Lucy and the Winter Sports

S3;E3
~ October 5, 1964

Synopsis

Lucy
wants to impress her boyfriend so she embarks on most any sport that
he participates in, even fibbing that she knows how to ski. Mr.
Mooney gives her a few short lessons in her living room, but she is
still too clumsy to master it.

Regular
Cast

Lucille
Ball (Lucy Carmichael),

Vivian Vance (Vivian Bagley), Gale Gordon (Theodore J. Mooney)

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

Guest
Cast

Keith
Andes
(Bill King) was born John Charles Andes in Ocean City, New Jersey, in
1920. He appeared opposite Lucille Ball in her only Broadway musical Wildcat
in
1960. Andes previously played Bill King in “Lucy Goes Duck Hunting”
(S2;E6) and played Brad Collins in “Lucy and Joan” (S4;E4)
co-starring Joan Blondell. Andes took his own life in 2005 after
being diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Some
sources list this episode as
“Lucy Tries Winter Sports.” In
reality, Lucy tries a lot of sports, but never gets any closer to a
ski slope than her back yard. In fact, the episode is set in fall
and there is no snow or ice anywhere in sight!

This
is the first of five episodes written by Ray Singer and Dick
Chevillat. Singer went on to write 15 more episodes with other
writers while Chevillat moved on to write for “Green Acres.”
Both writers also collaborated on “Make Room for Daddy” and “The
Joey Bishop Show.” Singer later wrote for “Here’s Lucy.”

Mr.
Mooney says that in his younger days he was a ski instructor at Lake
Placid. This is the second mention of Lake Placid, an upstate New
York resort community. In “Lucy is a Process Server” (S2;E27)
Viv said she usually spends her summer there

Dressed
in a pink tennis outfit, Viv mistakenly compares Lucy with Patty
Berg. Patricia
Jane Berg
(1918–2006)
was
a professional
golfer
and
a founding member (and leading player) on the LPGA
Tour
during
the 1940s through the 1960s. Her 15 major title wins remains the
all-time record for most wins by a female golfer. She was elected to
the World
Golf Hall of Fame.

Viv
jokes about Lucy breaking her leg to get out of the skiing date.
Lucille Ball was also an avid skier and broke her leg skiing during
the run of “Here’s Lucy.” Rather than cancel the series, she had
her injury written into the scripts!

Lucy
says that while dating Bill King, she has been duck hunting, taken
golf lessons, and is going bowling. The last time Bill King was seen
was in “Lucy Goes Duck Hunting” (S2;E26). He was not, however,
in the episode “Lucy Takes Up Golf” (S2;E17), in which her date
was Gary Stewart (Gary Morton, Ball’s real-life husband).

Lucy
lies to Bill and tells him she was captain of her college tennis
team. It was established in “Lucy’s College Reunion” (S2;E11)
that she attended Milroy University, although her level of higher education would vary throughout the series.

In
order to avoid another physically strenuous date, Lucy wonders aloud
to Viv if it is possible for a man in his 40s to be drafted
overnight? From
1940 until 1973, during both peacetime and periods of conflict, men
were drafted
to fill vacancies in the United States Armed Forces. The draft was
ended when the nation moved to an all-volunteer military force.

During
her living room skiing lesson, Lucy
keeps hitting Mr. Mooney with her skis and poles. He says that Willy
Mays would love her batting average. Nicknamed
“The
Say Hey Kid," Willy
Mays
was Major
League Baseball
center
fielder who
spent almost all of his 22-season career playing for the New
York and San Francisco Giants,
before finishing
up with the New
York Mets and ending his career in 1973 with 660 home
runs.
In 1964 his batting average was 33.

Mr.
Mooney’s wife Irma calls him about going with her to see his
mother-in-law. Although Mr. Mooney previously implied he doesn’t
like his mother-in-law, after a short lesson with Lucy, he compares
her to Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. Rebecca
of Sunnybrook Farm is
the title of a 1903 children’s
novel by Kate
Douglas Wiggin that
tells the story of Rebecca Randall and her two stern aunts in a
village in Maine.
The story was adapted for the theatrical stage, and was filmed three
times, once with Shirley
Temple in
the title role.
The hallmark of Rebecca’s character was her cheerful optimism in the
face of adversity.

Callbacks!

Lucy
Ricardo went skiing with Ethel Mertz and Fernando Lamas in “Lucy
Goes to Sun Valley,” a 1958 episode of “The Lucy-Desi Comedy
Hour.”

In
1971, Lucy gets stuck on a chair lift with Dinah Shore during her
ski vacation in “Someone’s on the Ski Lift with Dinah” on
“Here’s Lucy.”

Blooper
Alerts!

Not
exactly a blooper, but a lapse in sitcom logic occurs when Bill King
surprises Lucy by visiting while she is skiing in the living room.
Lucy doesn’t want to be caught practicing and tries to hide. Viv and
Lucy try the stairs and the closet, but never think of hiding in the
kitchen, the most obvious and accessible location for a person
wearing skis.