“The Passports”

(S5;E11 ~ December 19, 1955)  Directed by James V. Kern. Written by Jess Oppenheimer, Madelyn Pugh, Bob Carroll, Jr., Bob Schiller, and Bob Weiskopf. Filmed November 17, 1955. 

Rating: 44.2/62

Based on Lucy’s radio show “My Favorite Husband” #121 broadcast in March 1951, also titled "The Passports.”

Synopsis: Getting ready to go to Europe, Lucy can’t find her birth certificate and must find someone to vouch for her identity in order to obtain a passport. When unable to get a school chum’s affidavit, she schemes to stow away in a steamer trunk!

This episode was sponsored by Golden Fluffo, a vegetable shortening. The golden color was to emulate butter and set it apart from its rival Crisco, both made by Procter & Gamble. Although no longer available in the USA (P&G introduced Butter Flavored Crisco), Fluffo is still sold in Canada.  

In reality, this episode has little to do with the gang getting their passports; that would be the following episode, “Staten Island Ferry” (S5;E12). Lucy’s passport will also be part of “Paris at Last!” (S5;E18) and the main subject of “Lucy’s Bicycle Trip” (S5;E24).  It might have been titled “The Trunk” if that didn’t give away the show’s comic ending.  

At the start Lucy announces their European travel destinations, although she mentions Venice, Holland, and Madrid, they did not end up being being featured on the show. In “Return Home from Europe” (S5;E26), Lucy wants to pack wooden shoes she bought for Marion Van Vlack, likely a souvenir of Holland which indicates that there were places the foursome visited that were not seen on the air. The trip was originally scheduled to last three weeks, but like the trip to California, ended up being longer.

Based on the dates in this episode, Lucy Ricardo was born in 1921, ten years after Lucille Ball’s birth in 1911. We also learn that Lucy was born in West Jamestown not Jamestown itself. Technically, there is no ‘West Jamestown,’ although there is now a Jamestown West, a census-designated place (CDP) located near Jamestown in Chautauqua County, New York. It is also known as West Ellicott because of its location in the town of Ellicott. Lucille Ball was born in Jamestown proper and spent most of her childhood in Celoron, both communities adjacent to Jamestown West. The above postcard is dated 1910. Had it been taken a few years later, it could accurately depict the episode’s story of Helen pushing baby Lucy in her pram! 

To vouch for her age in an affidavit, Lucy tracks down her childhood babysitter Helen Erickson, played by Sheila Bromley. Bromley was a former Miss California making her only appearance on the series. She had appeared in two 1935 Columbia Pictures films with Lucille Ball and like Ball, was also born in 1911.

The
leopard-print bag Lucy carries will be also used as the handbag Ethel buys while shopping in “Lucy Gets A Paris Gown” (S5;E20). 

Ethel carries the purse again when she dressed like a gun moll in “Lucy Wants to Move to the Country” (S6:E15).  

Reminiscing, Helen says she used to call Lucy ‘droopy drawers’ because of her sagging bloomers. In her posthumously published autobiography, Lucille Ball revealed that this was her childhood nickname as well. 

Lucy remembers that Helen has been married twice since Lucy last saw her.

LUCY: Her first husband’s name was Sears.
RICKY: You don’t suppose her second husband’s name could be… No, I guess that’s impossible.

Ricky is inferring that the name might be ‘Roebuck.’ Richard Sears and Alvah Roebuck founded the retail giant Sears Roebuck as a mail order (catalog) company in 1886, although the brand is now known simply as Sears.

Helen’s current husband is New York City lawyer Sidney Kaiser played by Robert Stevenson, who is credited here as Robert Forest. Like Bromley, Stevenson made his one and only appearance on the series with this episode.

The Kaiser apartment actually uses the framework of the set for Carolyn Appleby’s New York City apartment (left), seen in “Lucy Tells the Truth” (S3;E6) and “Baby Pictures” (S3;E5). 

In real life there, in 1927, there was a boy named Warner Erickson who lived on Lucille Ball’s street who was accidentally shot by a neighbor girl during a target practice set up by Fred Hunt, Lucy’s grandfather. A lawsuit was brought against Hunt causing Lucy’s family to have to move from their Celoron home to a Jamestown apartment.

