LUCY AND THE RAFFLE

S3;E19
~ January 18, 1971

Directed
by Ross Martin ~ Written by Ray Singer & Al Schwartz

Synopsis

Kim
wins a fast sports car in a raffle, but Lucy won’t let her keep it.
To pay the taxes on her win, they hold another raffle not knowing
that it is illegal. Lucy, Kim, and Harry are all arrested and hauled
in to court!

Regular
Cast

Lucille
Ball (Lucy
Carter), Gale
Gordon (Harrison
Otis Carter), Lucie
Arnaz (Kim
Carter)

Desi
Arnaz Jr. (Craig
Carter) does not appear in this episode, but he does receive opening
title credit.

Guest
Cast

Hayden
Rorke (Judge
Gibson) played one of the “New Neighbors” (ILL S1;E21), Tom
O’Brien, who moved into the Mertz apartment building and are believed
to be spies (but actually are just actors). Rorke
trained at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and made his
television debut on “I Love Lucy.” Ironically, so did Barbara
Eden, who played the title role in the sitcom that Rorke is best
known for, “I Dream of Jeannie.” In 1947, he appeared on stage with Lucille Ball in Dream Girl. Rorke played the incredulous Dr. Alfred Bellows from 1965 to
1970, even returning for a “Jeannie” reunion special in 1985, his
last screen project. He
died in 1987.

Although
the Judge’s name is not spoken aloud, his daughter, Betty Gibson, is named
earlier in the episode as the winner of the raffle.

SPOILER: The
Little Old Lady (Florence Lake) is his mother!

Paul
Picerni
(IRS Agent Frank Williams) makes
the second of his four appearances on “Here’s Lucy.” He also
appeared with Lucille Ball in the 1975 TV movie “Lucy Gets
Lucky.” Picerni was a cast member of Desilu’s “The Untouchables” from
1959 to 1963.

Picerni
introduces this episode on the series DVD.

Rhodes
Reason
(Lieutenant Egan) marks
the fourth of his five episodes of “Here’s Lucy” having
previously appeared in “Lucy,
the Matchmaker” (S1;E12) and “Lucy
and the Gold Rush” (S1;E13). He
also appeared with Lucille Ball (and Little Old Lady Florence Lake)
in the 1974 TV movie “Happy Anniversary and Goodbye.”

Although
the character identifies himself as Lieutenant Egan, the end credits
list him as Detective Haggerty.

Robert
Foulk
(Permit Office Clerk at Window D) played
the policeman on the Brooklyn subway platform in “Lucy
and the Loving Cup” (ILL S6;E12)
and a Los Angeles Detective in “Lucy Goes To A Hollywood Premiere”
(TLS S4;E20). This is the first of his six
characters on “Here’s Lucy,” two of which are also policemen.

Sid
Gould (Permit
Office Clerk at Window C) made
more than 45 appearances on “The Lucy Show,” and nearly as many
on “Here’s Lucy.” Gould (born Sydney Greenfader) was Lucille
Ball’s cousin by marriage to Gary Morton and was married to Vanda
Barra (Waitress).

Irwin
Charrone
(Permit Office Clerk at Window B) made
five appearances on “The Lucy Show.” The expressive character
actor also did an equal number of “Here’s Lucy” episodes. He
died in January 2016 in Maplewood, New Jersey, at the age of 93.

Jody
Gilbert
(Woman in Permit Line aka “Mrs. Kong”)
appeared with Lucille Ball and Gale Gordon on the 1952 special “Stars
in the Eye” celebrating the opening of CBS’s new Television City
studios. She played a prison matron in her only appearance on both “The Lucy Show” and in her next and final appearance on “Here’s
Lucy.”

Larry
J. Blake
(Man at the Front of the Permit Line) appeared
as a Native American Medicine Man in “Lucy
the Rain Goddess” (TLS S4;E15).
He was an ex-vaudevillian making the third of his eight “Here’s
Lucy” appearances.

Florence
Lake
(Little Old Lady aka Mrs. Gibson) did
four films with Lucille Ball between 1936 and 1938. This is her
second and final episode of the series – both times as a classic
Little Old Lady. She went on to appear in the 1974 TV movie “Happy
Anniversary and Goodbye”
starring
Lucille Ball and Rhodes Reason (Lt. Egan).

Emile
Autuori
(Officer Collins, First Bailiff) makes
the second of his six appearances on “Here’s Lucy.” He
passed away in early 2017. He was the uncle of writer /
director P.J. Castalleneta.

Although
not spoken aloud, his name tag reads “Collins.”

