Chris Goes Steady

S2;E16 ~ January 20, 1964

Synopsis

When
Chris starts dating Mr. Mooney’s son, Lucy gets the mistaken idea
that they plan to elope and hides out in the boys’ tree house to
prevent it.

Regular
Cast

Lucille
Ball (Lucy Carmichael), Vivian Vance (Vivian Bagley), Gale Gordon
(Theodore J. Mooney), Candy Moore (Chris Carmichael)

Ralph
Hart (Sherman Bagley) and Jimmy Garrett (Jerry Carmichael) do not
appear in this episode.

Guest
Cast

Michael
J. Pollard (Ted
Mooney Jr.)
was
born on May 30, 1939 in Passaic, New Jersey. He appeared on Broadway
in five shows, including Bye
Bye Birdie
and Enter
Laughing,
just before this appearance on “The Lucy Show.” At this time he
was married to Beth Howland (Vera on “Alice”) who he divorced in
1969. In 1967 he was nominated for an Oscar for the film Bonnie
and Clyde.
This is his only appearance opposite Lucille Ball. He died on November 20, 2019.

Ted
Mooney is Mr. Mooney’s son.

Usual
series writers Madelyn Martin and Bob Carroll Jr. are joined by Fred
S. Fox and Irving (‘Iz’) Elinson for this episode. Fox wrote 15
episodes of “The Lucy Show” and 26 episodes of “Here’s Lucy.”
Elinson wrote a dozen episode of “The Lucy Show.”

This episode first aired on the 68th Birthday of comedian George Burns.1964 would see the death of his wife, Gracie Allan. Burns reinvented himself as a solo act and appeared on “The Lucy Show” as himself in 1966 and on “Here’s Lucy” in 1970. Burns will celebrate 31 more birthday before passing away in 1996 at age 100.

Opposite “Chris Goes Steady” on ABC, Kathleen Freeman was making the last of her five appearances on “Wagon Train”. Three weeks earlier she made the first of her five appearances on “The Lucy Show.”

That same night, Mr. Mooney’s predecessor Charles Lane (Mr. Barnsdahl) appeared as Mr. Frisby on “The Andy Griffith Show”, airing after “The Lucy Show.” Like Burns, Lane ended his life as a centenarian, living to the age of 102.

MY THREE SONS

This
is the third ‘son’ of Mr. Mooney introduced on the series.

Barry
Livingston played a young Arnold Mooney, Jerry’s classmate, in “Lucy
Gets Locked in the Vault” (S2;E4). The role will shortly be re-cast with Ted Eccles when Livingston is busy on “My Three Sons.”
Eddie Applegate played Bob
Mooney in “Lucy and the Bank Scandal” (S2;E7). Applegate was
reportedly too busy appearing on “The Patty Duke Show” to return
to the role of Chris’ boyfriend and it was re-cast (and re-named) for Pollard.

In an earlier episode, we hear that Mr. Mooney also has a daughter, who lives in Trenton NJ. Like her mother, the character is never seen on screen. Lucille Ball lived briefly in Trenton as an infant. On Mr. Mooney’s home office desk there is a framed photo a woman who may be Irma Mooney.

The title of this episode refers to the post-War practice of teenagers dating one partner exclusively – until they ‘break up’. Those not ‘going steady’ were ‘playing the field’. The boy generally gave his ‘steady’ a small token to wear as a sign of their commitment. Here, Chris is given Ted’s class ring to ‘make it official.’ Two weeks after this episode aired, “The Patty Duke Show” produced an episode titled “Going Steady” and later in 1964, the song “I’m Going Steady With A Dream” hit the charts. The Studebaker automobile’s user manual was titled “Going Steady With Studie”.

Chris
formerly dated Chuck Gibbons, who Lucy fondly remembers bathed in the
glow of the light from her refrigerator.

Although
Jerry and Sherman are not in the episode, their baseball glove and
ball is visible on the side table and Lucy and Mr. Mooney occupy
their backyard tree house as a look-out post.

Vivian
can walk to the grocery store from their house. The malt shop is
mentioned several times in the episode. This may or may not be a
reference to the same location Chris and Cynthia worked in “Lucy is
a Soda Jerk” (S1;E23). For the umpteenth time, Chris mentions her
friend Cynthia, a character that was played in two episodes by Lucie
Arnaz, but merely mentioned in dozens more.

Viv
says that UNIVAC couldn’t have come up with a better match. UNIVAC
(UNIVersal Automatic Computer) was an early computer made by
Remington Rand that was originally used mainly for weather
forecasting, but would correctly predict that outcome of the 1956
Presidential election.
UNIVAC was first mentioned on “Lucy and Bob Hope” (ILL S6;E1).

Ted: “I can’t get married till I get more customers on my paper route.”

