Lucy and the Countess Lose Weight

S3;E21~
February 15, 1965

Synopsis

When
banker Mooney fears a health farm may default on a loan he made, he
sends Lucy and the Countess there to keep an eye on things. Starving
and exhausted, they prove poor spies.

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

Ann
Sothern (Rosita “Rosie” Harrigan, the Countess Framboise)
makes the third of her seven appearances as a countess down on her
luck. Sothern had appeared in the
first “Lucy-Desi
Comedy Hour”
“Lucy
Takes a Cruise to Havana”
(1957) as Susie MacNamara, the same character she played on her show
“Private Secretary” from 1953 to 1957. In return Lucille Ball
played Lucy Ricardo on her show in 1959. Sothern appeared with Ball
in five films between 1933 and 1943. She was nominated for an Oscar
for her final screen appearance in The
Whales of August
in 1987. She is buried near her home in Sun Valley, Idaho, a place
also dear to Lucy and Desi.

Norman
Leavitt
(Farmer Johnson) appeared with Lucille Ball in the 1950 film A
Woman of Distinction as
well as The
Long, Long Trailer (1953).
The character actor also appeared on three episodes of “The
Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour.” He was previously seen on the series in
“Lucy is a Kangaroo for a Day” (S1;E7).

The
women at the Lazy Days Health Farm are played by:

Carole
Cook
was seen
as Lucy’s neighbor Thelma Green in four episodes. She 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.”

This
is the first time Cook has appeared without a character name or any
dialogue.

Cordy
Clark made her first appearances on screen in a 1961 episode of
“Make Room for Daddy” filmed at Desilu. This is her only
appearance opposite Lucille Ball.

Mary
Foran
was
born on November 21, 1919 in Tenafly, New Jersey, as Mary Miller
Bullen.
This
is her only appearance opposite Lucille Ball.

Jenie
Jackson makes her third of nine screen appearances with this
episode. In 1969 she played the uncredited role of Brunhilde in
Hello, Dolly!

In
“Lucy
and the Countess” (S3;E19),
Lucy says Viv’s been out of town for a week and will be gone for
two more. As Vivian Vance started to phase out her involvement on
“The Lucy Show” in order to spend more time with her husband on
the East Coast, Lucille Ball was looking to introduce a new character
to fill the ‘second banana’ role. The Countess will appear in seven
episodes through November 1965, the start of season 4. For episodes
featuring Ann Sothern, Vivian Vance’s opening title sequence credit
is eliminated. Instead of the freeze frame of Viv as the flapper in
the silent movie sketch (and the screen title “co-starring Vivian
Vance”), the freeze frame is on Lucy as Charlie Chaplin.

Mr.
Mooney takes on the role of the physical fitness instructor at Lazy
Days, saying that in college he was an all-around athlete. In the
previous episode, he claimed that he was supposed to go to the
Olympics.

The
Countess calls Mr. Mooney “the
Simon Legree of the concentration camps.”
This is a reference to the evil slave owner featured in the
Harriet Beecher Stowe story “Uncle
Tom’s Cabin”
(1852). The book was previously alluded to in “Lucy is Her Own
Lawyer” (S2;E23).

Lunch
at the Health Farm consists of a bag containing:

a
lettuce leaf
a
curl of carrot
a
sprig of parsley
a
yogurt wafer

The Countess calls it a “No Care Package.”

To
calm Bossie the cow while Lucy milks her, the Countess hums “The
Blue Danube,”
a waltz by Johann Strauss II composed in 1866. Lucy punctuates the
downbeat with squirts from the cow’s udder. The piece was
prominently used in Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film 2001:
A Space Odyssey
and was previously heard in “Lucy and the Good Skate” (S3;E1).

Bossie
joins a long line of live animals already featured on the series:
sheep, a horse, an elephant, many dogs, birds, mice, and a trained
bear.

Callbacks!

In
1951, Lucy Ricardo slimmed down in “The Diet” (ILL S1;E3) by also
watching what she ate and doing exercise.

The
routine of Lucy milking the farmer’s cow is pretty much the same as
when Lucy Ricardo did it in “Lucy’s Bicycle Trip” (ILL S5;E24).
Although
Lucille Ball owned a cow at her Chatsworth ranch, she claimed she had
never milked a cow before.

While
begging Mr. Mooney for food, Lucy does her classic seal imitation.

Lucille Ball first did this in 1951’s “The Audition” (ILL S1;E6).

Blooper
Alert!

Where the Grass Ends! When
the camera pulls back in the exterior scene, where the stage floor
meets the ‘grass’ is seen.