The trunk has ‘Mertz & Mertz’ written on it, which was probably the name of Fred and Ethel’s vaudeville act. They bought the trunk from a man who had a seal act and he cut a hole in the side so the seal could breathe. Lucy does a quick imitation of a seal, just as she did in “The Audition” (S1;E6) when playing the saxavibratronophonovitch, before becoming locked in the trunk. 

Lucille Ball was claustrophobic in real life so she hated being stuck inside the trunk, but was always game to try whatever the script demanded of her.

A Lucy doll made by the Franklin Mint used a replica of the trunk as the wardrobe container for the doll’s outfits. 

The trunk even inspired a collectible cookie jar!

Ricky comes home with “the boat tickets”. Although it was decided that the Ricardos and Mertzes would go to Europe on an ocean liner, the promotional arrangements with the American Export Line (owners of The SS Constitution) were not in place until the last minute, so the “boat” was not specified by name. 

Although Lucy and the Mertzes need birth certificates in order to get their passports, Ricky mentions his “naturalization papers” because he is a foreign-born citizen.  

Oops!  When Desi Arnaz is supposed to answer the phone he’s so engrossed with laughing at William Frawley’s line about Lincoln signing Ethel’s birth certificate that Lucy ad-libs by saying, "The phone, honey.” Desi was supposed to ask about the Mertzes’ trunk prior to answering the phone, but he saved himself by asking about it after saying hello.

Lucy sings “Skip to the Lou” with Doc Peterson to prove her identity when trapped in the trunk. The character was probably named after Ed Peterson, Lucille Ball’s step-father. He is played by Sam Hearn in his only appearance on the series, although he did return for a 1959 episode of “The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour.” Hearn was also a musical comedy performer on Broadway between 1915 to 1929. 

“Skip to the Lou” is a popular children’s song and partner-stealing dance from the 1840s. It was the theme song of the first successful TV soap opera "Hawkins Falls, Population 6200,” which aired its final installment just a few months before “The Passports” was first broadcast. The song was also recorded by Judy Garland and Nat King Cole in 1944.

LUCY: Doc, I was bitten by a cat once on my ear and you took some stitches. It was Fred Bigelow’s cat. 
DOC: Yeah, that’s right.
LUCY (pushing her ear to the hole in the trunk): Well, look. Maybe you can see the scar. 
DOC: Scar or no scar, you couldn’t be Lucille McGillicuddy. She had brown hair!
ETHEL: Look at the roots – the roots!

In real-life, Fred Bigelow was the proprietor of Bigelow’s Department Store in Jamestown. A young Lucille Ball applied for a job at the ribbon counter, but was turned down, a decision which allowed her to pursue her show business aspirations. 

Bigelow’s later turned up in a 1965 episode of “The Lucy Show”!

Knowing he is going back to Paris, where he fought during World War I, Fred squeezes into his old army uniform.

FRED: Now, don’t make fun of us dough boys.
LUCY: Dough boys? Whoever put the dough in that boy used too much yeast!

Any reference to “too much yeast” instantly recalls the over-sized loaf of bread Lucy baked in “Pioneer Women” (S1;E25) in 1952. She misreads the recipe, which calls for 3 cakes of yeast, not 13!

As Fred marches in, he sings "Mademoiselle from Armentières” (aka “Hinky-Dinky Parlez-vous”), a song sung by soldiers during World War I. Fred also sang it in “Equal Rights” (S3;E4). The tune (without lyrics) was also Clarabell’s theme on "Howdy Doody” (1947-60).

Oops! In the scene where Ricky and his pianist Marco Rizo rehearse in the Ricardo’s apartment, Ricky begins drumming on the trunk with Lucy inside, upon finishing the song Marco says he’s got to go using the actor’s name and not the character’s name. 

MARCO: Bueno, Desi. Tengo que ir.
RICKY: ¿Tienes que ir? El tiempo entrará. Iré contigo al subway!

It is likely that Lucille Ball was NOT actually in the trunk during this short scene. Although Ricky says that the trunk has a “pretty good tone”, Desi Arnaz rubs his hands from beating on the unforgiving walls of the trunk! 

At the end of the episode, Lucy gets a letter from her mother, who is supposedly away on a road trip to New England. Apparently she didn’t get very far, since she writes that they had car trouble in West Jamestown! She also encloses Lucy’s birth certificate!

Rizo goes uncredited, but always used his real name on the series. An uncredited actor (probably Bennett Green, Desi’s camera and lighting stand-in) plays the messenger who delivers Lucy’s birth certificate at the end, saving the day! 

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