Viv
sings a bit of “I Love You Truly.” The song was sung by
Elizabeth Patterson when Lucy Ricardo renewed her vows to Ricky in
“The Marriage License” (ILL S1;E26). “I
Love You Truly”
was
written by Carrie Jacobs-Bond and first published in 1901. It was
sung in the film It’s
A Wonderful Life (1946)
and was frequently heard on TV (often satirically). It was one of the
earliest songs composed by a woman to sell over one million copies.

A few moments later, Viv sings a few bars of another traditional wedding song, “Oh, Promise Me!”

an 1887 art song by Reginald de Koven and Clement Scott. She first sang it when Lucy’s sister got married in “Lucy’s Sister Pays a Visit” (TLS S1;E15) a year earlier. It was later heard on “Here’s Lucy” (1972) and “Happy Anniversary and Goodbye” (1974).

Mr.
Mooney bristles when Lucy suggests that Ted and Chris may get
married, dreading that they would be related. In “Here’s Lucy”, Lucy’s character is indeed related to Gale Gordon’s – she is his
brother-in-law. They are also related by marriage in “Life With Lucy.”

Chris:
“We
both like the same ‘Hootenanny’
singers,
we both wear Beethoven sweatshirts, and and we both do our homework
listening to Dave Brubeck’s Jazz Combo.”

“Hootenanny”
was
a music series that aired on ABC from 1963 to 1964 during the height
of the folk music craze. It taped performances at college campuses
around the USA. Dave
Brubeck
is a jazz musician best known for his recording "Take Five.”
In “Lucy the Music Lover” (S1;E8) Jerry wore a Beethoven
sweatshirt.

After
they use ‘reverse reverse psychology’ on Lucy and Mr. Mooney, Chris
and Ted get a smattering of exit applause from the studio
audience.

To
convince their parents that they are going to elope, Ted passes his
father’s study window carrying a long ladder. In fiction, a man
usually accessed his prospective bride’s bedroom window using a
ladder.

To further add verisimilitude to their
narrative, Chris borrows Viv’s suitcase and purposely leaves out a
travel brochure for Niagara Falls. Niagara Falls
is located on the border of New York State and Ontario, Canada, and
is known for its majestic waterfalls. It has long been a favorite
honeymoon destination, mentioned many times in films, TV shows and
songs. For more than 200 years it has touted itself as “The
Honeymoon Capital of the World.”

This is one of a few episodes where Ralph, Viv’s ex-husband is mentioned. We never learn the first name of Lucy’s late husband.

To
spy on their kids, Lucy and Mr. Mooney take refuge in Sherman and
Jerry’s tree house, which Mr. Mooney describes as “early Huckleberry
Finn.” Huckleberry
Finn
is
a 12 or 13 old fictional character created by Mark
Twain
who
first appeared in the book The
Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and
is the narrator of its sequel, Adventures
of Huckleberry Finn (1884).
Both Tom and Huck were known for roughing it living in the woods in
and around the Mississippi River.

The boys have decorated their tree house with a yellow stop sign (above Mr. Mooney). The traditional red stop sign didn’t come along until 1954 because there were no red dyes that wouldn’t fade outdoors over time, so yellow was chosen when the signs were first standardized in 1922.

The
scene with Lucy and Mr. Mooney in the tree house will be reused in
the 1986
“Life
With Lucy” episode
“Lucy
and Curtis are Up a Tree” which went un-aired when the series was
abruptly canceled. It was also written by Madelyn Martin and Bob
Carroll Jr.

In that episode, it rained instead of snowed because the
characters of Lucy Barker and Curtis McGibbon lived in Pasadena,
California.

Since
the episode revolves around reverse psychology, Mr. Mooney invokes the
name of Sigmund Freud. Sigmund
Freud
(1856-1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of
psychoanalysis, a clinical method for treating psychopathology
through dialogue between a patient and a psychoanalyst, often called ‘talk therapy.’

Trying
to stay awake in the tree house, Lucille Ball
uses her comic facial expressions much the same way she did fighting
drowsiness in many other episodes of her shows.

Technical Note: This
is the first episode of “The Lucy Show” to use a ‘flip wipe’ between scene one and two
instead of the traditional fade transition. It is used again later
in the episode.

Callbacks!

Reverse
psychology was a common plot device on “I Love Lucy.” Ricky
and the Mertzes use it to lift Lucy’s spirits in “The Inferiority
Complex” (ILL S2;E18). They later use it when “Little
Ricky Gets Stage Fright” (ILL S6;E4)
to
get him to play his drums. That same season, the girls use it on the
boys to make them think they would be better at “Building
a Bar-B-Q” (ILL S6;E24).

The rope ladder falling to the ground and stranding Lucy and Mr. Mooney in the treehouse is similar to when the ladder Lucy Ricardo planned to use to escape being locked on the roof falls to the ground in “Vacation From Marriage” (ILL S2;E6). Weather also gets the better of the stranded duo, albeit man-made weather via a garden hose.

In “Lucy Puts Up a TV Antenna” (TLS S1;E9) Lucy and Viv get stuck on the roof after their ladder breaks in half.

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