John
J. ‘Red’ Fox
(Second Bailiff) 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.”

Vanda
Barra
(Waitress) was
Lucille Ball’s cousin-in-law and married to Sid Gould (Permit
Office Clerk at Window C). This is just one of her over two dozen
appearances on “Here’s Lucy” as well as appearing in Ball’s
two 1975 TV movies “Lucy Gets Lucky” (with Dean Martin) and
“Three for Two” (with Jackie Gleason). She was seen in half a
dozen episodes of “The Lucy Show.”

Jack
Berle
(Detective, uncredited, right) was
the older brother of Milton Berle. This is one of his eleven
uncredited appearances on the series. He previously did two
episodes of “The Lucy Show.”

Berle
plays the Detective who arrests Harry, but has no dialogue.

Leon
Alton (Courtroom
Spectator, uncredited)
appeared
with Lucille Ball in The
Facts of Life (1960)
and Critic’s
Choice (1963).
He was in two episodes of “The Lucy Show.” This is the last
of his three episodes of “Here’s Lucy.”

Shep
Houghton (Courtroom
Spectator, uncredited) began
working as an extra while still a teenager, taking background jobs on
weekends and attending high school during the week. Between 1934 and
1947 he made three films with Lucille Ball, including Too
Many Girls,
the movie that brought together Lucy and Desi Arnaz. He did two
episodes of “The Lucy Show” and this, his only episode of “Here’s
Lucy.” Houghton was one of the Winkie Guards in 1939’s The
Wizard of Oz and
a Southern Dandy in Gone
With the Wind (1939).

Others
at the Permit Office and in the courtroom are played by uncredited
background performers.

January
19, 1971, the day after this episode first aired, Desi Arnaz Jr.
(Craig Carter) celebrated his 18th birthday. Ironically, he does not appear in this episode.

When
Lucy complains that the car her daughter won goes too fast (160mph!),
Kim promises to put a governor in the car. Lucy says “Ronald
Reagan has enough to worry about without riding around with you!”
Former
Hollywood actor Ronald
Reagan had
been elected Governor of California in 1967, a position he held until
1975. He was later elected 40th President of the United States
and served until 1989. He was previously mentioned in the second
episode of the series, “Lucy Visits Jack Benny” (S1;E2).

We
learn that Harry plays croquet.

When
the woman at the back of the line (Jody Gilbert) gets snide with
Lucy, she says “Thank
you Mrs. Kong. Give my regards to your son, King.”
King
Kong
(1933) was a Hollywood film about a giant gorilla that attacked
Manhattan. A sequel titled Son
of Kong
was released that same year.

When
Lucy and Kim stack up the money they’ve made from their raffle, Lucy
says
“Oh, ho ho! You jolly green giant!” The
Jolly Green Giant
was the advertising character used to promote Green Giant Frozen
Vegetables. Their ubiquitous TV commercial jingle went:
“In the valley of the giant – ho ho ho – Green Giant!” The
character was previously mentioned in “Lucy and Tennessee Ernie’s
Fun Farm” (S1;E23).

The
winning raffle ticket belongs to Betty Gibson, a college friend of
Kim’s.

This
episode is primarily based on “Ricky’s European Booking”
(ILL S5;E10) in which Lucy Ricardo and Ethel Mertz illegally raffle off a
television set to fund their trip to Europe.

The
Lucy character has been in the courtroom in front of many judges over
the past 20 years:

“The Courtroom” (ILL S2;E7) in 1952, in
which Moroni Olsen was the judge.

“Lucy Takes a Cruise To Havana” (LDCH) in June 1957, in which Jorge Trevino was the judge.

“Lucy
Makes Room for Danny (LDCH) in December 1958, in which Gale Gordon
was the judge.

“Lucy
and the Runaway Butterfly (TLS S1;E29) in 1963, in which Ernest
Sarracino was the judge.

“Lucy
is Her Own Lawyer” (TLS S2;E23) in 1964, in which John McGiver was
the judge.

“Lucy,
the Metermaid” (TLS S3;E7) in 1964, in which Parley Baer was the
judge.

“Lucy and the Soap Opera” (TLS S4;E19) in 1966, in which Sid Gould (who appears here as one of the Permit Office Clerks), played a judge in a TV soap opera. Which neatly brings things full circle!

FAST FORWARD!

Alan Rich plays Judge Cameron Potter in “Lucy, Legal Eagle” (S1;E7) aired on November 8, 1986.

Props!

When Kim is shaking up the basket full of raffle tickets for Lucy to
pick the winner, one ticket pops out. Lucie Arnaz says “Woops!”
and pops it back in again.