Lucy and the Ceramic Cat

S3;E16~
January 11, 1965

Synopsis

When
Lucy and Viv are entrusted with Mrs. Mooney’s elegantly wrapped
birthday gift, they naturally drop it – shattering it to pieces.
Unable to recognize what it once was to replace it, they hunt down
the item, going so far as to break into a department store to get the
last one. Once inside, Lucy has a comical encounter with a
mechanical butler in the store window.

Regular
Cast

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

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

Guest
Cast

Larry
Dean
(Mechanical Butler) was a mime who specialized in playing a robot.
He also did this on episodes of “Lost in Space” and “Bewitched.”
He returns to “The Lucy Show” in “Lucy and the Robot”
(S4;E23), as well as playing non-mechanical characters in in two
more.

John
J. ‘Red’ Fox (Policeman)
was
best known for playing policemen, which is what he did on five of his
eight appearances on “The Lucy Show” as well as three of his five
episodes of “Here’s Lucy.”

Sid
Gould (Mr.
Gould, McCullough’s Store Clerk) 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.”

William
Meader (Cafe
Cashier, right) appeared
as an airport extra in “The
Ricardos Go to Japan,”
a
1959 episode of “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour.” He made many
appearances on “The Lucy Show,” most times as a clerk in Mr.
Mooney’s bank.

Karen
Norris
(McCullough’s Sales Clerk) previously
appeared as Della Fox (aka Student #2 with a head cold) in “Lucy
and Viv Take Up Chemistry” (S1;E26)
and
Ella the maid in “Lucy
and the Runaway Butterfly (S1;E29).
This is her penultimate appearance on “The Lucy Show.” She also
did one episode of “Here’s Lucy” in 1968.

Gail
Bonney
(McCullough’s Customer) appeared with Lucille Ball in the 1950 films
A
Woman of Distinction and
The
Fuller Brush Girl.
She played Mrs. Hudson (above), the mother of the unruly twins, on “The
Amateur Hour” (ILL S1;E14). She makes an appearance on a 1968
episode of “Here’s Lucy.”

Despite
receiving screen credit, Bonney has no dialogue.

Other
uncredited extras play the café patrons and the passersby in the
street in front of Bigelow’s.

This
is the first new episode aired in 1965. There was no new “Lucy
Show” on Monday, January 4, 1965, due to newly re-elected President
Lyndon
B. Johnson’s televised
State
of the Union Address.
This episode was filmed on November 5, 1964, two days after Johnson
defeated Republican
challenger
Barry
Goldwater with
over 60 percent of the popular
vote.

Bigelow’s
Department Store was named for the biggest department store in Lucy’s
hometown of Jamestown, New York.

In “The Passports” (ILL S5;E11) we
learn that as a child Lucy Ricardo was bitten on the ear by Fred
Bigelow’s cat. In real-life, Fred Bigelow was the proprietor of
Bigelow’s
Department Store.
As a youth, Lucille Ball applied for a job at the ribbon counter, but
was turned down, a decision which allowed her to pursue her show
business aspirations.

Mr.
Mooney bought the ceramic cat at McCullough’s Gift Shop. Cameron
McCullough
was the name of a Desilu sound engineer responsible for editing the
laugh tracks into the soundtrack. He worked on all of Lucille Ball’s
television shows from 1953 to 1987.

The ceramic cat of the episode’s title was originally designed by

master ceramist Aldo Londi (1911-2003), who spent the most of his long and successful career creating exceptional work for Italian ceramics manufactory Bitossi Ceramiche.

Viv
says she got the last pair of stockings for thirty nine cents. At
the time, the least expensive pair of stockings cost about one dollar
(retail). Over the next decade, stockings would gradually be
replaced by pantyhose for use by most women.

Lucy and Viv see in Mr.
Mooney’s newspaper that Bigelow’s had a sale on dentures for $4.98
(made in Japan). Dentures, however, are generally fitted to an
individual’s mouth by a dentist or oral health care professional, not
sold over-the-counter at department stores.

When
Lucy opens the box and finds the ceramic cat in pieces, Lucille Ball
says “ewwwwwww”
and makes what is known as her ‘spider’ face, something she did on “I
Love Lucy” countless times. It was called the ‘spider’ by the
writers because Lucy first did it as part of a Jell-O commercial where she
played Little Miss Muffett. This is the first time Lucy Carmichael
has done the ‘spider’ face.

Watch for the ceramic cat to turn up again on “The Lucy Show” as set dressing in “Lucy and the French Movie Star” (S6;E3).

The ceramic cat props (probably purchased or made in bulk) will turn up again in other Desilu / Paramount sitcoms, like “The Mother’s-in-Law” (right), a show produced by Desi Arnaz.

Callbacks!

Viv
says the re-glued gift looks like “a rhinoceros wrestling a parrot.”

This reminiscent of when Little Ricky’s finger painting was called “an
elephant sailing a houseboat”
in “Nursery School” (ILL S5;E9).

Lucy
Ricardo also pretends to be a store window mannequin (albeit a
non-mechanized one) in “Lucy Changes Her Mind” (ILL S2;E21).

Blooper
Alerts!

Frequent Birthdays! The
gift is for Mr. Mooney’s (unseen) wife Irma’s birthday, but Mrs.
Mooney just celebrated a birthday six episodes ago in “Lucy’s
Contact Lenses” (S3;E10).

Absent Furniture! The
living room coffee table has been removed in order to allow for the
stunts involved with Mr. Mooney and the gift.

Memory Loss! The
policeman must have an extremely short memory to not recognize Lucy
in the window after meeting her on the street only a few minutes
earlier. He even says…

Papermoon Loves Lucy