlie Appleby he will be played by George O’Hanlon (inset photo) in “Lucy and Superman” (S6;E13).

Trying to impress the Ricardos about his TV station’s offering of motion pictures Charlie Appleby says:

CHARLIE: “We’ve got the newest moving pictures in town. I bought a block of films yesterday, and I want to tell you that they’re going to make television stars out of some of the actors. Now, just remember their names: Conway Tearle and Mabel Normand.”

Both were silent film stars and died in the 1930s!

A protege of Mack Sennett, Conway Tearle’s career bounced between Broadway and Hollywood. One of his last starring roles was in Hey Diddle Diddle, a comedy that premiered at McCarter Theatre in Princeton, NJ in 1937 and also featured a 26 year-old Lucille Ball. The play was scheduled to open on Broadway but closed after one week in Washington DC due to Tearle’s declining health. Mabel Normand had appeared with Charlie Chaplin and Fatty Arbuckle, sometimes also writing and directing movies. Her later career was marred by scandal.

In 1974 her life was depicted in the musical Mack and Mabel by Jerry Herman and Michael Stewart.

Charlie’s assertion that television will make ‘stars’ out of motion picture actors pretty much sums up the careers of Lucy and Desi, both of whom were active in movies before the advent of television. In July 1953, TV Guide did a story on Lucy and Desi returning to the world of film as superstars. 

The uncredited baby playing Stevie Appleby had just gotten over the measles before filming. Little Ricky and Little Stevie are both said to be 13 months old. The next time we see Little Stevie is in “Lucy and Superman,” four years later, where his is played by Steven Kay.

Here we also get our first glimpse of the Appleby apartment, decorated with early American furniture. When we see it in the very next episode aired “Lucy Tells the Truth” (S3;E6) it will be radically (and quite quickly) redecorated with Chinese modern.

Scurrying around her apartment to straighten up when Lucy visits unexpectedly, we see that Little Ricky and Little Stevie have the same taste in toys!  Mr. Squawker, a rubber duck squeeze toy manufactured by Rempel Manufacturing, and a tin drum made by Ohio Art. Both are also seen in the Ricardo apartment.  

Oops! At one point the camera pans too far to the left and we can see the curtains that mask the left wall of the set!  

Lucy and Caroline Trading Barbs!

As if on cue, Little Stevie gives a little laugh after Lucy’s line!  When Caroline calls Little Ricky “a chubby, puffy little boy” Stevie’s arm swings up and swats Doris Singleton in the face!  

Sinking to Caroline’s level of one-upsmanship, Lucy implies that Little Ricky speaks Spanish! 

Lucille Ball and Doris Singleton handle this sarcastic banter like seasoned pros.  In retrospect, the relationship is similar to the one Mame had with her ‘bosom buddy’ Vera Charles in Lucy’s film of the musical Mame (1974). One expects them to burst into song!

When Caroline takes the children into the next room, she carries Little Ricky horizontally!  When she brings him out, she holds him at arm’s length!  

Over the Appleby’s fireplace is the same octagonal Toleware painted tin clock that the Ricardos have!  What are the odds?  🙂 

While Ethel is gossiping with Lucy, Fred informs her that the chicken in her oven is burned. Fred jokes:

FRED: “If we had three and twenty more of them we could bake them into a pie.”

Fred is referencing the nursery rhyme “Six a Song of Sixpence” a verse of which calls for “four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie.”  The English rhyme dates back to the 18th century.  Four and twenty equals 24. 

Knowing that her confrontation with Caroline will jeopardize Ricky’s TV show on Charlie’s station, Lucy tries to tell him it is not a good idea after all.  She claims that television is “just a fad like flagpole sitting or swallowing goldfish.”  Both of these odd fads were common college pranks of the 1920s and ‘30s.  They will be mentioned again in several episodes of “The Lucy Show”. 

Claiming that Charlie’s TV station gets poor reception (a common problem of broadcast television of the time) and will distort his good looks, Lucy makes a funny face and warbles a few notes of “Babalu”. 

Trying to convince Ricky that fame is fleeting, Lucy recites:

LUCY: “Yesterday they told you you will not go far. Tomorrow on your dressing room they hang a star?” 

These are lyrics from the 1946 Irving Berlin song “There’s No Business Like Show Business” from the musical Annie Get Your Gun. Lucy and the Mertzes sing a rousing rendition of the song in “Lucy Has Her Eyes Examined” (S3;E10). The song was originally sung on Broadway by Ethel Merman, who made it her signature tune. Merman played herself on two episodes of "The Lucy Show” which (natur’lly) featured the song. 

In the end, Ricky appears on Charlie’s TV variety show singing

“In Acapulco.” The song was written by Marc Gordon and Harry Warren in 1945 for the Betty Grable film Diamond Horseshoe. It can be heard on the collection of Desi Arnaz songs called Babalu Music.

As the show ends we discover what Lucy had to do to get Ricky back on the television show.  Lucy Ricardo presents “the most beautiful baby in the world – Little Stevie Appleby!”