Lucy’s Barbershop Quartet

S1;E19 ~ February 4, 1963

Synopsis

When
one of the members of Viv’s female barbershop quartet drops out, Lucy
convinces Viv and her friends to let her fill the vacancy. Lucy takes
singing lessons to learn to stay on key, but her instructor can do
nothing for the stage fright that seizes the redhead when she learns
that the group’s first performance will be in front of three thousand
people.

Regular
Cast

Lucille
Ball (Lucy Carmichael), Vivian Vance (Vivian Bagley), Candy Moore
(Chris Carmichael)

Jimmy
Garrett (Jerry Carmichael), Ralph Hart (Sherman Bagley), Dick
Martin (Harry Connors) do not
appear in this episode

Guest
Cast

Hans Conreid (Dr. Gitterman) had co-starred with Lucille Ball in The Big Street (1942). He then appeared on “I Love Lucy” as used furniture man Dan Jenkins in “Redecorating” (ILL S2;E8) and later that same season as prissy Percy Livermore in “Lucy Hires an English Tutor” (ILL S2;E13) – both in 1952. The following year he began an association with Disney by voicing Captain Hook in Peter Pan. Conreid returns to the role of Dr. Gitterman in the season two opener, “Lucy Plays Cleopatra” (S2;E1). He was probably best known as Uncle Tonoose on “Make Room for Daddy” starring Danny Thomas, which was filmed on the Desilu lot. When Thomas guest-starred on “Here’s Lucy” in 1973, Hans Conreid was also in the cast. He died in 1982.

A recognizable face to viewers, Conreid earns entrance applause from the studio audience. The character is based on one he created on “My Favorite Husband” named Professor Krausmeyer.

Carole
Cook
(Thelma Green, below left) makes
the second of her four appearances playing Thelma Green, although she
will also play Mrs. Valance in three episodes, and a variety of other
characters in eleven others. Lucille Ball took Cook as a protege
during the Desilu Playhouse years. Although she was born as Mildred
Cook, Ball suggested she take the name Carole, in honor of Lucy’s
great friend, Carole Lombard. Cook also went on to appear in five
episodes of “Here’s Lucy.”

Ironically, Cook was Lucille Ball’s ghost singer for several episodes of her television shows.

Dorothy Konrad (Dorothy Boyer, above right) will play this role again in “Lucy Drives a Dump Truck” (S1;E24) and then will play a variety of other characters in four more episodes.

When
we first met Dorothy in “Lucy and Viv are Volunteer Fireman”
(S1;E16) the role was being played by Ruth Crews.

Allan
Ray
(Emcee) was
seen on “I Love Lucy” as the clapstick boy at “Ricky’s Screen
Test” (ILL S4;E6), a Brown Derby waiter in “Hollywood
at Last” (ILL S4;E16),
and a male nurse in “Nursery
School” (ILL S5;E9).
He made three more appearances on “The Lucy Show,” all in 1963.
That
same year he also played a hotel doorman in the Lucille Ball / Bob
Hope film Critic’s
Choice.
In 1950, Ray and Gale Gordon were in the film A
Woman of Distinction
in which Lucille Ball played herself in a cameo.

A barbershop quartet is a group of four singers who perform using four-part harmony, generally without accompaniment by instruments, a style called a cappella.

This album was released in 1963. Sadly, Lucy’s group – the Four Alarms – didn’t make the cut!

Just prior to the filming of this episode, the film version of The Music Man was in American cinemas. The plot includes a barbershop quartet played by The Buffalo Bills, a real-life group from Buffalo, New York. Coincidentally, the film also featured Ralph Hart, who plays Sherman on “The Lucy Show.” Other ‘Lucy-com’ actors in the film’s cast include Mary Wickes, Buddy Hackett, Barbara Pepper, Charles Lane, Max Showalter, Ray Kellogg, Larri Thomas, Jesslyn Fax, John Breen, Milton Parsons, Ronnie Dapo, Leon Alton, Fred Aldrich, Natalie Masters, and Walter Bacon. The leading role of Harold Hill was played on stage and screen by Robert Preston (above far left), who would play Lucy’s love interest in the 1974 movie musical Mame.

This
is the second of two season 1 episodes to somehow have entered public
domain. Out of the series’ 156 episodes, 30 are no longer protected
under copyright, resulting in their availability on low-quality,
low-cost DVDs.

For its original 1963 telecast, the episode’s lead-in was “I’ve Got a Secret” featuring Jack Benny, Lucille Ball’s neighbor and frequent guest star. Ball appeared on the game show four times between 1956 and 1966.

Chris
mentions her friend Cynthia again. She has been mentioned several
times in previous episodes but will not actually be seen until
“Lucy Is A Soda Jerk” (S1;E23), when she will be played by Lucie Arnaz (above).

Viv’s
barbershop quartet is named The Four Alarms. Making an age joke, Viv
says they couldn’t very well be named The
Four Freshmen.
This was the name of a real-life all-male close harmony jazz and big
band group founded in 1948.

Lucy says that she was not initially included in the barbershop
quartet because others have more singing experience: Dorothy and
Grace sing in the church choir and Viv sang with a band in college.
Lucy tells Chris that Viv
believes she could have been another
‘Wee’ Bonnie Baker
(1917-90),
who was a jazz and popular music singer. Her biggest hit was "Oh
Johnny, Oh Johnny, Oh!”
recorded in 1939. Lucy sings a few bars of this song for Chris and
then compares it to Elvis Presley’s “Hound Dog” of which she also
sings a chorus. Elvis and “Hound Dog” were previously mentioned
in “Lucy the Music Lover” (S1;E8).

