Lucy and the Monsters

S3;E18~
January 25, 1965

Synopsis

When
Lucy and Viv decide to check out the horror movies their boys have
been watching, Lucy has a nightmare in which she and Viv are trapped in
a haunted castle where they encounter a variety of horror movie
characters – until their host turns them into witches themselves!  

Regular
Cast

Lucille
Ball (Lucy Carmichael), Vivian Vance (Vivian Bagley), Gale Gordon
(Theodore J. Mooney), Jimmy Garrett (Jerry Carmichael), Ralph Hart
(Sherman Bagley)

Ralph Hart’s face is completely hidden by a Frankenstein mask and he has no dialogue, merely grunts. Viv says “I’m not even sure that is my son under that mask.” This is his first ‘appearance’ since “Lucy’s Contact Lenses” (S3;E10) two months earlier.

Candy
Moore (Chris Carmichael) does not appear in this episode.

Guest
Cast

George
Barrows
(Loretta, the Gorilla Maid) played a gorilla in his very first screen
credit, Tarzan
and His Mate
(1934).  He donned the gorilla suit 18 more times from 1954 to 1978.
His final simian character was on “The Incredible Hulk.”  This is
his first appearance on “The Lucy Show” and he will return as a
gorilla in two more.  He also played human characters on two
episodes. 

Bob
Burns
(Ringo, the Werewolf Butler) also played the wolf man in two episodes
of TV’s “The Adventures of The Spirit” in 1963.  Like George
Barrows, Burns played many on-screen gorillas, including on an
episode
of “My Three Sons” in 1966.  Burns was a good friend of Glenn
Strange, the last actor to play Frankenstein in a Universal horror
film.  He is also a world
renown archivist and historian of props, costumes, and other screen
used paraphernalia from science fiction, fantasy, and horror movies.
One of his prized possessions is the the wolf’s cane handle from The
Wolf Man (1941).

The character’s unique moniker is likely a nod to the Beatles’ Ringo Starr.  Early in their career’s the Beatles were known for their long hair!

Jan
Arvan
(The ‘Head’ of the Household) played a waiter in Abbott
and Costello Meet the Mummy
in 1955 and a gypsy on “The Munsters” ten years later.  From 1953
to 1971 he was a regular on “The Red Skelton Show” on CBS, often
playing Klem Kadiddlehopper’s father.  This is his only appearance with
Lucille Ball.  

Sid
Haig
(The Mummy) was first employed by Desilu in a 1962 episode of “The
Untouchables.” This “Lucy Show” marks his fourth of more than 140 screen
credits. He was also seen in a

1969 episode of “Here’s Lucy.”  Haig appeared in the horror re-boots Night
of the Living Dead 3D
(2006) and Halloween
(2007).

James
Gonzales
(Morris, the Chair) 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.”

The character name puns on the Morris Chair, an early type of reclining chair by Morris & Company first marketed around 1866. Gonzales is completely concealed by the chair costume and does not speak.

Shepard
Sanders
(Costume Party Count Dracula) played a psychic on an episode of the TV series
“Werewolf” in 1987. This is his only appearance with Lucille
Ball.  

Several other costumed party-goers appear uncredited in the final scene, but do not speak. They may have been played by the other ‘monsters’ in Lucy’s dream.

Series
Camera Coordinator Maury Thompson (above left) and assistant director
/ associate producer Tommy Thompson (above right) came up with the
premise for this episode and receive screen credit for the story.

The episode opens with Lucy reading a magazine article titled “Psychological Reactions in Adolescents to Terror-Inspiring Visual Stimulation”:  

“The over-abundance of spooky stuff in movies and TV can cause traumatic experience in our youngsters.”

Lucy reports that Jerry and Sherman are at the State Theater to see the double-feature The Surfing Werewolf and The Eggplant That Ate Philadelphia. Both of these are fictional films. This is the first mention of the State movie theatre. The Bijou and The Danfield Theatre were both mentioned in “No More Double Dates” S1;E21).  

The title The Eggplant That Ate Philadelphia may have been inspired by the 1960 low-budget comedy / horror film The Little Shop of Horrors, about a mysterious eggplant-shaped plant that thrives on human blood and could be an alien sent to conquer earth. One of the film’s stars, Jackie Joseph, was married to Lucille Ball protégé Ken Berry and would appear on “Here’s Lucy” (using her married named) in 1969.

Jerry
wears a black cape and Sherman wears a Frankenstein mask. Other than
this visual image, the Frankenstein monster is not mentioned or
depicted in the dream. Frankenstein and Dracula were already
represented on CBS by “The Munsters” (1964-66) on Thursday
nights. The series imagined the Universal monsters in a family-based
sitcom similar to “Father Knows Best.”  

