“Lucy Makes Room for Danny”

(LDCH S2;E2 ~ December 1, 1958) Directed by Jerry Thorpe. Written by Bob Schiller and Bob Weiskopf.  Filmed September 19, 1958 at Ren-Mar Studios.

Producer Bert Granet won the Producer’s Guild Award for this episode. Former writers Madelyn Davis and Bob Carroll Jr. are credited as script consultants. 

The working title of this script was “The Ricardos Rent Their House to Danny Thomas”.  The final title “Lucy Makes Room for Danny” ideally includes both stars’ names and puns on the title of Thomas’ show. 

Synopsis ~ Lucy and Ricky sublet their Connecticut house to the Williams’ family (of “Make Room for Daddy”). When Lucy proves an over-protective landlady, the families end up in court!  

This is the second episode of the “The Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse” presentation of “The Lucille Ball Desi Arnaz Show” – known in syndication as “The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour.” 

This was the second TV cross-over for the series, having started with an appearance of Ann Sothern’s character Susie MacNamara from "Private Secretary” in “Lucy Takes a Cruise to Havana” (S1;E1). 

Unlike most episodes, this show doesn’t feature any musical numbers or travel to exotic locales, but it does feature one hallmark of the series: the husband and wife guest-stars (albeit a TV marriage). It was filmed entirely in the studio, in front of a live audience with no location or second unit footage. 

Desi Arnaz had always wanted Danny Thomas to guest star on "I Love Lucy,” but could never resolve sponsor conflicts because “Lucy” and “The Danny Thomas Show” (aka “Make Room for Daddy”) were bankrolled by competing cigarette companies.  “Danny’s” original sponsor was The American Tobacco Company, especially its cigarette brands Lucky Strike, Pall Mall, and Tareyton. “I Love Lucy’s” original sponsor was Philip Morris. 

Having the Williams’ move in to the Ricardo’s house is symbolic of “Make Room for Daddy” taking over “I Love Lucy’s” coveted Monday night at 9 time slot.  The previous season “Daddy” had moved from NBC to CBS, and this schedule change was designed to boost ratings. In doing so, it effectively created a Desilu Block of Shows on Monday night from 9 to 11. 

The night this “Comedy Hour” premiered, “Make Room for Daddy” concerned Little Linda’s tonsillitis, a subject previously covered by “I Love Lucy” in “Nursery School” (ILL S5;E9).  Despite only a half hour passing for viewers, Little Linda is in perfect health when she arrives at the Ricardo’s.  

"Make Room For Daddy” (aka "The Danny Thomas Show”) ran from 1953 to 1964. It started on ABC and moved to CBS in 1957, the same year “I Love Lucy” (the 30 minutes series) ceased production. Thomas initially chose Desilu Studios in order to take advantage of the three camera shoot method. The series followed the misadventures of the Williams family. Danny Williams, a nightclub entertainer, tries to strike a balance between family life and the entertainment business. Starting with the 1957 season, the cast and storyline underwent extensive changes. After a series of reunion specials with the original cast, a sequel series called "Make Room for Granddaddy” (back on ABC) with the original cast ran just one season. 

It is apparent from their introductions that the Ricardos and the Williams’ have previously met, but it is not specified when or where. Both Ricky and Danny are nightclub performers. 

This cross-over sets in motion a curious anomaly. 

• Lucy Ricardo meets Danny Williams (Danny Thomas) and his TV family on this episode of “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour”; 
• Danny Williams drives through Mayberry and meets Sheriff Taylor, which spawns “The Andy Griffith Show”; 
• “The Andy Griffith Show” is where the Gomer Pyle (Jim Neighbors) character began before getting his own show; 
• Gomer, although unnamed and uncredited, turns up on “The Lucy Show,” although here she is Lucy Carmichael, not Lucy Ricardo (even though both women share the maiden name McGillacuddy). 
• The upshot of all of this is that Lucy Ricardo and Lucy Carmichael both exist in the same world. 

The plot has the Ricardos leasing their house to the Williams’ when going to Hollywood for two months so that Ricky can make a movie. When the movie deal falls through, the Ricardos must move in with the Mertzes for the term of the Williams’ lease. Lucy, however, can’t help but snoop around the ‘big’ house to keep an eye on how her tenants are treating her beautiful home. 

When Lucy hands Danny a list of her “rules for the house” it is so heavy that Danny compares it to the Sunday papers. The Sunday edition of most newspapers was stuffed with special features not found the other six days of the week such as a comics section (’the Sunday funnies’), magazines, TV and Radio Guides, Coupons and Sales Papers, and lots of human interest sections. 

