“Ricky Thinks He’s Getting Bald”

(S1;E34 ~ June 2, 1952) Directed by Marc Daniels. Written by Jess Oppenheimer, Madelyn Pugh, and Bob Carroll, Jr. Filmed April 25, 1952 at General Service Studios. Rating: 56.0/90

Synopsis ~ Ricky’s receding hairline causes him concern, so Lucy decides to give him painful scalp treatments.

This is the penultimate episode of the first season, the longest of any “Lucy” sitcom, racking up 35 episodes. 

The inspiration for this episode, specifically the ‘torture treatment,’ came from head writer/producer Jess Oppenheimer (above), who went through the same thing when he first started losing his hair. Oppenheimer actually tried out the odd-looking device that Lucy uses on Ricky.

Jess Oppenheimer later said that this episode was a lesson in how not to do a Lucy show. First and foremost, it made Ricky the center of attention, with Lucy playing the concerned housewife. It even had Desi doing most of the slapstick, with Lucille merely reacting. “The best Lucy episodes always focused on Lucy and her problems or idiosyncrasies,” Jess remarked. “If anyone was going to get goop spilled all over her, it had to be Lucy.”

The show was also memorable for Oppenheimer because it did not ‘work’ the way it was originally filmed. In the original script, Lucy put Ricky through all the messy home remedies at the end of Act One. When those things failed to dissuade him, she hired the group of bald men to come over for a visit, only to have Ricky phone to say he would not be home until later. The original ending had Ricky call Lucy to say that he saw a photo of himself from 15 years ago, and that he has just as much hair now, if not more, than he did when the picture was taken.

When Oppenheimer saw the finished show, he instinctively knew that the kitchen scene, with Ricky’s scalp being pulverized by Lucy’s home remedies, was the high point of the story – so he, Bob Carroll and Madelyn Pugh quickly wrote a couple of new conversations (between Lucy and Ethel), and Dann Cahn re-edited the show to reverse the order of things.

Lucy repeats the gag of launching toast out of the toaster first seen in “Be a Pal” (S1;E3) – this time catching it in her hat! 

LUCY: “I feel like I’m having breakfast in a beanery.” 

Although the word ‘beanery’ is not used much today, it referred to inexpensive restaurants or cafes, the ‘beans’ referring to coffee beans, as the term was used mostly for coffee shops. Before Chock Full o’ Nuts became a supermarket brand coffee, they operated a chain of Manhattan coffee shops that were often referred to as beaneries.

The shops first opened in 1931 and still exist today.

Because gentlemen often stopped in for a quick cup of coffee, they often did not take off their hats. 

Mr. Thurlough, owner of the shop where Lucy buys the hair restoring products, is played by Milton Parsons. Although this is his only appearance in the series, Parsons had appeared in four Broadway plays between 1930 and 1950, the last directed by Hume Cronyn. He was seen in four films with William Frawley, the most popular of which was 1942’s Roxie Hart starring Lucy’s pal Ginger Rogers. It was later the basis for the hit musical Chicago. 

At the bald party, Parson’s removes his toupee to reveal that he, too, is completely bald! He recruits Mr. Johnson, Mr. Miller, and Mr. Davis as party guests – with six more dome tops coming! 

The three bald actors who appear go uncredited but the scene fades out before the others arrive. 

FRED: “I have plenty of hair, it goes way down over my eyes.”
LUCY: “Yeah, Fred, you better cut it or people will think you’re a girl.”

This joke was pre-Beatles, who started the trend of longer hair that become symbolic of the counter-culture movement of the mid-to-late 1960s. 

Fred comes to the party, too, but wearing a classy toupee. The next time viewers see Fred with hair will be an insert snapshot of a young William Frawley in “Sentimental Anniversary” (S3;E16) and then again in in the flashback that comprises “Lucy Takes a Cruise to Havana” (1957), the first episode of “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour.”  That is, if you don’t count the wigs he wears in the next episode “Ricky Asks for a Raise” (S1;E35). 

“Treatment, Ricky, Treatment!”

The first thing Lucy tries is a vibrating massage of the scalp.  

Lucy uses the Stim-U-Lax Scalp Massager by Oster, which was mainly used by barbers. 

After that, Lucy uses another vibrating device on her husband’s head.

She uses the state-of-the-art Vitabrush Vibrating Hairbrush made by Hershey Manufacturing Inc. 

The top left photo depicts the Electric Scalp Massage Exerciser. 

Devices like this were sold as early as the 1920s and were advertised in magazines like Popular Science and Popular Mechanics. 

The idea for Ricky to pull the stocking over his head came from real life. One Halloween, friends of Lucy and Desi’s came to their house wearing stockings over their heads and Lucy was scared stiff at the sight. The sight of Ricky’s face under the nylon stocking is indeed alarming.

When Lucille Ball was growing up, her aunt owned a beauty salon and Lucy would often visit to observe. Lucy even had a mini-beauty parlor at her Chatsworth ranch and enjoyed giving friends permanents and trying the latest beauty products. 

In later life Desi Arnaz’s hair turned gray but unlike William Frawley, he never went bald.

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FAST FORWARD

“Job Switching” (S2;E1) ~ 1952

In 1957′s “Country Club Dance” (S6;E25), Fred compares himself actor Yul Brynner, one of the most famous bald actors in Hollywood. Ralph Ramsey (Frank Nelson) seems amused by the idea. 

In 1958′s “Lucy Goes To Sun Valley” (LDCH), Lucy and guest-star Fernando Lamas (who had a thick head of hair) skied down….Bald Mountain aka Mount Baldy or just ‘Baldy’ for short! 

When George Washington comes to visit Mr. and Mrs. Paul Revere in a 1964 “Jack Benny Program”, Jack holds his hat, while Lucy holds his wig – revealing that the Father of our Country (Don Wilson) was bald. 

In 1970′s “Lucy the Crusader” (HL S3;E5), Lucy demonstrates a faulty electric hair dryer that eats the hair off the head of one of the stockholders.

During 1971′s “The Hollywood Unemployment Follies” (HL S3;E22) Lucy went blonde and Harry went bald to complete the look of the 1930 German film The Blue Angel.

In 1973′s “Lucy and Her Genuine Twimby” (HL S5;E17), actor William Lanteau (who was NOT bald) wore a bald pate under a toupee for this sake of this visual gag.  

Mame and Vera (Beatrice Arthur) sing “Bosom Buddies” in Mame (1974).

On 1977′s “Circus of the Stars II” Lucille Ball and Telly Savalas, television’s most famous bad actor, were two of four ringmasters aka hosts. 

“Ricky Thinks He Is Getting Bald” is referenced in the 2001 movie Rat Race. 

In 2001, a Polish remake loosely based on “I Love Lucy” titled “Kocham Klara” (”I Love Clara”), presented “A Wonderful Treatment” loosely based on this episode and co-written with the cooperation of the original “I Love Lucy” writers.  

Looking in the mirror, Kuba concludes that he is going bald. Klara tries to convince him that this is not true, but to no avail. Overnight, Kuba’s fear of losing his hair turns into a panicky obsession. Klara decides to apply a treatment for hair growth, after which Kuba will forget about his imaginary baldness once and for all.