“Lucy Wins a Racehorse”

(LDCH S1;E4 ~ February 3, 1958) Directed by Jerry Thorpe. Written by Madelyn Martin, Bob Carroll, Jr., Bob Schiller, and Bob Weiskopf. Filmed in December 1957 at Ren-Mar Studios.

This is the fourth of five episodes of the first season of “The Lucille Ball Desi Arnaz Show” (aka “The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour”). 

Just as the last episode starred real-life husband and wife Fred MacMurray and June Haver, this episode stars married celebrities Betty Grable and Harry James playing themselves. 

The Jameses and the Arnazes were horse racing fans as well as racehorse owners.

As with the previous episodes, Ricky steps before the curtain to welcome the audience and remind them that the show will introduce Ford’s new four-passenger Thunderbird. These intros were cut for repeats and syndication but restored for the DVD release. In the original broadcast a long commercial (an early infomercial) for Ford was hosted by Dick Powell.

Little Ricky wants a horse like his friend Billy Thompson, but Ricky predictably says he can’t afford it. Ricky says Billy’s father is wealthy. 

Lucy enters a contest to win a horse sponsored by Korny Krinkles cereal. In fact, she sends in entries using the names of all her friends: Fred and Ethel Mertz, Betty Ramsey, Grace Munson, and Marion Van Vlack. Lucy reveals cupboards full of cereal boxes she’s bought to send in the required box tops. 

Despite living nearby, Ralph and Betty Betty Ramsey, Grace Munson, and Marion Van Vlack will remain unseen in this and all of the “Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour” episodes.  They join Little Ricky’s friend Billy Thompson off-screen. 

Through the glass in the oven door you can see boxes of cereal in the oven, too, although in the final edit Lucy does not reveal these boxes to the audience. In the next scene the boxes are no longer visible in the oven. Although Korny Krinkles is a fictional cereal, during the 1950s Post marketed a cereal called Krinkles, which was subsequently known as Rice Krinkles, Sugar Coated Rice Krinkles, and even Sugar Sparkled Rice Krinkles, but never Korny Krinkles. The brand was discontinued in 1969, but tasted pretty much like sugar-coated Rice Crispies.

It turns out that Fred’s entry wins! The horse is worth a thousand dollars (more than $8,000 today), making Fred have second thoughts about giving away his prize to his Godson. 

As of 2003 the State of Connecticut passed a law that animals cannot be given away as prizes in contests!  In the USA, 27 other states have such laws. 

Lucy names the horse Whirling Jet, which was no doubt a nod to the famous championship racehorse Whirlaway, winner of the triple crown in 1941. Whirlaway died in 1953. Whirling Jet was played by a trained ‘stunt horse’ named Tony.

Lucy decides not to tell Ricky about winning the horse, but Fred warns her that if he finds out it will be the “biggest Cuban explosion since the Battleship Maine.” This is a reference to a U.S. Navy ship that exploded in Havana Harbor during the Cuban War for Independence in 1898. More than 260 men were killed, inspiring the slogan “Remember the Maine!” The phrase is also referenced in the lyrics of The Music Man, which was set in 1912.

To coerce Whirling Jet up the stairs, Lucy promises him that the guest room has a television set where he can see “My Friend Flicka”. “My Friend Flicka” (1956-60) was a TV series based on the 1943 film of the same name about a boy and his horse living on a Montana ranch in 1900. Flicka was played by an Arabian mare named Wahana. 

Trying to hide the horse from Ricky, Ethel suggest they tell him Whirling Jet is actually Ralph and Betty Ramsey going to a cocktail party!  Ethel is suggesting that they are wearing a pantomime horse costume, similar to the one she and Lucy donned in “The Benefit” (ILL S1;E13) in 1952.  

Betty Grable was born on December 18, 1916 in St. Louis, Missouri. She made her screen debut in 1929. She made two films with Lucille Ball when they were both at RKO in the mid-1930s. She married actor Jackie Coogan in 1937 but divorced him in 1940. A pin-up girl, she was known for her platinum blonde hair, blue eyes, and shapely legs. In the late 1940s, 20th Century Fox insured her legs with Lloyd’s of London for a quarter of a million dollars. 

