“Never Do Business with Friends”

(S2;E31 ~ June 29, 1953) Directed by William Asher. Written by Jess Oppenheimer, Madelyn Pugh and Bob Carroll, Jr. Filmed May 29, 1953 at General Service Studios. Rating: 41.8/83

Synopsis ~ When Lucy convinces Ricky to buy her a new automatic washer and dryer to help with all the laundry from their new baby, they agree to sell the old washing machine to Fred and Ethel, but the transaction ends up proving Ricky’s old saying “nunca hagas negocios con amigos” [never do business with friends].

This was the final episode of the second season and was also the last episode to be filmed at General Service Studios on Las Palmas Avenue in Hollywood. Desilu Productions had outgrown the small studio and shortly after the season wrapped they moved a few blocks away to Cahuenga Boulevard and the more spacious Motion Picture Center, which would eventually become known as Desilu Cahuenga.

Season 2 ended as number one in the ratings (an overall 67.3 share) with a total of 31 new episodes aired from September 15, 1952 to June 29, 1953.  This is the highest rating share the series achieved. This is also the latest in the season (September through June) that new episodes were aired, due primarily to Lucille Ball’s pregnancy.

During the summer of 1953, “I Love Lucy” was replaced by another Philip Morris-sponsored show, “Racket Squad” starring Reed Hadley.

Ethel complains that her washing machine is old enough to belong in the Smithsonian Institution.  Dubbed ‘the Nation’s attic’, the Smithsonian museums (located in Washington DC) will be mentioned again in reference to the antique Cadillac that Fred buys for the trip to Hollywood.  Although the bulk of “I Love Lucy” memorabilia is held by the Lucy-Desi Museum in Jamestown, New York, a portrait of Lucille Ball is part of the Smithsonian Portrait Gallery.

Some ask why Ethel needs a new washing machine when Fred just bought her a new Handy Dandy washing machine in “Sales Resistance” (S2;E17) just five months earlier. To be fair, however, “Sales Resistance” is a flashback episode, so a much longer period of time must have passed – at least before Little Ricky’s birth. When Ethel buys the Ricardo’s washer, she keeps it in the kitchen. Lucy already has a washer at the beginning of this episode, but we never see where she keeps hers. Also, we never get to see Lucy’s new washer and dryer.

At the opening of the episode there are so many lines of laundry in the kitchen that Ricky can’t find Lucy.  When he finally does meet her, she says “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?”  Doctor David Livingstone was a 17th century missionary and explorer in central Africa, the first European to see Victoria Falls. When reporter H.M. Stanley finally found him in 1871, he supposedly greeted him with “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?”

In 1939, a film called Stanley and Livingstone was released, starring Spencer Tracy as Stanley and Cedric Hardwicke as Livingstone. Young film starlet Lucille Ball attended the premiere on the arm of Orson Welles. The famous quote was included in the film and is majorly responsible for its popularity today.

The appliance used in the episode is labeled Epernay (a fictional brand). In actuality, it is probably a Launderall Horton 500 with gas stove handles affixed to the sides to help move it back and forth on the narrow porch. Epernay is the name of the Champagne-producing region of France, so it could possibly be a tribute to the way the malfunctioning washer spurts forth water just like a newly-uncorked bottle of Champagne spews forth bubbly!

LUCY: “Carrying this heavy basket – up and down, up and down. My muscles straining, body all aching and racked with pain. Fold those shirts, lift those sheets.”
RICKY: “Now, look, Old Man River, will you dry up?”

Lucy is paraphrasing the lyrics of “Old Man River” by Oscar Hammerstein II from the 1927 Broadway musical Show Boat. The groundbreaking show had revivals in 1932 and 1946 with the most recent of four film versions released just two years before this episode aired.

At the start of the second scene, we see Ethel doing wash in her new (well, new to her, as Fred points out) machine and absent-mindedly singing – extremely off-key! This is more Lucy’s schtick than Ethel’s. Vivian Vance was an accomplished singer who appeared in Broadway musicals with Ethel Merman, and in every other episode her voice is perfectly on pitch. The gag is simply a set-up for Fred to confuse her vocalizing with the noise of a faulty washing machine.

This is the first and only time we get to see inside the Mertzes kitchen.

We also get a rare glimpse of the Ricardo’s and Mertzes back porch and balcony but it is much different from the one shown in “Pioneer Women” (S1;E25), which was before they switched apartments with the Bensons.

When Ethel invites the Ricardos to stay for lunch, she says “Anybody from Albuquerque has always had enough to eat.” We will visit Albuquerque in “Ethel’s Home Town” (S4;E15) where “the room and meals will be for free.”

While Ethel is loading the washing machine, there is a space between the machine and the wall that clearly has movement behind it. This is likely because a stagehand got inside the washer from the back to grab the dry laundry as Ethel throws it in.

When the machine malfunctions, a stick pushes the lid up from inside. Again this is likely the work of a stagehand inside the washer who also has the job of pitching the clothes out of it as it sprays water.

Much of the sequence was shot after the studio audience left to allow close-ups of laundry landing in the faces of the cast.

Lucille Ball took off her false eyelashes before the start of the scene where the washer sprays water everywhere.

This is the fourth of 10 appearances by Elizabeth Patterson as neighbor and baby-sitter Mrs. Trumbull. The daughter of a Confederate soldier, Patterson actually made her debut in the series as Mrs. Willoughby in “The Marriage License” (S1;E26). In this episode we learn that Mrs. Trumbull’s first name is Matilda and that she has a nephew named Joe who runs Joe’s Repair Shop.

Herb Vigran (Joe, the repairman) had already appeared as Jule, the music union agent, in “The Saxophone” (S2;E2) and “The Anniversary Present” (S2;E3) and would go on to play Al Sparks, the man who arranges for Lucy and Ethel to be women from Mars in “Lucy is Envious” (S3;E23). He worked with the Arnazes again a few weeks after this episode was filmed when he played the salesman who sells them The Long, Long Trailer (1954).

Little Ricky is played by the Simmons Twins. Insert shots of the baby were done after the studio audience had left.  The scene with the baby in the stroller was played to an empty stroller or with a doll.

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FLASHBACK!

A year earlier, Lucille Ball provided the voice a washing machine (aka laundromat) for a Westinghouse full-color industrial film titled Ellis in Freedomland.

FAST FORWARD!

In 1958, Westinghouse becomes a major sponsor of Desilu and the “Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour” cast (in character) appear with Betty Furness in commercials to promote Westinghouse appliances, including automatic washers and dryers.

An unaired (and later colorized) 1958 promotional film called Lucy Buys Westinghouse filmed to highlight Desilu’s partnership with Westinghouse ends with Lucille Ball inside a washing machine!  The film was originally in black and white and later colorized for home video.