LUCY AND THE 20-20 VISION

S3;E18
~ January 11, 1971

Directed
by Jack Carter ~ Written by Phil Leslie & George Balzer

Synopsis

Lucy
wants to take the kids to Tijuana for a long weekend, but first must
get grouchy Harry to give her two days off. Lucy thinks the cause of
his moodiness is due to vision problems and goes to outrageous
lengths to get him to go see an eye doctor.

Regular
Cast

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

Guest
Cast

Jack
Collins
(Doctor Collins / ‘Carl Baker’) appeared
on the final two episodes of “The Lucy Show.” He played Russel
Slater on “Dallas” from 1982 to 1987. This is the fourth of his
six appearances on “Here’s Lucy.”

The
final credits of the episode list the character as Doctor Proctor,
when he clearly answers the telephone “Doctor Collins.” The name
might have been left over from an earlier draft of the script.

Morreen
and Colleen Gemini (The
Conklin Twins aka ‘Jane Conklin’) make their only screen appearance
in this episode.

Their
surname would lead one to believe that these are not their real
names!

Tippy
the Invisible Dog
(Himself) makes his only (dis)appearance in the Carter living room!

Tippy belongs to the Watsons, who live next door.

This episode was rerun by CBS on June 21, 1971. It was up against a major league baseball game on NBC.

The final draft of the script was submitted on June 12, 1970 and read by Lucille Ball in July of that year.

This
is the first of only two directing credits for comedian Jack
Carter,
both on “Here’s Lucy.” Carter was a friend of Lucille Ball and
Gary Morton’s having served as best man at their wedding in 1961. A
few weeks later he married Paula Stewart, who played Lucy’s sister
Janie in Broadway’s Wildcat.
He acted in “Lucy Sues Mooney” (TLS S6;E12). He will direct one
more episode of “Here’s Lucy” later in 1971 starring Carol
Burnett.

This
is the second episode in a row where Lucy wants a vacation and tries
to convince Harry to let her have the time off by using unusual
tactics.

Kim
and Craig had a grouchy math teacher named Mr. Ridgeway (”the terror”) who had
vision problems rectified by glasses.

Harry
shouts that if he really yelled at Lucy he’d “shatter
every piece of glass from here to Pismo Beach!”
This isn’t the first time that Pismo
Beach
has been used for a punchline on the series. Harry offered Lucy
“three
days in glamorous Pismo Beach” as a bargaining chip in “Lucy Goes
on Strike” (S1;E16). The California beach town was a favorite destination of Bugs Bunny in the Warner Brothers cartoons.

When Harry yells at Lucy from the open door, we see that there is a fallout shelter sign in the hallway. These signs were introduced by the Office of Civil Defense on December 1, 1961 (during the height of the Cold War) to designate federally approved public shelters in the event of a nuclear explosion. This particular sign indicates that the fallout shelter is in the basement. The capacity of the shelter was also sometimes indicated. The Office of Civil Defense was dissolved in 1970, but many of these signs remain on buildings to this day.

Lucy
has the Doctor make-up some nonsense signs and bring them over in
disguise as a painter.

Sign
#1: “Carter’s for Jobs” (in Latvian)

Sign
#2: “Carter’s Gets Best Results” (in Rumakian…where they make
rumaki!)

Lucy
says “If
there were free meals on the moon, Harry would have been there three
days before Neil Armstrong.” US Astronaut Neil Armstrong (1930-2012) was the first human to step
foot on the surface of the moon on July 21, 1969. The food on Apollo
11 was freeze dried and the menu consisted of pineapple fruitcake,
peaches, beef with vegetables, beef hash, chocolate pudding,
brownies, and spiced fruit cereal for breakfast! Interestingly, in
“Lucy Becomes an Astronaut” (TLS S1;E6, abouve), Lucy Carmichael is seen eating space foods when in a simulator.

In order to pretend to be surprised by Harry at the door, Lucy acts as if she was putting out the milk bottle. At the time, rural delivery of milk and other dairy products to residential homes was commonplace. In order to ‘recycle’ the milk bottles, homeowners would put the empty bottles on the porch at night, so the milkman could take them away early the next morning. A famous example of this was seen in the closing credits of the primetime cartoon sitcom satire “The Flintstones” (1960-66, inset photo).

Some
of the ways Lucy, Kim, and Craig plan to convince Harry his vision is bad
include:

Disconnecting the doorbell and telling him he missed the
button
Employing
a retractable hat hook so his hat falls to the floor
Pulling
the chair out from under him as he goes to sit
Asking
twin girls to drop by and pretending they are only one girl
Claiming to see an invisible dog
Asking
him to sign a contract on the dotted line that has no dotted line
Polishing an
invisible magnifying glass to help him find said dotted line

In the twist ending, Harry (now happily bespectacled) exits quoting Romeo and Juliet with a Mexican twist:

HARRY: “Ah, Senorita. Parting is such sweet sorrow. That I could say adios till it be morrow.”

In a 1969 episode of “Here’s Lucy,” Harry says that he was in Romeo and Juliet in college. Because it was an all-men’s college, he played Juliet.

Harry
offers to take Kim and Craig to Lake Arrowhead for a swim, or to San
Diego to visit the zoo. They (coincidentally) settle on Tijuana for
the bullfights. Lake Arrowhead stood in for the 49th state during the location shots for “Lucy Goes to Alaska,” a 1959
episode of “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour.”

The famous San Diego Zoo
was suggested as a possible stop-over in “Lucy and Viv Visit
Tijuana” (S2;E19). Finally, Lucy Ricardo went to Tijuana in “Lucy
Goes To Mexico,” a
1958 episode of “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour”
which featured second unit footage of a now-demolished Tijuana bull
ring where Lucy disguises herself as a matador and takes on a bull!

Although
“Lucy Has Her Eyes Examined” (ILL S3;E11) ended with Lucy being
seen by the optometrist, it was originally Ricky who had the
headaches that Lucy believed were caused by vision problems.

Set Change! This
episode features some changes to the office set including panels in
place of the shaded glass in the office doors plus a time clock next
to the door. The clock is necessary for the finale of the episode,
but there seems no explanation for the sudden replacement of the
glass. The next time we see the office, the glass panes will be back
and the time clock is gone.

Timeline Troubles! In
this episode, Harry ends up wearing glasses, which he wore
extensively in the previous episode, “Lucy’s Vacation” (S3;E17). It is
likely that this episode was filmed first and aired out of sequence.

Sound Defects! When
Lucy shows Craig the contract without the dotted line, her lips don’t
move when she says “Here,
see?”
This is either a really bad case of ADR overdubbing due to studio
noise or something Lucy actually said on set that needed to be
changed. A few moments later, as Harry says “Something
smells delicious”
there is an audible squeak on the soundtrack. If this had occurred
earlier (and louder) it could have necessitated the sloppy overdub.

Time Check! Just
before Harry bursts cheerfully through the door wearing his new
glasses, Lucy says “He’s
at his worst in the morning.”
The time clock next to the door, however, reads 1:55!

When Harry bursts through the door shouting “Good Morning!” (although it is clearly afternoon) Kim moves back startled and nearly knocks Craig over when he backs into the side table behind him! He steadies himself just in time.