The Ricardos and the Mertzes moved in together twice before when living in New York City. The first time was when Ricky’s summer booking fell through in “The Sublease” (ILL S3;E31), and the second just before they moved to Connecticut in “Lucy Hates to Leave” (ILL S6;16).

Danny Thomas (Danny Williams) was born in 1912 to Lebanese parents as Amos Alphonsus Muzyad Yakhoob. This episode makes his first TV acting  appearance with Lucille Ball, but he later made appearances on "The Lucy Show” (1965) and “Here’s Lucy” (1973). In 1976, Lucy guest starred on Thomas’ short-lived series "The Practice.” Off screen, Thomas founded St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, which still thrives today, thanks to his daughter, "That Girl” star Marlo Thomas. Danny Thomas died in 1991.

Danny Williams later says that he was raised in Toledo, Ohio, just like Danny Thomas. This is similar to Lucy Ricardo and Lucille Ball sharing the hometown of Jamestown, New York.

Marjorie Lord (Kathy Williams) was the ‘second’ Mrs. Williams, joining the cast in 1957 as a nurse who cared for Danny’s son, Rusty. Lord was previously seen on stage and screen, several times with her friend Vivian Vance. She died on November 28, 2015, at the age of 97. She is the mother of actress Anne Archer. 

During the filming Lord  was suffering from severe dental problems.

Rusty Hamer (Rusty Williams) was born in 1947 in Tenafly, New Jersey. He was cast as Rusty after only one film and one TV role. He played the part for the entire run of the series as well as the reunions and sequel. After the sequel was canceled in 1971, Hamer fell into a depression that led to alcohol abuse. He took his own life in 1990 at the age of 42.

RUSTY (about living in the country): “I have a feeling I’m gonna miss the bright lights of Broadway.”
DANNY (to Ricky): “Don’t mind him, he’s one of the beat generation.”

The Beat Generation was a literary movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics in the post-war era. The bulk of their work was published and popularized throughout the 1950s. The central elements of Beat culture are the rejection of standard narrative values, making a spiritual quest, the exploration of American and Eastern religions, and the rejection of materialism.

Angela Cartwright (Linda Williams) joined the cast in 1957 at the age of five. In 1965 she played the role of Brigitta in The Sound Of Music. That same year she played Penny Robinson on TV’s “Lost in Space.”

Oops! While Little Ricky is talking to Danny at the breakfast table, you can hear someone in the back round say “careful Linda.”

Little Ricky tells Rusty he has a sick goldfish, three lizards (or “gizzards,” as Linda calls them), a turtle and a frog. In “Little Ricky Gets a Dog” (ILL S6;E14) Lucy says that her son owns a frog, two turtles, two parakeets, two goldfish, and a lizard, who jumped out of the window. Curiously, Little Ricky makes no mention of Fred the dog, who is absent from all “Comedy Hour” shows.

The scene featuring Ethel quickly closing the Ricardo’s stubborn suitcase after Ricky’s struggle was edited for syndication in order to make it shorter. This is yet another joke about Ethel’s weight. 

Ricky says it is a good thing they are not flying to California but does not mention if they are driving or taking the train or (less likely) the bus – all options explored for their first trip to California.  

This is the second time that a Ricky Ricardo film project has been shelved. The same thing happened in “Don Juan is Shelved” (ILL S4;E21). Ricky made at least one movie in Hollywood after Don Juan was canceled, but like this proposed film, we never learn the title or even the subject matter.

After three days with the Mertzes, Ricky allows Lucy to make one last trip the ‘big’ house and she ends up taking back her ailing rubber tree, a large basket, Ricky’s guitar, Little Ricky’s conga drum, and the toaster, which still contains the Williams’ breakfast! 

Lucy does her old trick of launching the toast from the toaster, just as she did many times during "I Love Lucy.” The miniature conga drum was also first seen during season one in “Lucy Plays Cupid” (ILL S1;15). This is, however, the first mention of Lucy having a green thumb.

The fireplace in the Ricardos’ bedroom has mysteriously disappeared and floorplan has changed since “Lucy Misses the Mertzes” (ILL S6;E17).

The left wall is structurally different, with two doors and a fireplace where the beds are in this episode.  The fireplace was likely only there to allow Ricky to grab a log to ward off the suspected burglars.

Homesick Lucy wants to break the Williams’ lease and get back into her home. She had some previous experience with this in “Breaking the Lease” (ILL S1;E18). The lease again came up for discussion in “No Children Allowed” (ILL S2;E22) after Little Ricky was born.

Real snow was trucked in for use in the snow fight scene. It was mixed with a foreground of artificial snow.