Jerry (and later Lucy) use a Remco “Signal Action Ray Space Gun”. Starting in the 1950s, Remco made many variations on this gun, including different colors. It is likely that the electronic sound heard on the soundtrack was added in post-production.

The mothers resolve to check out these movies for themselves.

VIV: “I haven’t seen a movie with a monster since Gone With The Wind.”
LUCY: “There was no monster in Gone With The Wind.”
VIV: “You didn’t see my date!”

Lucille Ball was
considered for the role of Scarlett O’Hara during the 1939 film’s initial
casting. The role eventually went to British actress Vivian Leigh (right). The cinema classic will be mentioned several times throughout the series and on “Here’s Lucy.”

 

Gale Gordon gets a smattering of entrance applause from the studio audience.  Mr.
Mooney jokingly hums a few bars of “Funeral March” to scare Lucy
and Viv. Frédéric
Chopin’s composition
is formally known as Piano
Sonata No. 2 in B Flat
Minor, Opus 35 and was completed in
1839.  

Mr. Mooney mentions his wife, but not by name. Vivian mentions her husband, but also does not use his name. In other episodes, we discover they are named Irma and Ralph, respectively.

Both characters remain unseen throughout the series.

Throwing his coat over his shoulders like a cape, Mr. Mooney says 

“It
isn’t a fit night out for man nor beast!” 

This is a paraphrase of a quote spoken by W.C.
Fields in the 1933 film short The
Fatal Glass of Beer, which was NOT a horror movie! More beastly wordplay happens later when Dracula (Mr. Mooney) turns the expression “Heavens to Betsy” into “Heavens to Beastie”! 

This
is only the second time a scene has taken place in Lucy’s bedroom.
The first was in “Lucy Buys a Sheep” (S1;E5).  

Lucy
protects herself from monsters by wearing a garlic necklace (to ward
off evil spirits) and holding one of Jerry’s wooden tent stakes (the
only way to kill a vampire). Both of
these tactics are part of the vampire mythology as set forth in Bram
Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula.

The
monster characters featured are mostly from the Universal Studios
pantheon of monsters: Dracula (1931), The Mummy (1932)
and The Wolf Man (1941). Background player Monty O’Grady was a
villager in The Wolf Man and later appeared in 14 episodes of “The
Lucy Show” and 6 episodes of “Here’s Lucy.”  One of Universal’s
most famous monsters was The Bride of Frankenstein (1935),
played by Elsa Lanchester. Lanchester guest-starred as a possible
hatchet murderess on “Off To Florida” (ILL S6;E6) and as a
hardened criminal in “Lucy Goes To Prison,” a 1973 episode of
“Here’s Lucy.” The Bride of Frankenstein is also mentioned in
“Lucy Writes a Play” (ILL S1;E17). Universal Studios theme parks
in Hollywood and Florida later hosted a Lucille Ball exhibit, also
selling collectible merchandise and souvenirs.

Count Dracula (Mr. Mooney) calls his werewolf butler by the name
‘Ringo.’ This is a joke about Ringo
Starr of
the Beatles, a popular singing group known for their long and shaggy
hairstyles. The Beatles have been mentioned several times on “The
Lucy Show.” 1965 saw the release of their motion picture Help!

When
Lucy and Viv are transformed into witches, they quote the Weird
Sisters from William Shakespeare’s MacBeth: 

“Double
double, toil and trouble. Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.”

To
find out who is the prettiest witch, Lucy and Viv ask the magic
mirror by saying
“Mirror, mirror on the wall; Who’s the fairest of them all?”
This is the same query the Evil Queen asks her magic mirror in the
1937 animated Disney film Snow
White and the Seven Dwarves.
In the original Brothers Grimm story that the film is based upon,
however, the question posed is “Who
is the most beautiful in all the land?”  

In
the dream sequence, witch Lucy calls witch Viv ’Sassafrassa.’
This is actually the name Lucille Ball gave an imaginary childhood
friend who assured her she would one day be a movie star. Once she
moved  from Jamestown to nearby Celoron, Lucy would often call her
best friend Pauline Lopus ‘Pauline Sassafrassa.’ Other sources say
Lucille Ball imagined herself to be a famous film star named
‘Sassafrassa.’  

A
mouse also scares Lucy and Viv in “Vivian Sues Lucy” (S1;E10).
That episode also features an insert shot of a live mouse. Women being afraid of mice was a typical TV trope of the time.  

When the Mummy tries to help strap Lucy to the operating table, she snaps and says “Please, Mummy! I’d rather do it myself!” The studio audience reacts with a big laugh of recognition. Here’s why…

In 1962, an advertisement for Anacin pain reliever featured a mother trying to assist her grown daughter prepare a meal. “Don’t you think it needs a little salt?”, the mother would say, 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. 