When Ricky invites Fred to go with him to the airport, he at first declines, saying that he is “in his union suit about to take a snooze.”  When he finds out that they are picking up Betty Grable, however, Fred hastily dresses and rushes over!  

A union suit is a type of one-piece long underwear. Traditionally made of flannel with long arms and long legs, it buttoned up the front and had a button-up flap in the rear covering the buttocks.

Although she never appeared on "I Love Lucy,” the mention of her name alone often stirred Fred’s libido, much to Ethel’s chagrin. In “Ricky’s Screen Test” (ILL S4;E7) Grable is mentioned as one of Ricky’s possible Don Juan co-stars. 

She wed band leader and trumpet virtuoso Harry James in 1943 and they were married until 1965. This is her final screen acting appearance (albeit playing herself). From 1958 until her death in 1973 she only appeared on talk shows or game shows.

Harry James was born in Albany, Georgia, in 1916. His mother and father were circus folk: she as a trapeze artist and he as a band leader. Betty Grable was the second of his four wives. He appeared with Lucy and Desi in 1940’s Too Many Girls and played himself in Lucy’s Best Foot Forward in 1943. He passed away in 1983 and was inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame.

Betty Grable and Harry James are doing performing gigs in order to pay for their expensive race horses. Towards that end they are seen rehearsing “The Bayamo,” a Latin-style song and dance production number especially written for the show by Arthur Hamilton, who is mentioned by name when James asks Ricky who wrote it. 

Choreographer Jack Baker actually appears in the episode, and even has a few lines of dialogue. Ricky calls him by his first name. 

The guitarist for the number is played by Perry Botkin Sr. He was a composer, songwriter, guitarist, accompanist associated with Al Jolson and Eddie Cantor on radio and recordings, and a guitarist with the orchestras of Paul Whiteman, John Scott Trotter, Victor Young, and Johnny Green. He was a staff composer on “The Beverley Hillbillies” from 1962 to 1964.

The musical number was prerecorded with the actors lip-synching on the set. 

It is performed as a full dress rehearsal in the Ricardo’s unusually spacious living room – complete with Ricky and Grable, ten dancers, four back-up singers, members of Ricky’s band, James on trumpet and an audience of one – Fred!

At Betty Grable’s suggestion, Lucy enters Whirling Jet in a race at Roosevelt Raceway. Roosevelt Raceway was a racetrack located in the town of Westbury in Long Island, New York, about an hour’s drive from the Ricardo home in Westport, Connecticut. 

Initially created as a venue for motor racing, in 1940 it was converted to a ½-mile harness racing facility. In 1956 it became the first race track to be accepted by the American Stock Exchange. Attendance waned throughout the 1970s and the facility was closed for good in 1988. The name still graces a movie theatre located on the former parking lot. Over the actual racetrack stands the Meadowbrook Pointe condominiums, with surrounding streets named Trotting Lane, Harness Drive, and Pacing Way.

Despite the fact that the actors went on location to the Nevada desert in the prior “Comedy Hour,” this episode uses second unit footage of Roosevelt Raceway, rear projection, and actor doubles, while the cast stayed on their Hollywood sound stage.

The Ricardos, Mertzes, and James’ are sitting in box 77.  The Cloud Room (a racetrack lounge) is directly behind them.

In the crowd at the Raceway: 

• Walter Bacon – a busy Hollywood background player who went on to appear with Lucille Ball in Critic’s Choice (1963) and an episode of “The Lucy Show” in 1967.
• John Breen – also was busy populating the background of Hollywood films and television shows.  He previously played a theatregoer in “Ethel’s Birthday” (ILL S4;E9) and will be seen in the grandstand in “Lucy and the Little League” (TLS S1;E28).  He and Bacon were in 22 other TV and film projects together!
• Scott Seaton – played the Trailer Park Attendant in Lucy and Desi’s The Long, Long Trailer (1954, with Norman Leavitt) and went on to appear (with Walter Bacon) in Critic’s Choice (1963).  He shares 14 films with Walter Bacon and 6 with John Breen.  All three background actors were in The Music Man (1962). 

