Lucy’s Mystery Guest

S6;E10
~ November 13,
1967

Synopsis

When
Lucy tears up the junk mail, she also rips up a letter from her
eccentric Aunt Agatha, who is coming to to stay with Lucy. By the
time Lucy figures out who it is, Aunt Agatha (Mary Wickes) is on her
doorstep with a suitcase full of health foods and an exercise regimen
that turns Lucy’s daily life upside down.

Regular
Cast

Lucille
Ball (Lucy
Carmichael),
Gale Gordon
(Theodore J. Mooney), Mary
Jane Croft (Mary
Jane Lewis)

Roy
Roberts
(Harrison Winfield Cheever) does not appear in this episode.

Guest
Cast

Mary
Wickes
(Aunt Agatha) was
one of Lucille Ball’s closest friends and at one time, a neighbor.
She made a memorable appearances on “I Love Lucy” as ballet
mistress Madame Lamond in “The
Ballet” (ILL S1;E19).
In her initial “Lucy Show” appearances her characters name was
Frances, but she then made four more as a variety of characters. This
is her final appearance on the series. Wickes also appeared in nine
episodes of “Here’s Lucy.” Their final collaboration on screen
was “Lucy Calls the President” in 1977.

Agatha
is Lucy’s rich widowed aunt from the mid-west. Her husband was named
Ned. Wickes also played Mary Jane’s aunt, Gussie, in “Lucy and the
Sleeping Beauty” (S4;E9).

This
episode was filmed on September 28, 1967.

Mary
Wickes is playing Lucy’s aunt, but in real life Lucille Ball was just
one year younger than Wickes. Aunt Agatha has a line disparaging
“the younger generation” referring to Lucy!

As
usual on the series, older characters are dressed woefully out of
date. Agatha wears a traveling suit, gloves and hat that would be
more fashionable in 1917 than 1967.

Wickes’
wardrobe as Aunt Agatha is very reminiscent to clothing she wore as
Mrs Squires in The
Music Man (1962).
Also in the cast were “Lucy Show” alumni Ralph Hart (Sherman),
Charles Lane (Mr. Barnsdahl), as well as Max Showalter, Jesslyn Fox,
Fred Aldrich, Leon Alton, Walter Bacon, John Breen, Ronnie Dapo, Ray
Kellogg, Natalie Masters, Bert May, and Larri Thomas.

We
learn Lucy has a cousin Clara who lives in Los Angeles, but Agatha
thinks Clara only likes her for her money.

When
Agatha opens a window for some fresh air, Lucy makes a joke about the
smog. This is the fourth mention of the Los Angeles smog problem on
the series. It
was previously joked about in “Lucy Gets Jack Benny’s Account”
(S6;E6), “Lucy
and Tennessee Ernie Ford” (S5;E21)
and “Lucy
Meets Sheldon Leonard” (S5;E22).

We
learn that Lucy is plant sitting for a neighbor named Mrs. Stevens.
Mary Jane is dog sitting for her. Aunt Agatha sprays the plant for bugs, and it promptly wilts.

When
Lucy reports for work dressed like Aunt Agatha, the underscoring
plays
“Chim
Chim Cheree”
from Mary
Poppins
(1964) and Mr. Mooney remarks
“Good heavens, they’ve grounded Mary Poppins!” Although
Wickes was not in Disney’s Mary
Poppins,
she did play the character on CBS TV in 1949. The Disney film
featured “Lucy Show” alumni Reta Shaw, Elsa Lanchester, Walter
Bacon, George DeNormand, Sam Harris, Lester Matthews, Hans Moebus, J.
Pat O’Malley, Bert Stevens, Hal Taggart, Larri Thomas, and Ginny
Tyler.

In “Lucy Saves Milton Berle” (S4;E14) Lucy dresses
as a poor flower seller, which Mr. Mooney calls a“cheesy
Mary Poppins outfit”
despite if resembling Eliza Doolittle from My
Fair Lady.

Two years later, Lucille Ball would play Mary Poppins in a sketch on the Dinah Shore special “Like Hep.”

Lucy
calls her wealthy Auntie “nuts”, but Mooney admonishes her by
saying “When
you’re poor, you’re nuts. When you’re rich, you’re eccentric.”

The
episode has an upbeat sentimental ending that never gets overly
schmaltzy thanks to Wickes, Ball and the writing.

Callbacks!

Lucy
Ricardo got an unexpected visit from a distant relative in “Tennessee Ernie Visits” (ILL S3;E28). Like Aunt Agatha, by the time the
Ricardos discover when to expect their visitor, the eccentric
relative is already on their doorstep.

Blooper
Alerts!

Lucy
brings the waste paper basket full of the torn up letter from home to
the bank but she does not bring it home again. As a reminder, Lucy
takes the bus to work!