Lucy says that Thelma Green once appeared in the third road company of Rio Rita, a real-life 1927 musical comedy produced by Florenz Ziegfeld. It ran nearly 500 performances on Broadway. In 1929 it was made into a film and then re-made in 1942 starring Abbott and Costello. At age 15, Lucille Ball left Jamestown for New York City and was promptly hired for the ensemble of the road company of Rio Rita. Before the show even left on tour, she was fired because she couldn’t keep up with the more experienced dancers.

To
replace Grace, who moved to California with her four children because
her husband got a job transfer, Viv suggests Barbara Cushing, who is
a soloist in their church choir, but she isn’t a one of the volunteer
firemen. In real-life, Barbara
Cushing
was better known as Babe Paley, wife of CBS chairman William S.
Paley.

Dorothy
suggests Pauline Lopus but Viv says that she has seven children and
can barely get away to fight a fire, let alone travel to Albany. Flo
Pauline Lopus
was the name of a one of Lucille Ball’s childhood friends. Her name
often found its way into the scripts of “I Love Lucy.” An off-screen character named Flo (a manicurist) was mentioned in “Lucy
Waits Up for Chris” (S1;E1) and Mrs. Lopus is said to be one of
Jerry’s former teachers in “Lucy Digs Up a Date” (S1;E2).

Nonchalantly
trying to audition for Dorothy’s spot in the quartet, Lucy moves
around the room humming and singing “Down
By the Old Mill Stream,” a
song written by Tell Taylor in 1908. It was one of the most popular
songs of the early 20th century selling four million copies of sheet
music. Lucy Ricardo and Ethel Mertz performed it as Western bell
ringers in “Lucy Goes to the Rodeo”
(ILL S5;E8).

The
girls also toy with performing “Moonlight Bay” and “Red Red
Robin”. Along with William Frawley, Vivian Vance sang “When
the Red, Red Robin (Comes Bob, Bob, Bobbin’ Along)”
in “Lucy and Ethel Buy the Same Dress” (ILL S3;E3). Written
in 1926 by Harry Woods, the song was popularized by Al Jolson. In
1953 it was recorded by Doris Day.

The quartet actually rehearse Lucy’s suggestion “Be
My Little Baby Bumble Bee,”
in which Lucy sings lead and the other back-up (“buzz
around buzz around buzz around”).
The
song was written by Henry I. Marshall with lyrics by Stanley Murphy.
It first appeared in the 1912 Broadway musical A
Winsome Widow starring
Mae West.

The
Four Alarms eventually settle on performing “By
the Light of the Silvery Moon,” written by Gus
Edwards and
Edward
Madden
and first published in 1909. It was also sung by Lucille Ball and
Vivian Vance in “Lucy’s Show-Biz Swan Song” (ILL S2;E12) in 1952.
A year later it was featured in a film of the same name starring
Doris Day. Coincidentally, “Be My Little Baby Bumble Bee” was one
of the songs incorporated into the film By the Light of the
Silvery Moon.

The
girls travel to the Annual Ladies Barbershop Quartet Contest in
Albany. The act preceding The Four Alarms is called the Wilton Warblers.
Wilton, New York, is a real-life town 40 miles north of Albany.

FAST FORWARD!

Much
of the comic business in Dr. Gitterson’s music lesson with Lucy will
be repeated

“Lucy Teaches Ethel Merman to Sing” (S2;E18), with Lucy as the teacher and Merman as her music pupil.

In 1966, “The Andy Griffith Show” also did an episode titled “The Barbershop Quartet” (S7;E3), a show filmed on the Desilu backlot.

Callbacks!

Lucille
Ball and Vivian Vance also sang in a barbershop quartet in “Lucy’s
Show-Biz Swan Song” (ILL S2;E12).

“By the Light of the Silvery
Moon” was also performed by Lucille Ball and Vivian Vance in that same episode.

The
unbalanced division of the parts in “Be My Bumble Bee” is
reminiscent of Lucy Ricardo’s dissatisfaction with her vocal part in
the song “Auf Wiedersehen, My Dear” in “The Benefit” (ILL
S1;E13). In that episode, all Lucy sang was “Auf”, sounding like a trained seal. Here, the rest of the quartet only sings “buzz around” sound like bees!

THELMA: “I’m certainly not going clear up to Albany just to be a buzzer.”

A few episodes earlier, “Down By the Old Mill Stream” was featured in the family sing-along in “Lucy Puts Up a TV Antenna”
(S1;E9).

Dr.
Gitterman helps correct Lucy’s posture just the same way Miss Emerson
(Natalie Shaffer) did with Lucy Ricardo and Ethel Mertz when they attended “The
Charm School” (ILL S3;E15).

Lucy also held her breath for an unreasonably long time in “Lucy’s Last Birthday” (ILL S2;E25). In that case, it was Mrs. Trumbull’s unwound watch that caused Lucy’s breathless expression!

When
Lucy hears there’ll be 3,000 people in the audience, she gets a
sudden case of stage fright. Lucy Ricardo’s son developed the
same fear in “Little Ricky Gets Stage Fright” (ILL S6;E4).

Blooper
Alerts!

Stepping on my Line! After the rehearsal of “Be My Little Baby Bumble Bee,” Dorothy starts to say “Don’t—” but is cut off by Vivian.

Boom! As Lucy runs across the room to grab the telephone, the shadow of the mic boom follows her. [Note: boom shadows are very hard to see in still photos, so I’ve illustrated the path of the mic boom above. The actual microphone, however, is never in frame.]

Papermoon Loves Lucy