(S4;E12 ~ January 3, 1955) Directed by William Asher. Written by Jess Oppenheimer, Madelyn Pugh, and Bob Carroll, Jr. Filmed October 28, 1954 at Ren-Mar Studios. It was the 109th episode filmed. Rating: 52.8/69
Synopsis ~ Ricky buys a new car to drive to California and Lucy immediately wants to get in the driver’s seat – to disastrous results, of course!
This is the second of three episodes where the gang prepare for the trip to California. The three episodes are inter-dependent, but best appreciated sequentially.
This is the first non-Philip Morris sponsored episode and introduced Proctor and Gamble as a sponsor, promoting their new blue Cheer laundry detergent.
LUCY: If we’re gonna live in Los Angeles, I have to know how to drive.
RICKY: Lucy, please, they got enough traffic problems in Los Angeles already.
These lines were clearly written by Californians for a Los Angeles-based audience. Although LA’s traffic and smog problems are now legendary, in 1955 it would have been a local, not a national issue.
When Fred hears about the money he’s lost on the Cadillac, he goes into a comatose state!
The Mayer Twins play Little Ricky in this episode. This is their second season playing the character. Their regular sitter, Mrs. Trumbull (Elizabeth Patterson), is mentioned, but not seen.
Ethel claims that she doesn’t know how to drive, but she drove Lucy around during “The Camping Trip” (S2;E29). We only ever see Ricky give Lucy one driving lesson but she must have passed some sort of test, because she drives the Pontiac in both “First Stop” (S4;E13) and “Tennessee Bound” (S4;E14). By the time “The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour” is filmed, Lucy Ricardo is a full-fledged driver. Lucy’s argument about how she should know how to drive in case someone gets sick on the trip is the same one she used as Stacy in The Long, Long Trailer (1953).
Ethel sarcastically compares Lucy (with her one hour of driving experience) to Barney Oldfield. Berna Eli Oldfield was an automobile racer whose name was synonymous with speed in the first part of the 20th century. He began racing in 1902 and continued until his retirement in 1918. He was the first man to drive a car at 60 miles per hour. He was inducted into The Automotive Hall of Fame in 1968.
The 1955 Pontiac Star Chief convertible used starting with this episode was part of a product placement deal with General Motors. The script even has Ricky promoting that the car’s 180 horsepower and automatic transmission.
Pontiac replaced its straight eight with a new V-8 engine in 1955.
In her book Laughing with Lucy, writer Madelyn Pugh says that each of the writers received a new car for two years because of this agreement.
To avoid the glare from the studio lighting, the windshields of the cars were removed.
The two cars were specially wired to be connected and separated. Neither car was actually driven on set.
When Lucy starts to drive the old 1922 Cadillac with the new Pontiac in tow, you can see a cable near the ground pulling the cars off.
When Ricky comes back from giving Lucy her first driving lesson, he babbles in Spanish. The translation is:
“It is impossible.
What happened is impossible.
You cannot explain to anyone what happened today in the tunnel.
What horror! How outrageous! If you tell someone, they won’t believe it!”
New Jersey’s ‘bridgegate’ scandal has nothing on Lucy, whose antics create 13 miles of gridlock and congestion. In the next episode “California, Here We Come!” (S4;E12), the tunnel is mentioned again when it is said that the overloaded Pontiac would never make it through the Holland Tunnel.
ETHEL (blank stare, long pause): No, you stay here and tell that story. I’ll drive the car to the garage.
LUCY: We’d better get away with it, or Ricky and Fred will be planting their footprints somewhere and it won’t be Grauman’s Chinese Theater.
The Hollywood landmark and premiere movie theater gets its own episode in “Lucy Visits Grauman’s” (S5;E1), above.
Editor’s Favorite! Outside of their classic stunts, this episode contains some of the best verbal interplay between Lucy and Ethel of the entire series. Lucille Ball, in deference to Vivian Vance’s truthful yet funny performance, even gives her the punch line: “What cars?” This is one of my favorite moments from the entire series.
At the end of the episode, Ricky tells Lucy what he thinks of her shenanigans, once again in Spanish. Here’s the translation:
“I do not know where to start. What’s wrong? Did you lose your sense? What do you have in your head? Don’t you have anything stuck in your head? Is the head dead? Do not you have anything here completely? One day I’m going to take you as if you were a chick and I’m going to take you by the neck and I’m going to put my fingers here and… (mimes strangling. Lucy quickly kisses him.)”
Although Ricky states that he used the Cadillac as a trade in to buy the new Pontiac, the vehicle actually turns up again, driven by Fred and Ethel, in “Lucy Hunts Uranium” (1958).
Backstage during the filming.
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