Lucy had gotten up close and personal with horses before, in the film The Affairs of Annabel (1938) as well as when she went on “The Fox Hunt” (ILL S5;E16). 

Oops! While Lucy races Whirling Jet (as a fake horse prop), you can very clearly see a string bobbing the horse’s head up and down.

In the fifth race, Whirling Jet races as #8 and sets a new world record for infraction of rules, being disqualified on 32 different counts! 

The Classic 49’er Pendleton jacket was seen on Lucy, Desi, and Vivian in various episodes and promotional stills. Above Vivian Vance is wearing hers.

Tony the Racehorse (Whirling Jet) was one of the best trained horses in Hollywood. Tony would respond to the word “Action!” which caused some confusion when director Thorpe called action for other scenes. Thorpe decided to spell the word out but was still shocked to see the horse go into his tricks when it was spelled!  It was later revealed that prankster Bill Frawley (Fred Mertz) had whispered “action” into Tony’s ear before the take. 

Whirling Jet is never mentioned in subsequent episodes. 

Although this is not Whirling Jet, this horse on Desilu’s 1960-61 series “Guestward Ho” was trained to do the same stunt – sitting in an easy chair!

Norman Leavitt (George, a jockey) had appeared in the previous “Comedy Hour” and would be featured in the final episode of the series. He was in the 1950 film A Woman of Distinction with Lucille Ball and The Long, Long Trailer (1953). After this episode, he went on to appear in The Facts of Life (1960) and two episodes of “The Lucy Show.”

Leavitt wears a rather unconvincing fake mustache which Lucy also wears when she takes his place in the race.  

James Burke (the Horse Handler) had appeared as Mr. Watson, the man who sells the Ricardos and the Mertzes “The Diner” (ILL S3;E27) and then buys it back for a profit.

Veteran character actor Sid Melton played the fourth jockey in the race. Melton made two more appearances on the “Comedy Hour,” but is probably best remembered for his recurring roles on sitcoms: Charley Halper on "Make Room For Daddy,” Friendly Freddy on "Gomer Pyle: USMC,” and handyman Alf Monroe on "Green Acres.”

The doubles walk off into the sunset! 

FAST FORWARD!

Later in the series, Lucy promotes Wakey Flakies breakfast cereal in “Lucy Wants a Career” (S2;E4) which has the same artwork on the box as Korny Krinkles. The same prop cereal boxes later turned up on several episodes of “The Lucy Show” (inset photo) – this time in glorious color! 

1961 Dell Comic Book. 

Lucy once again rode a ‘prop’ horse in a 1963 episode of “The Lucy Show”. 

Ironically, William Frawley’s final screen appearance was a cameo as a horse trainer on a 1965 episode of "The Lucy Show,” in which Lucy Carmichael also dealt with a racehorse.  

On “Here’s Lucy” Lucille left the riding to her children, Lucie and Desi, when they visited Wayne Newton’s ranch in 1970.

Live or ‘prop’ horses on “Lucy-coms” (including establishing / stock footage): 

• “Pioneer Women” (ILL S1;E25)
• “Lucy’s Bicycle Trip” (ILL S4;E24)
• “The Fox Hunt” (ILL S5;E16)
• “Lucy Takes a Cruise to Havana” (LDCH S1;E1)
• “Lucy Hunts Uranium” (LDCH S1;E2)
• “Lucy Wins a Race Horse” (LDCH S1;E4)
• “Lucy Goes to Sun Valley” (LDCH S1;E5)
• “Lucy
  Visits the White House” (TLS S1;E25) 
• “Kiddie
  Parties Inc.” (TLS S2;E2)
• “Lucy and Arthur Godfrey” (TLS S3;E23) 

• “Lucy and the Countess Have a Horse Guest” (TLS S4;E6)

• “Lucy Discovers Wayne
  Newton” (TLS S4;E14)
• “Lucy and Robert Goulet” (TLS S6;E8)
• “Lucy
  and Tennessee Ernie’s Fun Farm” (HL S1;E23)
• “Lucy and Wayne
  Newton” (HL S2;E22)