Gale Gordon (Justice Philips) returns to the “Lucy” family for the first time since playing Alvin Littlefield, owner of the Tropicana, during two episodes in 1952. Gordon was part of Lucy’s radio show "My Favorite Husband” and was a front-runner for the role of Fred Mertz. He would re-team with Lucy for all of her subsequent series’: as Theodore J. Mooney in ”The Lucy Show”; as Harrison Otis Carter in “Here’s Lucy”; and as Curtis McGibbon on "Life with Lucy.” He was also seen on “Make Room for Daddy,” playing landlord Mr. Heckendorn from 1959 to 1961. Gordon died in 1995 at the age of 89.

The episode concludes with everyone suing everyone else on multiple charges – even the toaster is mentioned! The Ricardos and the Mertzes previously went before a Judge in 1952′s “The Courtroom” (ILL S2;E7). In that episode, Ethel tries to flirt with the judge by showing off her legs, just as she does here and Fred discourages it, just as he does here!   

Fred mentions Alcatraz, a maximum security prison located on an island off the coast of San Francisco. Coincidentally, in the previous “Comedy Hour” Fred mentioned Devil’s Island, a notorious remote penal colony located in French Guiana.

Both prisons are mentioned in “Paris at Last!” (ILL S5;E18).

The the courtroom, Fred has frostbitten ears and can hardly hear and Lucy has laryngitis and can hardly speak, which gives her an ideal opportunity to testify by playing a boisterous game of charades with the judge, something Lucille Ball was extremely adept at. She previously pantomimed the entire story of Betty and Jack’s marital squabble with her mouth taped shut during “The Gossip” (ILL S1;E24). Lucille Ball also made several appearances on a charades-style game show called “Body Language.”

Toward the end of the trial, the kids step forward. The Judge asks whose children are whose.

RICKY: (Rises, indicates Little Ricky) “That one is mine.”
DANNY (Rises, indicates Rusty and Linda) “Those two are mine.”
ETHEL: (Rises, indicates Fred) “We raise chickens.”

Little Linda suggests the final verdict: that Fred take Ethel to Florida for two months. She reasons that it will (a) cure him of being a miser, and (b) thaw his frozen ears!

There were several long commercials during the episode, one featuring Betty Furness and the Arnazes presenting Westinghouse’s Christmas 1958 promotion “Royal Gifts for the Queen of the House.” They also presented an all-electric home outfitted with Westinghouse products located in Cheshire, Connecticut, just 40 miles from the Ricardo’s fictional Early American home in Westport.

FAST FORWARD!

In return for this appearance on “The Comedy Hour,” Lucy and Desi appeared as the Ricardos on “Make Room for Daddy” just a few weeks later (January 5, 1959). The story was very similar: Danny convinces the Ricardos to move to his Manhattan apartment during their shared nightclub engagement, hoping that Kathy will be a good influence on Lucy’s out-of-control spending. Fred and Ethel are mentioned, but are not seen. With different writers, the characters behave slightly differently, despite best attempts by Ball and Arnaz.

It looks like Lucille Ball is wearing the same outfit she wore in the courtroom episode of “Make Room for Danny”!

In December 1959, Danny Thomas was one of many stars on the lot who appeared in “The Desilu Revue” – a holiday show-within-a-show featuring the young actors of Lucille’s Desilu Playhouse workshop. 

Lucy and Danny both appeared on a 1963 TV season preview called “General Foods Opening Night”.

In 1965 Lucille Ball guest starred on “Danny Thomas’ Wonderful World of Burlesque” on NBC, doing an aerial ballet!  

Later that year, “Lucy Helps Danny Thomas” (TLS S4;E7) found Thomas playing himself on an episode of “The Lucy Show”. 

In 1971, Lucille Ball played Lucy Carter in a cross-over between “Here’s Lucy” and Thomas’ sequel sitcom “Make Room for Granddaddy” in an episode titled 

“Lucy and the Lecher” (S1;E16).

In 1973, Thomas played an eccentric Italian artist on the sixth season premiere of “Here’s Lucy”. 

In 1976, Thomas talked about Lucy’s song and dance skills in “CBS Salutes Lucille Ball: The First 25 Years”.

That same year, Lucy played an eccentric hypochondriac on the second season premiere of Thomas’s sitcom “The Practice” (S2;E1). 

Finally in 1976, Lucille Ball paid tribute to her friend on “The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast: Danny Thomas” (S4;E2).

When CBS marked their 50th Anniversary with a week-long tribute, Lucille Ball, Vivian Vance, and Danny Thomas were present to represent Monday nights. 

After Ball’s death, Danny Thomas was part of 1989′s “Bob Hope’s Love Affair with Lucy” on NBC.