Lucy Helps the Countess

S4;E8
~ November 8, 1965

Synopsis

When
the Countess gets her real estate license, she enlists Lucy to lure
Mr. Mooney up to a fancy high rise apartment so he won’t find out she
had to take a job. The three end up locked in the high rise flat when the key goes down
a bottle chute along with the Countess’s purse.

Regular
Cast

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

Mary
Jane Croft (Mary Jane Lewis) does not appear in this episode.

Guest
Cast

Ann
Sothern
(Rosie
Hannigan, the Countess Framboise) makes the second of three season
four appearances at the Countess. 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 new 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.

Karen
Norris (Real
Estate Agent) 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 final appearance on “The Lucy Show.” She also did one
episode of “Here’s Lucy” in 1968.

Sid
Gould
(New Tenant) 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.”

The
character has no dialogue and Gould is uncredited.

The
date this episode was first aired (November 8, 1965) Dorothy
Kilgallen
died at the age of 52. Kilgallen was a Broadway columnist best
known as a long-time panelist of the quiz show “What’s My Line.”
She was on the show for five of Lucille Ball’s six appearances. The
1954 “I Love Lucy” episode “Mr. and Mrs. TV Show” was
inspired by radio’s “Breakfast with Dorothy and Dick”
(1945-1963), which featured Kilgallen and her husband Richard
Kollmar, a Broadway actor and producer.

As
a lead-in to the original broadcast of this episode, CBS’s “I’ve
Got a Secret,” featured guest Vivian Vance. The
game involved one
person instructing another to make pantomime movements, and the next
person guessing what they’re pantomiming.
Vance instructs host Steve Allen to give someone a shoeshine. Between 1956 and 1966 Lucille Ball appeared on the panel show four times.

Lucy
must really enjoy breakfast cereal. In the opening scene she is
unpacking six Kellogg’s Snack Pak’s from her bag. Each package
contains six one portion boxes of cereal so that’s five weeks worth
of breakfasts. She also buys more than 2 dozen loose oranges.
Although the Countess lived with Lucy in “Lucy and the Countess
Have a Horse Guest” (S4;E6), it is unclear where she resides during
this episode. Lucy is on her way out the front door when she drops
the oranges on the floor.

Mr.
Mooney mentions his wife, who is joining him in California but no
mention about any of his children. Although Bob and Ted Jr. may be
in college (like Lucy’s daughter Chris), his youngest son Arnold was
in grade school with Lucy’s son Jerry. Perhaps he was also enrolled
in Military School?

Lucy
masquerades as a stereotypical little old lady from Cucamonga in a
dress and hairstyle more befitting a 1912 dowager than a 1965 senior
citizen. She assumes the name Mrs.
Huntington Thorndike Smithers Jones Hodgkiss Hodgkiss (they were
brothers) Belfort. She says she lives in Sunset Apartments number
18B and belongs to a poker club. When she leaps over the office gate
she brags that she was on the track team at Vassar in 1903.

Cucamonga
is
a suburban city situated at the foothills of the San
Gabriel Mountains 37
miles east of
Downtown
Los Angeles.
The
name ‘Cucamonga’ became well known to fans of Jack
Benny’s radio
program, in which announcer Mel
Blanc
would call out: “Train
leaving on track five for Anaheim,
Azusa
and
Cu-camonga!”

Bugs
Bunny
cartoons
(also voiced by Mel Blanc) feature numerous references to Cucamonga.
In 1977 three unincorporated communities – Alta
Loma,
Cucamonga and Etiwanda
–
became known as the city of Rancho Cucamonga.

Mr.
Mooney sleepwalks in the traditional show biz style of having his
arms outstretched before himself like the Frankenstein monster.

Callbacks!

The
plot of this episode is similar to "Lucy
Gets Locked in the Vault”
(S2;E4). Food becomes paramount, just as it did in the vault, as
well as in the Alpine cabin that the Ricardos were trapped in during
an avalanche in “Lucy in the Swiss Alps” (ILL S5;E21).

Lucy
Ricardo also went out on the ledge and had pigeons land on her head
in “Lucy and Superman” (ILL S6;E13).

Lucy
Ricardo masqueraded as a little old lady to close a real estate deal
(selling their dress shop to an investor) in “The Girls Go Into
Business” (ILL S3;E2).

Blooper
Alerts!

Floor Plan Logistics! Rosie
makes her first entrance through the kitchen door. In previous
episodes it was established that the kitchen door led to a patio and
that Lucy’s apartment is on the second floor.

Where’s My Office? Although
Mr. Mooney previously had a private office at the bank, here his desk
is situated in an open lobby.

Background Info? The
Cucamonga apartment is on the 18th floor and on a clear day has a
view of Catalina. Unfortunately, the set designers neglected to put
any sort of backdrop behind the window – not even a sky drop – so
it looks like a blank wall.
Contrast this to the busy view from the Ricardos’ Los Angeles high
rise hotel.