A year and a day after this “Lucy Show” episode, “My Mother The Car” (starring Lucy’s pal Ann Sothern) aired an episode titled “I’d Rather Do It Myself, Mother” (S1;E20). Coincidentally, the show’s music was by Ralph Carmichael, a real-life combination of VIv’s ex-husband’s first name, and Lucy’s last name! 

Callbacks!

Two years earlier, in the first frame of the June 1963 “The Lucy Show” Gold Key comic book, Viv also feared monsters!  And shaggy dogs, apparently! Ironically, a shaggy dog was featured in the very first episode of “The Lucy Show”.  

This
is the first time there has been a ‘dream sequence’ on “The Lucy
Show.” In “Ricky’s Old Girlfriend” (ILL S3;E12) Lucy dreams of
what life would be like without Ricky if he left her for Carlotta
Romero, a sexy Cuban dancer. The dream takes her 25 years into the
future.

The
most famous dream sequence on “I Love Lucy” was “Lucy Goes To
Scotland” (ILL S5;E17) where Lucy Ricardo imagines re-visiting her
relatives in Scotland, but dreams in the musical comedy format.
Except for the brief opening and closing scenes, the entire episode
is comprised of a dream.

The witch voice Lucy uses is very similar to the one she used as the witch in “Little Ricky’s School Pageant” (ILL S6;E10) with a hint of Camille, the Queen of the Gypsies in “The Operetta” (ILL S2;E5).

When
witch Lucy and witch Viv try to flee Dracula’s castle, the escape
turns into an impromptu square dance, with the Head as the caller.
This is similar to the impromptu escape that helps the Ricardos and
the Mertzes get out of Bent Fork in “Tennessee Bound” (ILL S4;E14). In
that episode, Ernie Ford was the caller. 

Lucy
Ricardo disguised herself as an armchair when spying on the “New
Neighbors” (ILL S1;E21). Like the Morris chair in this episode,
Lucy’s arms also were the arms of the chair.

Fast Forward!

In a 1970 episode of “Here’s Lucy,” Lucy Carter met the Crown Prince of Horror, Vincent Price.

Trying to flee Count Dracula’s mansion, Lucy and Viv search for a secret passageway in the fireplace, touching all the stones, just like Lucy Carter did when trying to find Mumsie Westcott’s loot in “Lucy Goes To Prison” (HL S5;E18).

Blooper
Alerts!

Calendar Conundrum!  This would have made a fun Halloween episode, but instead it inexplicably airs for the first time in January.  

Sitcom Logic Alert!  Mr. Mooney drops by the Carmichael home on the premise of hand-delivering Lucy’s bank statement. As usual, he leaves the door wide open for the duration of his scene.

Sitter Situation! Lucy and Viv recruit Mr. Mooney to ‘babysit’ with Jerry and Sherman, but it is not clear why Chris (now in her late teens) cannot watch them or even where she might be.

Whose Bed Is It Anyway? Although they are supposedly sleeping in Lucy’s bedroom, the bed frame and the painting above the bed are the same ones seen in Viv’s bedroom in previous episodes.  

Layout Logic! Lucy’s bedroom in “Lucy Buys a Sheep” (S1;E5) has a completely different layout than this one. The rocking chair and the white wood dresser, however, are the same.

On / Off! In the bedroom, as Viv reaches for the switch, Lucy yells for her not to turn off the lights but the light switch is already in the ‘off’ position.

Made For TV Garlic! When Lucy shakes her garlic necklace to ward off the evil spirits, the hollow sound it makes indicates that they are fabricated cloves and not real garlic.

Quick Thinking Viv! When the telephone booth door is flung open to reveal the skeleton, it immediately starts to swing shut again, but Viv quickly grabs it with her right hand and holds it open so the skeleton can be seen on camera and by the studio audience, thus neatly avoiding a re-take. 

Ouch!  Backing out of the fireplace, Vivian Vance bumps her head on the mantle. She doesn’t react vocally, but does grab her head when it happens. The ‘Head’ sees the entire incident.

Check the Gate for Crew! When Lucy and Viv are strapped to a table so Dracula can turn them into witches, the screen fades to black for the commercial break and the head of a crew member prominently enters the camera frame on the right. Unfortunately, the newest DVD release did not eliminate this goof by cropping the frame, as they have done with other bloopers. This same mistake also happened on “I Love Lucy.”

Soggy Bottom! When the potted plant spits up the year-old tea, the spray lands on the tan sofa, making a large wet mark where Viv (dressed in pajamas) is supposed to sit. She scoots over a bit to avoid the wet patch. The sofa stays wet for the rest of the episode. When
the magic mirror comes crashing down to the floor rather than saying
who is the fairest in the land, Lucy or Viv, part of the Styrofoam
wall behind it also caves in!  

Mirror, Mirror on the Floor! When the magic mirror comes crashing down to the floor part of the Styrofoam wall behind it also caves in!  

“Lucy and the Monsters” rates 3 Paper Hearts out of 5