Lucy Gets Amnesia

S3;E4
~ October 12, 1964

Synopsis

Lacking
sales resistance, Lucy buys a fur coat and must ask Mr. Mooney for
the money to pay for it. When Mr. Mooney goes away on business, his
replacement at the bank remembers Lucy from their childhood, but Lucy
doesn’t have a clue who he is. So as not to hurt his feelings (and
secure the money for the coat) Lucy plans to pretend she has amnesia,
until she really gets conked on the head for real and doesn’t even
remember Viv!

Regular
Cast

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

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

Guest
Cast

Max
Showalter (Vinnie
Meyers) was born
in Kansas (like Vivian Vance) in 1917. He got the acting bug as a
toddler when mother took him to the local theater where she played
piano for silent movies. He acted in 92 shows at the Pasadena
Playhouse between 1935 and 1938 and made his Broadway debut in
Knights
of Song. On
Broadway he played the
role of Horace Vandergelder in Hello,
Dolly!
more than 3,000 times opposite such luminaries as Carol
Channing,
Betty
Grable
and Ginger
Rogers.
Showalter
made more than a thousand TV and film appearances. He would return
to “The Lucy Show” six months after this appearances for “Lucy
and Arthur Godfrey” (S3;E23). Toward the end of his life he lived
in Connecticut (again, like Vivian Vance) and died there in 2000.

Vinnie
Meyers is said to be from the Jamestown (NY) branch of Mr. Mooney’s
bank. This is to account for his knowing Lucy from their childhood.

Fifi
D’Orsay (Madame
Fifi) was
born Yvonne Lussier in Montreal, Québec, in 1904.
She
appeared in The
Greenwich Village Follies
where the director re-named her Mademoiselle Fifi. She later adopted
the name after her favorite perfume as her surname.
In
1971, at the age of 67, she appeared on Broadway in the Stephen
Sondheim
musical
Follies
playing a former Follies headliner, a character reminiscent of her
own life and career.
This is her only appearance opposite Lucille Ball. She died in
1983.

James
Gonzales (Bank
Clerk) was
a popular Hollywood extra who first acted with Lucille Ball in the
1953 film The
Long, Long Trailer.
He was first seen on the series as Stan Williams in “Lucy
Digs Up a Date” (S1;E2).
He was subsequently seen in more than 20 episodes of “The Lucy
Show” and 3 episodes of “Here’s Lucy.”
Unlike most of his appearances, Gonazles actually has a line and
receives screen credit in this episode.

Sid Gould (Delivery Man) made more than 45 appearances on “The Lucy Show,” all as background characters. He also did 40 episodes of “Here’s Lucy.” Gould (born Sydney Greenfader) was Lucille Ball’s cousin by marriage to Gary Morton. Gould was married to Vanda Barra, who also appeared on “The Lucy Show” starting in 1967, as well as on “Here’s Lucy.”

Renita Reachi (Bank Customer) was Vivian Vance’s camera and lighting stand-in for “I Love Lucy” and “The Lucy Show.” She was was a costumer and made occasional crowd background appearances in “The Lucy Show”, “Here’s Lucy” and the Lucille Ball films Yours, Mine and Ours (1968) and Mame (1974).

Several
other uncredited background actors play the other bank staff and
customers.

This
is the first episode written by Leonard
Gershe.
He would also pen “Lucy and the Countess” (S3;E19). In 1957 he
was nominated for an Oscar for writing the film Funny
Face.
Gershe is the author of the Broadway hit Butterflies
are Free
(1969) as well as its movie version in 1972.

The
working title for this script was “Memories.”
It was filmed on June 24, 1964, before the series went on summer
hiatus.

The
same evening this episode first aired, Carol Channing, star of
Broadway’s Hello,
Dolly!
appeared on “I’ve Got A Secret” on CBS. Max Showalter co-starred
in the musical in 1967.

The
$110 Lucy needs to buy the fur coat would be equivalent to more than
$900
in 2020 after adjusting for inflation.

Like
the characters she played, Lucille Ball also loved furs. She was
often photographed in fur coats or stoles, even doing an ad for
Blackglama in 1984.

Through
the fur shop window, there is a glimpse of the marquee of the Iris
Theatre. This may be an homage to Los Angeles’ legendary Iris
Theatre,
which reportedly
had the first electric sign in Hollywood. It may also simply be an
homage to the character Iris
Atterbury,
Lucille Ball’s sidekick (played by Bea Benadaret) on her radio show
“My Favorite Husband.”

When
the sleeve easily detaches from the rabbit fur coat, Viv asks Madame
Fifi, “Who did you make this coat
for? Gypsy Rose Lee?” Gypsy
Rose Lee (nee Rose Louise Hovic) was
a vaudeville performer who turned to burlesque, perfecting the art of
the striptease. Her story was memorably told in book form, on stage,
and on screen in the musical Gypsy
(1959). Coincidentally, Fifi D’Orsay’s only Broadway musical
Follies,
was by Stephen Sondheim, who also wrote lyrics for Gypsy.

About
the rabbit fur coat, Vis says “What’s
up, Doc?,”
a line made famous by Bugs Bunny in the Warner Brothers cartoon
shorts. Lucy’s last line of the episode also mentions Bugs
Bunny.
The cartoon character was first created in 1940 and voiced by the
legendary Mel Blanc.

Mr.
Meyers will take over for Mr. Mooney while he is away at a banker’s
convention in Bridgeport, a real-life Connecticut city with easy
access to New York by train or automobile.

Although
Lucy doesn’t remember him, Vinnie remembers Lucy from Lake Hiawatha
when he was 17 and she was 14. Lucy’s pet name for Vinnie was
“Drippy.” Vinnie called Lucy “Love Bug.” Chris says
she had a crush on Bobby Edwards when she was 14. Her pet name for
him was “The Fink.”

This is Candy Moore’s first appearance at Chris in season 3. She comes home at nine o’clock saying she has been at Cynthia’s typing reports. Cynthia is much talked about but seldom seen. When she appeared on screen in season 1, she was played by Lucie Arnaz.

Lucy
lives at 132 Post Road, Danfield. This fact was previously mentioned in
“Lucy is Her Own Lawyer” (S2;E23).

Coming
up from the basement with two umbrellas, Lucy says one belonged to
Audrey Simmons. The character appeared for the last time in “Lucy
Enters a Baking Contest” (S2;E28) but has been mentioned in all
three episodes thus far in season 3. Audrey was played by Mary Jane Croft.

While
talking about the delivery of Lucy’s new fur coat Viv says, “It
came while you were in the twilight zone.” “The Twilight Zone”
was a popular sci-fi anthology series hosted by Rod Serling which
aired on CBS from 1959 to 1964.

Callbacks!

Lucy
Ricardo pretends to have amnesia in “Lucy Fakes Illness” (ILL
S1;E16).

A
fur coat has long been seen as a status symbol, and something Lucy
Ricardo was always trying to acquire. This was played out in “The
Fur Coat” (ILL S1;E9). Lucy Carmichael will covet fur again in
“Lucy the Stuntman” (S4;E5).

Lucy
Ricardo and Ethel Mertz spent some time in a fur shop in “Lucy
Changes Her Mind” (ILL S2;E21).

Blooper
Alerts!

The
living room has been slightly re-arranged to suit the action of the
episode. The dining room chairs have been removed and there is a
hanging flower pot where there formerly was a hanging lamp.