Lucy Enters a Baking Contest

S2;E28
~ April 27, 1964

Synopsis

Lucy’s
baking skills are always being compared unfavorably to Viv’s, so she
decides to give her a run for her money in the Danfield Tribune’s
annual pie-baking contest.

Regular
Cast

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

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

Guest
Cast

Mary
Jane Croft (Audrey
Simmons) played
Betty Ramsey during season six of “I Love Lucy.” She also played
Cynthia Harcourt in “Lucy
is Envious” (ILL S3;E23)
and
Evelyn Bigsby in“Return
Home from Europe” (ILL S5;E26).
She played Audrey Simmons for eight episodes. Her husband Elliott
Lewis was a producer of “The Lucy Show” from 1962 to 1964. She
also played a character named Mary Jane Lewis on “Here’s Lucy”
from 1969 to 1974.

This
is the
final appearance of Mary
Jane Croft
as
Audrey Simmons. When Lucy Carmichael moves to California, Croft will
play the recurring role of Mary Jane Lewis (her real married name)
until the end of the series. 

Carole
Cook
(Thelma Green) was a protege of Lucille Ball’s 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.”

Although
Kathleen mentions Thelma Green in association with the pie baking
contest, she is never called by name during her actual scenes as
judge. This is the final appearance of Carole Cook as Thelma. In
future episodes she will appear as a variety of other characters.  

Kathleen
Freeman
(Kathleen) was
‘born in a trunk’ to a family of vaudevillians. She made her
stage debut at age two in her parents’ act. Equally at home on
screen and stage, Freeman was appearing on Broadway in The
Full Monty in
2001 when she died of lung cancer. This is the third of her five
appearances in various character roles on “The Lucy Show.”

Dorothy
Konrad
(Mrs. Hutton, Bank Secretary) played
volunteer firefighter Dorothy Boyer in two previous episodes and will
appear in two more episodes of the series as other characters.

Hazel
Pierce (Baking
Contestant) was Lucille Ball’s camera and lighting stand-in
throughout “I Love Lucy.” She also made frequent appearances on
the show. Of her many on-camera appearances on “The Lucy Show”
only once was she given a character name and credited, in “Lucy
Plays Cleopatra” (S1;E1).
She was also an uncredited extra in the film Forever
Darling (1956).

Jean
Vachon (Baking Contestant) makes the third of her six appearances
on “The Lucy Show,” all but one uncredited.

The
spectators at the contest are played by:

• James
  Gonzalez
  was
  a popular Hollywood extra who first acted with Lucille Ball in the
  1953 film The
  Long, Long Trailer.
  He was previously seen on the series as Stan Williams in “Lucy
  Digs Up a Date” (S1;E2).
  He was seen in more than 20 episodes of “The Lucy Show” and 3
  episodes of “Here’s Lucy.”
• Sam
  Harris
  was
  born in Australia in 1877 and did a dozen films with Lucille Ball
  before appearing in the audience of Over
  the Teacups
  in
  “Ethel’s
  Birthday” (ILL S4;E8)
  and
  playing a subway passenger in “Lucy
  and the Loving Cup” (ILL S6;E12).
  In between he was a wedding guest in Lucy and Desi’s film Forever
  Darling
  (1956).
  He was in the airport when “The
  Ricardos Go to Japan”
  in
  1959. He went on to do several more episodes of “The Lucy Show,”
  the last being “My Fair Lucy” (S3;E20), a parody of My
  Fair Lady,
  a film he had also been in as an extra!
• Bert
  Stevens
  and Caryl
  Lincoln
  were a real-life husband and wife who made many appearances as
  background players on the series. Lincoln was one of Lucy’s friends
  from her Goldwyn Girl days. Stevens was the brother of actress
  Barbara Stanwyck, whose given name was Ruby Stevens. He was seen in
  the Tropicana audience for the Flapper Follies when “Ricky
  Loses His Voice” (ILL S2;E9)
  but
  along with Lincoln, probably appeared on other episodes as well.
• Ervin
  Richardson
  makes
  the second of four uncredited appearances on “The Lucy Show.” He
  also did two episodes of “Here’s Lucy.”

