LUCY GOES ON STRIKE

S1;E16
~ January 20, 1969

Directed
by Jack Donohue ~ Written by Mel Diamond and Al Schwartz

Synopsis

Harry
refuses to give Lucy a raise so she goes on strike. When she
overhears Harry taking out a life insurance policy on her, she
mistakenly thinks he is trying to murder her and cash in!

Regular
Cast

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

Guest
Cast

Mary
Wickes
(Isabel) 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 for a
total of 8 episodes. This is the first of her 9 appearances on
“Here’s Lucy.” She will also play Isabel in “Lucy Gets Her
Man” (S1;E21). Their final collaboration on screen was “Lucy
Calls the President” in 1977.

Isabel
is a secretary in the same building as Lucy. In “Lucy the Fixer”
(S1;E14), Lucy spoke to someone named Isabel on the telephone so
there may have been an attempt to make Isabel a recurring character,
much like Frances was in the first season of “The Lucy Show.”
Although all three episodes were written by different people, script
supervisor Milt Josefsberg may have been watching for continuity.

Whit
Bissell
(Ted Driscoll) specialized
in playing doctors, military officers and other authority figures. On
television he was a regular on “Bachelor
Father”
(1957)
and “The
Time Tunnel”
(1966).
He also served on the Screen Actors Guild board of directors for 18
years.
This is his only appearance with Lucille Ball.

Ted
Driscoll is Harry’s insurance agent.

John
J. “Red” Fox (Policeman)
was best known for playing policemen, which is what he did on five of
his eight appearances on “The Lucy Show” as well as three of his
five episodes of “Here’s Lucy.”

The
other striking secretaries, and the passersby on the street are all
played by uncredited extras.

The
date this episode first aired, Richard M. Nixon was sworn in
as President of the United States. Spiro Agnew (a surname mentioned
in the previous episode) was his Vice President.

This
is the only collaboration of writers Mel Diamond and Al Schwartz.
It is Diamond’s only episode of “Here’s Lucy” and his final
screen credit. Al Schwartz had won a 1961 Emmy for “The Red
Skelton Show.” This is the first of his 11 scripts for “Here’s
Lucy.”

A
donut costs Lucy ten cents. Today a donut at a local chain donut
shop costs about $1.00.

Lucy
calls Harry “Gentle Ben.” This was the name of a nature series
starring Dennis Weaver and Clint Howard that aired on CBS from 1967
to 1969. Ben was the name of a grizzly bear. The day before this
“Here’s Lucy” episode first aired, the “Gentle Ben” episode was titled “Keeper of the
Glades: Part 2” directed by Laurence Dobkin, who had acted in three
episodes of “I Love Lucy.”

Harry wants Lucy to complete
the Phillips Report.

The
Unique Employment Agency is inside the Bradshawe Building.

Craig
says Lucie’s boyfriend looks like “Rosemary’s Baby.” Rosemary’s
Baby was the name of a supernatural horror film written by
Ira Levin and starring Mia Farrow and Ruth Gordon, who won an Oscar
for her role. It premiered in June 1968.

Lucy
writes her request for fringe benefits on a parchment scroll. Harry
compares it to the Dead
Sea Scrolls (above).
This refers to manuscripts
from a larger number of sites from the Judean
Desert,
near the Dead Sea. The scrolls were discovered from 1946 to 1947.
The scrolls are dated as early as the 8th century BCE and as late as
the 11th century CE.

Lucy
wants three weeks paid vacation in Hawaii. Harry offers her three
days in glamorous Pismo Beach. Pismo Beach is located on the
coast of central California in San Luis Obispo County. Like Catalina
Island, Pismo Beach is one of the locations Lucy and Ethel want to
visit before returning to New York in “Lucy Gets Into Pictures”
(ILL S4;E18). In the Warner Brothers cartoons, Bugs Bunny burrowed to Pismo Beach for “all the clams we can eat.” Lucy Carter will get her two-week vacation in Hawaii at the start of
season three.

Some
of Lucy’s homemade picket signs include:

“Even
the birds have a word for Harrison Carter – Cheep, Cheep, Cheep!”
“If
Harrison Carter was kind and loyal — he’d give a raise to a working
goyal!”

Harry
takes out a $100,000 double indemnity insurance policy on Lucy’s life
with Harry as sole beneficiary, which Lucy accidentally overhears.
After she leaves, he changes the beneficiary to Kim and Craig.
Although it is not specifically mentioned, when Lucy Carter hears the words
“double indemnity” she is undoubtedly thinking of the 1944 film
Double Indemnity starring Fred MacMurray and Barbara
Stanwyk in which an insurance policy is the incentive to commit
murder.

Driscoll
invites Harry to the opening night of the ballet, so he forfeits
going to see the LA Dodgers play.

Just
as Lucy Carter thinks Harry is trying to murder her, Lucy Ricardo
thought the same of her husband Ricky in “Lucy Thinks Ricky is
Trying to Murder Her” (ILL S1;E4), which was actually the very
first episode of the series to be filmed in 1951.

In
“Ricky’s European Booking” (ILL S5;E10) Lucy Ricardo goes on
strike at home because Ricky won’t take her to Europe with him, going
so far as to march around the apartment with a picket sign. As
history tells, she got her way. She usually did!

Idiot Cards! Lucy’s
picket signs are actually studio cue cards. They are even written in
the same bold marker and lettering as traditional cue cards.
Unusually, the cards Kim and Craig read aloud have the same text on
both sides. This is likely to include the studio and viewing
audience in the joke. Lucille Ball disliked the use of cue cards and
rarely used them.

Knob Prob! When
Lucy unfurls her scroll of fringe benefits, the knob on the end of
the dowel comes off in her hand. Lucille Ball gives the prop a dirty
look but continues the scene.

Headhshot! The
black and white photo of Harry that Lucy plasters on the drum is the
same photograph of Gale Gordon used on posters and billboards when
Mr. Mooney ran for comptroller in “Lucy Goes Into Politics” (TLS
S2;E25).

Cue Jumper! As
Mary Wickes is making her exit in Lucy’s house, she talks over
Lucille Ball’s line.