(S1;E29 ~ April 28, 1952) Directed by Marc Daniels. Written by Jess Oppenheimer, Madelyn Pugh and Bob Carroll, Jr. Filmed March 21, 1952 at General Service Studios. Rating: 60.4/87
Synopsis ~ Hoping to save money, Lucy and Ethel purchase a walk-in freezer – as well as the meat to fill it! But how to hide their purchase from the boys?
This episode is partly based on “Selling Dresses” episode #90 of Lucy’s radio show “My Favorite Husband” broadcast January 6, 1950.
This is the first episode to give Desi Arnaz Executive Producer credit.
The episode was repeated on December 28, 1953 as a viewer favorite. The repeat airing featured an audio promo for “Philip Morris Playhouse” a short-lived television version of a popular radio series that ran Thursday nights on CBS from October 8, 1953, until March 4, 1954. Broadcast live from New York, the episodes’ genres varied from comedy to melodrama and starred Eddie Albert, Nina Foch, Franchot Tone, and Vincent Price.
Handwritten emendations to Jess Oppenheimer’s original script indicate that the filming date was moved up a week. It also lists a 3rd delivery man as Joaquin Escaruga, but there is no record of such an actor on IMDB. The role of the Butcher was obviously a last minute casting – or Oppenheimer forgot that it was played by Frank Aldrich. The full script of “The Freezer” is reproduced in Oppenheimer’s 1996 book Laughs, Luck…and Lucy.
In Oppenheimer’s book, he states that newspapers and magazines were full of ads for home freezers at the time, inspiring them to update the radio show’s dress purchases to a freezer. Once they came up with the idea of Lucy getting trapped in the freezer, they had to abandon the home freezer idea for a larger, walk-in model.
Ricky’s response to the idea of buying a freezer is his usual lament: “We can’t afford it!” The subject of economizing is something the series frequently explored. In “Lucy Wants New Furniture” (S2;E28) she resorts to making her own dress and giving herself a home permanent. The subject is perhaps most fully explored in “The Business Manager” (S4;E1).
In this episode we learn that Ethel has an Uncle Oscar (a butcher) and an Aunt Emmy. In “The Ricardos are Interviewed” (S5;E7) we hear about Ethel’s Aunt Martha and Uncle Elmo.
This is the first and only time that Lucy doesn’t successfully catch her toast when the toaster launches it into the air. She simply picks it up off the floor, brushes it off, and eats it. Five second rule!
In the opening breakfast scene, Lucy seems to be salting her grapefruit using her Franciscan Ivy shaker, which matches her dishes. Some sources say Lucy is adding superfine sugar to her breakfast, but as strange as it seems, some people use a sprinkle of salt as a way to neutralize a grapefruit’s bitterness.
After Ricky leaves, the camera shot widens and we get a good look at Lucy’s Hull Apple Cookie Jar, which is often seen in the Ricardo kitchen. Hull pottery Cookie Jars were popular in the 1950’s. It will also be plainly visible when Lucy is trying out her Handy Dandy Kitchen gadget in “Sales Resistance” (S2;E17). That episode also dealt with home appliances, although not freezers!
This is the first of three times that Lucy will wear her iconic Vitameatavegamin dress. Like most of the clothes worn during the first season, the dress was bought off the rack at a local clothing store. Years later, Lucille Ball gave the dress to her friend Marion Strong Van Vlack to sew into doll clothes.
Lucy tells Ricky that bacon costs 75 cents a pound. Lucy and Ethel order two sides of beef (one for each of them) from Johnson’s Meat Company at a cost of 69 cents a pound. The girls end up ordering 700 pounds of meat for a total of $483.
A Red Cross poster decorates the brick wall outside the butcher shop door. Such posters turned up as set decoration throughout the series.
At the butcher shop there is a large wall sign promoting Beef, although the lower left corner of the sign have been covered over for the cameras. This was probably a brand name, trade association, or other company.
At the butcher shop, Lucy and Ethel hide their meat by disguising it as a baby in a pram. Lucy will later disguise a cheese as a baby in “The Homecoming” (S5;E6). Put them all together with the huge loaf of bread baked in “Pioneer Women” (S1;E25) and you’d have one delicious sandwich!
