LUCY, THE CONCLUSION JUMPER

S1;E5 ~ October 21, 1968

Directed
by Jack Donohue ~ Written by George Balzer and Phil Leslie

Synopsis

When
Kim and her classmate Don are talking about a household budget and
visiting a city hall judge for a school project, Lucy jumps to the conclusion
they are going to get married.

Regular
Cast

Lucille
Ball (Lucy
Carter), Gale
Gordon (Harrison
Otis Carter), Lucie
Arnaz (Kim
Carter), Desi
Arnaz Jr. (Craig
Carter)

Guest
Cast

Don
Crichton (Don)
makes
the second of his three appearances on “Here’s Lucy.” He was
an Emmy nominated choreographer who worked on “The Carol Burnett
Show” and “The Love Boat,” among others.

Sid
Gould (Marriage
License Office Clerk) made
more than 45 appearances on “The Lucy Show,” all as background
characters. This is the second of his 40 episodes of “Here’s
Lucy.” Gould (born Sydney Greenfader) was Lucille Ball’s cousin
by marriage to Gary Morton.

Ben
Stone (Clerk
#2) was primarily a voice actor who worked on “Underdog”
(1960-1964). He acted
in the musical The
Zula and The Zayda
at the Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn, New Jersey. This is his
final screen appearance.

Booker
Bradshaw (First
Groom in Line) was a voice actor and writer making his only
appearance opposite Lucille Ball. He played Dr. M’Benga on the
original “Star Trek,” a Desilu series.

Bruce
Mars (Fourth
Groom in Line) makes
his only appearance on the series but had previously played boxer
Sonny Shaw in “Lucy the Fight Manager” (TLS S5;E20) on “The
Lucy Show.”

Laurie
Mock (Fourth
Bride) makes her only appearance with Lucille Ball. As
of 2006, she and her husband were running an urban real estate
development company in Culver City, California.

Jack
Donohue
(Nasty Groom in Line, above left)
was
the director of this episode and 34 others. He also directed 107
episodes of “The Lucy Show” where he was seen on screen as Man in
the Bank in “Lucy
and the Bank Scandal” (TLS S2;E7)
and “Lucy Conducts the Symphony” (TLS S2;E13). He will be seen
on camera in two future episodes, both of which he also directed.

Jack Bannon (Last Groom in Line, above center) was the son of Bea Benadaret, who had played Iris Atterbury on Lucy’s radio show “My Favorite Husband” and elderly neighbor Miss Lewis on “I Love Lucy.” Bannon was also a dialogue coach on his mother’s series “Petticoat Junction” in which he also appeared, as well as on “The Beverly Hillbillies.” This is his only appearance opposite Lucille Ball.

Kevin Edwards (Draftee who cuts the Line) was an uncredited ballet dancer in Streisand’s Funny Girl (1968) and will return for a 1970 episode of “Here’s Lucy.” These are his only screen credits.

Other
prospective brides and grooms are played by uncredited extras.

Kim wants to budget $25 to $30 a month for a one bedroom apartment, which gets a laugh from the 1968 studio audience. In the mid-1950’s Lucy and Ricky Ricardo were paying $200 a month for their apartment.

Lucy tells her daughter the real household budget includes $30 a month for the telephone bill and $29.40 for 3 bags of groceries. In 1968 these were comically supposed to be high prices, but today seem ridiculously cheap.

For
the second week in a row, Lucy uses a catch-phrase from “Rowan and
Martin’s Laugh-In”: “Here
comes the judge! Here comes the judge!” The
lines were first spoken on “Laugh-In” by Pigmeat Markham and later by Sammy Davis
Jr. The
show’s second half hour aired opposite “Here’s Lucy” on NBC.

Don
gets a job as a supermarket box boy. This is a job that does not
exist in today’s world. A box boy stood at the end of the
supermarket check-out line and put the groceries in bags (or boxes,
originally). Today this position has been relegated to the cashier
or (in self check-out) the shoppers themselves.

Kim
has a friend named Susie Meyers who just married the Clayton boy.

The
magazine rack behind Craig’s drum set holds the November 3, 1967
issue of Time,
which was almost a year old by the time this episode aired. A
cartoon drawing of conservative journalist William Buckley is on the
cover. There is also a copy of The
New Yorker
next to Time.

When a phone call tells Harry that he deals in antique carriages, Harry says “You mean surreys with the fringe on top”? This is a reference to a song from the 1943 musical (and 1955 film) Oklahoma! “The Surrey with the Fringe on Top.” The caller is looking for a dozen authentic buggy whips. Why an employment agency would deal in antiques – let alone carriages and buggy whips – is unclear.

Harry
gets some distressing personal news during a phone call from someone
named Bill. His distraction gives Lucy time to do comic business of
getting the cup of coffee (made with carpet sweeping compound kept in
a coffee can) away from him without him noticing.

The
Nasty Man

(Jack Donohue)

calls Lucy a “kooky redhead” and Harry “fatso”.
After some name
calling, Harry and the Nasty Man have a show down in
the style Laurel and Hardy,
alternately ripping each other’s clothes to shreds, all underscored
with the Laurel and Hardy Theme “Dance of the Cuckoos” by Marvin
Hatley. Not to be upstaged, Lucy also gets in on the action. The showdown soon erupts into a full-scale brawl at the
marriage bureau.

On a 1964 episode of “The Lucy Show” Lucy also mistakenly thought her teenage daughter was going to get married – to Mr. Mooney’s son! Both go out of their way to assure they don’t elope!

Wet
suits are inherently funny! Jack Benny wore one in the second episode of
“Here’s Lucy.” Before that Lucy wore one on a trip to the beach
with her daughter Chris on “The Lucy Show” and on “I Love Lucy”
when meeting Orson Welles in Macy’s.

Product Displacement! The
brand name on Craig’s drums is taped over to avoid open promotion of
the maker’s product without financial compensation.

Say What? A phone caller tells Harry that he deals in antique carriages and he is looking for a dozen authentic buggy whips. Why an employment agency would deal in antiques – let alone carriages and buggy whips in 1968 – is unclear.