Renita Reachi (Baker on the extreme right) was a costumer for “The Lucy Show” from 1966 to 1968. She was also Vivian Vance’s camera and lighting stand-in for “I Love Lucy” and “The Lucy Show.” She was a costumer and/or made crowd appearances on “Here’s Lucy” and the Lucille Ball films Yours, Mine and Ours (1968) and Mame (1974).   

Several
other uncredited background performers play the Bank Board of
Directors, the Baking Contestants, and the Contest Spectators.  The
men double in both the Bank Board and Spectator Gallery.

This episode was filmed in color, but broadcast by CBS in black and white. It was filmed on March 26, 1964. 

On the date of this episode’s first airing, immediately following “The Lucy Show,” the last original episode of “The Danny Thomas Show” was telecast on CBS, bringing an end to the 11-year run of Thomas’s situation comedy that had premiered on ABC September 29, 1953 as “Make Room for Daddy.”  The final episode featured “Lucy” actors Sid Melton, Herbie Faye, and Vito Scotti. When the show joined CBS in 1958, the show did a cross-over with “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour” titled “Lucy Makes Room for Danny”. 

This the final episode of season two and the last episode written by
Madelyn Martin and Bob Carroll, Jr. Sadly, Lucy was not happy with
their final script, accusing them of trying to ruin her career. They
believed they were fired for good and wouldn’t write another Lucy
episode until “Lucy Meets the Burtons” (1970) during the
third-season of “Here’s
Lucy.”

“The Lucy Show” will be replaced for the summer of 1964 with “Vacation Playhouse” (aka “Summer Playhouse”), an anthology series that often presented pilots for future series. 

Viv
has won The Danfield
Tribune’s
pie
baking contest five years running.
The
first year Lucy also entered, but forgot to turn her oven on.

Mr.
Mooney is seen conducting a bank board meeting to approve a loan to
the McQuillan Construction Company. McQuillan was also used as the
surname of one of the alumni in “Lucy’s College Reunion”
(S2;E11). Lucy interrupts the meeting with a phone call requesting he
go by Trumbull’s Bakery and pick up a large sunshine cake with white
icing. Trumbull was the surname of Elizabeth Patterson’s recurring
character, Lucy Ricardo’s neighbor and Little Ricky’s babysitter, on
“I Love Lucy.”

During the bridge game, Viv
reminds Audrey and Kathleen about the failure of Lucy’s brownies for the PTA bazaar. The PTA
carnival was mentioned in “Chris’s New Year’s Eve Party”
(S1;E14).  

Viv continually offers to help Lucy with her cake, causing her to shout “Please, Mother! I’d rather do it myself!”  In 1962, an advertisement for Anacin pain reliever featured a mother trying to assist her grown daughter prepare a meal only to have her nerve-racked daughter shout, “Mother, please, I’d rather do it myself!“ Variations on this scenario became popular and were parodied a number of times, including in the Allan Sherman song “Headaches” (”Mother, don’t hand me those pills from the shelf, I’d rather do it myself”), the 1966 film The Silencers, and the 1980 film Airplane.  

Lucy will revive the joke a year later in “Lucy and the Monsters” (S3;E18) substituting the word ‘mother for ‘mummy’!

Mr. Mooney ends the episode with a pie in the face, which will be (somewhat appropriately) the final image of season two of the series.

Callbacks!

Lucy and Viv’s Bridge Club with Kathleen and Audrey, reminds us how popular Bridge was on “I Love Lucy.”  In the below episodes, the popular card game was either mentioned, played or set-up for but never played due to arguments or other plot contrivances. This is what people did before television and internet! 

• “The Benefit” (ILL S1;E13) 

• "Lucy Fakes Illness” (ILL S1;E16) in which Ricky says "How about a game of cards? What will it be, bridge or canasta?” 

