“Sales Resistance”

“It looked so easy when the man did it on television.”

(S2;E17 ~ January 26, 1953) Directed by William Asher. Written by Jess Oppenheimer, Madelyn Pugh and Bob Carroll, Jr. Filmed on August 29, 1952 at General Service Studios. It was the 45th episode filmed. Rating: 71.3/92

Synopsis ~ When Lucy buys yet another new gadget from a fast-talking salesman (Sheldon Leonard), Ricky complains that she’s “got no sales resistance.”

This is the first flashback episode after Lucy went into the hospital to have the baby. This episode, like the following four, utilized a flashback intro. These five episodes were originally written and filmed from August to September 1952 (before the seven baby shows) in order to allow Lucille Ball enough time to relax before her baby was due and give her time to rest up after the birth. They were saved for telecast after the baby shows aired; hence the flashback approach.

Ricky sings “There’s a Brand-New Baby at Our House” into a reel-to-reel tape recorder at the beginning of this episode, the song that Desi Arnaz wrote with Eddie Maxwell on the occasion of Lucie Arnaz’s birth in 1951. This scene was cut for syndication but is included in the DVD release. After the episode aired, announcer Johnny Jacobs promoted that the song (he calls “The Baby Song”) was available on Columbia Records (a division of CBS, naturally) with the “I Love Lucy” theme song on the flip side.

When Ethel asks Ricky if he wrote the song, he replies that he wrote it for Lucy. But since Lucie and Lucy are pronounced the same, he may be talking about his daughter!

Trivia! Desi Aranz whistled and hummed a bit of this song during the season opener, “Job Switching” (S2;E1) nine weeks before it was announced that Lucy Ricardo would have a baby.

Ricky is  seen using a 1953 Webcor Reel to Reel tape recorder from Webster-Chicago. In the show, Ricky says that the woman sharing a hospital room with Lucy sold it to them to record the baby’s first words.

This is one more than 25 episodes where Lucy wears her now-iconic blue polka dot dress designed by Elois Jenssen. This is one of two variations where the bib neck was replaced by a large flat white collar and bow. It would turn up again at a garage sale held by Lucy Carter on “Here’s Lucy!”

Sheldon Leonard plays the fast-talking salesman Harry Martin. In addition to being a busy Hollywood actor, Leonard was the director of Desilu’s “Make Room For Daddy,” even directing Lucy and Desi in a 1959 episode of the show. He guest starred as himself in a 1967 episode of “The Lucy Show.” With William Frawley he appeared in Joe Palooka in Winner Take All (1948) and Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man (1951). He is probably most famous for playing the bartender in It’s a Wonderful Life (1946).

The Handy Dandy Kitchen Helper “peels and splices, cuts and rices, skins and dices, at lowest prices.” It is supposed to take a full potato and cut it into 16 identical slices – but not for Lucy. It is supposed to cut her time in the kitchen by two hours per day!

Oops! Lucy at first says it costs $7.98, but later in the same scene quotes it as $7.95.

In the kitchen, we get a good look at Lucy’s Peerage Brass pitchers.  What is perhaps most noticeable, however, are Lucille Ball’s thick false eyelashes!

A Westinghouse vacuum cleaner was used in the episode. “It’s the famous Dyna-matic Tank Cleaner with a twelve-piece set of attachments to make all your home cleaning easy. And with all this you get the speedy floor polisher to keep your floors shiny and protected. All this at one remarkable price.” A 1950 newspaper ad gave the ‘remarkable’ price as $49.95, which is equivalent to nearly $500 in today’s economy.

Ironically, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz later sold Westinghouse products when they sponsored “The Desilu Playhouse”. They even created a special film to show sales teams provisionally titled “Lucy Buys Westinghouse”.

Before she was a TV star, radio personality Lucille Ball appeared in print ads for Hoover vacuums!

Three episodes later, Lucy is seen using an upright vacuum cleaner in “The Black Eye” (S2;E20). Hoover executives saw the episode of “I Love Lucy” in which Lucille Ball peddled vacuum cleaners door to door and cut a deal with the show’s producers to have one of its products, and especially its brand name, displayed whenever a vacuum appeared in the plot. The vacuum in “The Black Eye” (S2;E20) was a Hoover upright model 62. It later inspired collectible salt and pepper shakers!

Harry Martin: “Madam, that ten-dollar bill, that sawbuck, that one-tenth of a c-note is all yours if this Handy Dandy vacuum cleaner fails to clean up all this dirt in less than two minutes flat.”

Lucy buys “the works” for $8.95, but Martin then up-sells Lucy, charging extra for the hose, the extra long electric cord ($5), the attachments ($2.50 each), a utility lamp, a carrying case for the cleaner, a carrying case for the attachments, a switch that turns it on and off, and the gray metal cover itself. The total comes to $102.40 plus Martin throws in the Kitchen Helper for $1.50 extra! This is the  equivalent nearly a thousand dollars today, so Ricky’s reaction is justified.

Mrs. Simpson, the woman who didn’t pay her electric bill, was played by Verna Felton, the same actress who portrayed Mrs. Porter the maid just a few months later in “Lucy Hires a Maid” (S2;E23). Felton also played Hilda Crocker on the 1954-59 Desilu TV series “December Bride.” She provided voices for several classic Disney animated movies and Wilma’s mother on the classic 1960-66 cartoon series “The Flintstones.” She is the mother of Lee Millar, who made four appearances on “I Love Lucy,” most famously in “Lucy and the Dummy” (S5;E3) as the emcee who introduces the clip from Guys and Dolls, which, coincidentally, co-starred Sheldon Leonard! In a 1962 episode of “My Three Sons” Felton played Mub, the female counterpart to William Frawley’s Bub, in a fantasy dream sequence.

Lucy loses one of her shoes trying to sell the vacuum cleaner. It got stuck in the door of 310 East 69th Street.  Above, the address as it looks today!

Lucy compares herself to Willy Loman, the title character in Death of a Salesman, a Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Arthur Miller first produced on Broadway in 1949 and made into an Oscar-nominated film in 1951.

Telegraphing his entrance from down the hall, Ricky sings an a capella verse of “Cielito Lindo,” a Mexican song popularized in 1882 by Quirino Mendoza y Cortés (1859–1957). It was first heard in “The Freezer” (S1;E29), and later heard again in “The Club Election” (S2;E19), “Ricky’s Hawaiian Vacation” (S3;E22), and “Second Honeymoon” (S5;E14). It is second only to “Babalu” in the number of performances on the series.

FLASH FORWARD 

Lucy says she saw the Handy Dandy Slicer demonstrated on television. In November 1955, “The Honeymooners” Ralph Kramden and Ed Norton (Jackie Gleason and Art Carney) pitched a kitchen device on television asking the time-worn question: “Can it core a apple?” 

In 1964, Lucy again sold Handy Dandy Vacuum Cleaners door to door in an episode of “The Lucy Show” co-starring Vivian Vance.

In 1965, Sheldon Leonard turned salesman again – this time vending cigars – as part of “Danny Thomas’ Wonderful World of Burlesque” also starring Lucille Ball.

“Lucy Meets Sheldon Leonard” (TLS S5;E22) in 1967. Mrs. Carmichael runs into producer / director Leonard, this time playing himself.

In 2004, Mattel’s Barbie Lucy issued a “Sales Resistance” doll. Note the vacuum cleaner in the background!

Gillian Anderson (”The X-Files”) as Lucy Ricardo in “Sales Resistance.”

---