Most viewers remember two things from this episode: Lucy’s frozen face in the freezer window; and her slick spiel while selling the meat in the market:
“Are you interested in some high-class beef? Are you tired of paying high prices? Do you want a bargain? Tell you what I’m gonna do. I got sirloin, tenderloin T-bone, rump, pot roast, chuck roast, oxtail stump.”
From the basement, Lucy and Ethel can hear the boys talking through the furnace pipe, which acted more like an intercom. ‘The snoopers friend’ (as Lucy calls it) was previously used for communication in “Lucy Fakes Illness” (S1;E16) and “The Gossip” (S1;E24). It will again come into play in “The Anniversary Present” (S2;E3).
To stall for time while Lucy moves the 700 pounds of meat out of the freezer, Ethel asks Ricky to sing. “You take care of the ham. I’ll take care of the beef.” He starts with “Mama Inez,” the first and only time the song will be heard on the show. It was written in 1931 and covered by artists such as Xavier Cugat and Maurice Chevalier, both of whom had connections to Desi Arnaz. Ricky then appeases Ethel with “Cielito Lindo,” the first of five times it will be heard on the series, more than any other tune aside from “Babalu.” Impatient Fred, however, would prefer that Ricky sing that dandy little ditty “Let’s Vamoose-o to el Freeze-o.”
Kay Wiley, Barbara Pepper and Hazel Pierce play customers in butcher shop. This is the second of nine episodes to feature character actress Barbara Pepper. Pepper and Lucy were friends from their showgirl days and also appeared in six films together. She was one of Lucy’s top choices to play Ethel Mertz, but her husband died tragically and Pepper took to drink, making it risky to employ her as a regular.
Kay Wiley makes the first of her four series appearances. She is probably best remembered as Martha, the tourist from Kansas on top of the Empire State Building in “Lucy is Envious” (S3;E23). Hazel Pierce was Lucy’s camera and lighting stand-in and was generally the first woman in line for extra work on the show.
Fred Aldrich (Butcher) had first appeared with Lucy in Abbott and Costello in Hollywood (1945). This was the first of his five appearances on the series, playing both cop (“Equal Rights” S3;E4) and crook (“Lucy Cries Wolf” S4;E3). He played a chef in The Long, Long Trailer (1953). Frank Sully (Meat Delivery Man) makes his only appearance on the series but had done four films with Lucille Ball between 1934 and 1943. Bennett Green (Meat Delivery Man) was Desi’s camera and lighting stand-in and was generally the first man in line for extra work.
“I Love Lucy” make-up artist Hal King applies the icicles to frozen Lucy.
FROZEN FAST FORWARD!
In December 1952, the show’s sponsor Philip Morris published a print ad using “The Freezer” as its basis.
The plot of getting locked inside a freezer has been used many times on TV since this episode first aired.
The comedy trope of getting locked in a walk-in freezer would be repeated in the “Car 54, Where are You?” episode “Boom, Boom, Boom” (S1;E14 ~ January 14, 1962). Officer Muldoon (Fred Gwynn) is investigating a crime at a butcher’s shop, when his partner Toody (Joe E. Ross) accidentally closes the door on him.
Like Ball, Gwynn emerges dripping with icicles, and is carried out frozen stiff and by his co-stars.
A butcher’s shop is also a setting of the Christmas 1962 episode of “The Lucy Show.” This time the only thing Lucy and Viv are selling is Christmas spirit.
A November 1988 episode of “Knots Landing” titled “Deserted” (S10;E3) had Johnny Roarke (Peter Reckell) trapped in a van and saying “Didn’t Lucy and Ethel once get locked in a meat locker like this?” The series also had a character named Lucy, played by Charlene Tilton for one episode in 1980.
SELLING ‘THE FREEZER’!
Mongolian postage stamps!
No, Barbie did not produce this doll. It was hand crafted by a talented artist using a Mattel Lucy Barbie Doll and home-made clothing!
Okay, I made up these final ‘frozen treats’!
Papermoon Loves Lucy 
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