• “The Inferiority Complex” (ILL S2;E18)

• "The Club Election” (ILL S2;E19)

• "No Children Allowed” (ILL S2;E22)

• “Lucy Hires A Maid” (ILL S2;E23) in which Lucy tells Ricky “We’re playing Bridge with the Mertzes tonight!” 
• "Lucy Is Matchmaker” (ILL S2;E27)
• "The Camping Trip” (ILL S2;29)
• "Lucy Tells The Truth” (ILL S3;E6)
• "Lucy Cries Wolf” (ILL S4;E3)
• "Ethel’s Birthday” (ILL S4;E9)
• "Bull Fight Dance” (ILL S4;E23)
• "Hollywood Anniversary” (ILL S4;E24)
• “Face To Face” (ILL S5;E7) in which Ethel says to Fred “Lets go over and play some bridge”. 
• “Visitor From Italy” (ILL S6;E5)
• "Little Ricky’s School Pageant” (ILL S6;E10) in which Lucy asks Ethel "How about playing some bridge tonight?" 
• "Lucy Takes A Cruise To Havana” (LDCH S1;E1) in which Susie says "I think I’ll play bridge tonight” and Lucy replies “Fine, you do that, you’re so good at bridge”.

Lucy Carmichael previously baked a cake for her sister’s wedding in “Lucy’s Sister Pays a Visit” (S1;E15)…

…and a birthday cake for Jerry in “Lucy and the Military Academy” (S2;E10).

Lucy
and Viv’s pie-making uniforms and chef hats are reminiscent of those
worn by Lucy Ricardo and Ethel Mertz as employees of Kramer’s Candy
Kitchen in “Job Switching” (ILL S2;E1).  Lucy even wears three
strands of pearls in both episodes.  Remember that CBS did not
originally broadcast either episode in color, so the uniforms would
have looked nearly identical in black and white. Lucy’s comic
enthusiasm for her pie making is also similar in style to her
chocolate dipping.

In
“Job Switching” (ILL S2;E1) Fred Mertz bakes a seven layer cake
that is as flat as Lucy Carmichael’s sunshine cake!  

Vivian’s gesture of secretly switching Lucy’s pie for hers – only to have Lucy switch them back – is exactly what happens when the Ricardo’s switch apartments with the Bensons. After Lucy and the Mertzes move all their furniture to the new apartment, movers hired by Ricky unknowingly switch the apartments back while the three are out!  

In “Lucy Thinks Ricky is Trying to Murder Her” (ILL S1;E4) another big switch takes place. Ricky slips a sleeping pill into Lucy’s drink. Thinking he has poisoned her, she swaps glasses with him, but knocks his to the ground just before he drinks. 

LUCY: “I switched glasses.
RICKY: “I know you did. I swished them back.” 

At the end of “The Diner” (ILL S3;E27) original owner Mr. Watson
ends up with a pie in the face just as Mr. Mooney does here. That episode was first aired exactly
ten years and a day before this one.  

Fast Forward! 

Portraits of George Washington were commonly seen in public buildings like schools, banks, and courthouses.  In a future episode of “The Lucy Show”, Lucy replaces General George with General Mooney!

An image from the episode is prominently featured on the DVD box cover for Season Two. 

Blooper
Alerts!

Solar Eclipse of the Cake! Lucy’s
cake for her bridge group is described as a ‘sunshine cake’ but
un-iced and right out of the oven it is a bit too dark in color to be
yellow sponge, unless severely over-baked. Viv, an expert baker,
notes that it looks pretty good. 

Justice is Blind? The
contest is supposed to insure that the judging remains anonymous by
identifying the pies by number, instead of the baker’s name, but for
the final judging they are arranged in the same exact order that the
contestants stood when baking them, so Mr. Mooney and Thelma Green
could not help but know whose pie was whose by their very placement.

“Lucy Enters a Baking Contest” rates 3 Paper Hearts out of 5