LUCY AND FLIP GO LEGIT

S4;E1 ~
September 13, 1971

Directed
by Coby Ruskin ~ Written by Bob Carroll and Madelyn Davis

Synopsis

Lucy
takes a temp assignment with Flip Wilson in order to answer his fan
mail. When she is caught sneaking into Wilson’s office to ask him a
favor, she gets caught and fired.  The favor is to appear  in a
community theatre production of Gone With The Wind – as
Prissy.  

Regular
Cast

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

Guest
Cast

Flip
Wilson
(Himself) was born in Jersey City, New Jersey as Clerow Wilson
Jr. in 1933.  He was a comedian and actor,
best known for his television appearances during the late 1960s and
1970s. In the early 1970s, Wilson hosted his own weekly variety
series, “The
Flip Wilson Show.”
The series earned Wilson a Golden
Globe and
two Emmy
Awards,
and at one point was the second highest rated show on network
television.
 Wilson
also won a Grammy
Award in
1970 for his comedy album “The
Devil Made Me Buy This Dress.”
In
January 1972, Time
magazine
featured Wilson’s image on its cover and named him “TV’s first
black superstar.” According to The
New York Times,
Wilson was “the first black entertainer to be the host of a
successful weekly variety show on network television.”  Wilson had
met Lucille Ball a year earlier on a Los Angeles broadcast of “The
Tonight Show” as well as an episode of “The Ed Sullivan Show.”
Perhaps Wilson’s greatest creation was the sassy Geraldine Jones,
whose catch phrase was “The
devil made me do it!” 
Wilson died in 1998.  

Kim
Hamilton
(Jane, Flip Wilson’s Secretary) did more than 60 television shows and
films during the 1960s and ‘70s alone.  She was in the film To Kill a
Mockingbird in 1962.  She made two appearances on “My Three Sons”
in 1963 and 1964 – both featuring William Frawley (Fred Mertz).
Hamilton has the distinction of being the first Black actress to
appear on TV’s “Days of Our Lives.” She also was seen on the
soaps “The Guiding Light” and “General Hospital.” Hamilton
died in 2013 at age 81.  

The
secretary’s first name is never spoken aloud.  Hamilton provides the DVD introduction to the episode. 

Starting
with this episode, Coby
Ruskin,
who had directed two previous episodes, becomes the regular director
of “Here’s Lucy” and will direct nearly all (65) future episodes.

20
years earlier, when "I Love Lucy” began, the word
‘pregnant’ could not be said on television, but is spoken freely in
this 1971 episode parody of 1860’s Civil War era – an ironic comment
on American censorship.

This
is the first episode of season 4 and the first without Desi Arnaz Jr.
as a regular cast member.  Despite
being the season premiere, Craig’s absence is not explained. Later in
the season we learn that that Craig is off at college.

Starting
with season 4, “Here’s Lucy” switches production studios from
Paramount to Universal.  

Starting
with this episode, “Here’s Lucy” aired one hour later (still on
Monday nights) and was no longer in competition with “Rowan and
Martin’s Laugh-In.” The show’s new lead-in was “My Three Sons”
starring Fred MacMurray, entering its 12th season on CBS.

This
episode also introduces a re-orchestrated and slightly faster theme
song. With the departure of her brother from the cast, Lucie Arnaz
now has a title screen to herself in the opening credits.  

This
episode was first aired on Mel Torme’s 51st birthday.  Torme played the role of Mel Tinker on several episodes of
“The Lucy Show.” 

Bob
Carroll, Jr. and Madelyn Davis return to the series’ rotation of
writers and the show is given a tremendous boost. Not only is
logic reintroduced into the storylines, but the relationships between
Lucy and her co-stars become more natural; Harry and Lucy begin to
show each other more affection; and Kim is allowed to mature out of
the typical teen stereotype. Unfortunately, the pair only contributes
a little over one-third of the Season Four scripts.

Although
it is never explicitly stated, Flip Wilson and his office are
preparing for his weekly television variety show.  

Between
the The
Three Musketeers
and Gone
With the Wind,
Flip Wilson spends the entire episode in costumes.  The
Three Musketeers
is
a historical
novel by Alexandre
Dumas.
Set
in 1625–28, it recounts the adventures of a young man named
d’Artagnan after he leaves home to travel to Paris, to join the
Musketeers
of the Guard.
Although d’Artagnan is not able to join this elite corps immediately,
he befriends the three most formidable musketeers of the age—Athos,
Porthos
and
Aramis—and
gets involved in affairs of the state and court. The novel was
filmed and staged dozens of times, with the most famous being a 1943
film starring Gene Kelly.  A 1935 version featured Lucille Ball in a
small, uncredited role.  

For
the small screen version Flip is rehearsing Rock Hudson is Anthos,
Andy Williams is Porthos, Flip says he is the ‘token’ musketeer.
Actually, he would be Aramis.  Hudson had appeared on a 1955 episode
of “I Love Lucy.”  To make Lucy prove she is not Andy Williams,
she sings the first three notes of “Moon River,” a song that
became Williams’ theme tune.  

On the telephone, Jane talks to someone named Mr. Rayfiel about taking some paperwork to mimeo.  Howard Rayfiel was a Production Executive for “Here’s Lucy” from 1970 to 1972.  

When Lucy returns to Wilson’s office in disguise as a Musketeer, Wilson thinks Lucy wants another autograph for trading purposes: two Flip Wilsons for one Bill Cosby.  Bill Cosby was another African American comedian who had great success in the late 1960’s and 1970’s.  

There is a record album standing up on the desk titled “The Devil Made Me Wear this Dress” by Geraldine Jones. This Flip Wilson comedy album was sold in 1970 and won a Grammy Award in the comedy category.   

Gone
with the Wind was
a historical novel written by Margaret Mitchell in 1936 but set in
the deep south during the Civil War. The book was translated into
one of the most famous films of all time in 1939 starring Clark Gable
as Rhett Butler and Vivian Leigh as Scarlett O’Hara. 

Prissy was
played by Butterfly McQueen and Melanie was played by Olivia de
Havilland. 

Like
most of the top actors in Hollywood, Lucille Ball had an audition for the role of Scarlett O’Hara.
Although Lucille Ball did not get cast, actors who did get roles in
the film and later worked with Lucille Ball included: George Reeves
(Superman, ILL), Olin Howland (Mr. Skinner, ILL), Irving Bacon (Mr.
Potter, ILL), Shep Houghton (HL), Alberto Morin (ILL), and Hans Moebus
(ILL & TLS).

Harry
has joined Encino Players, a little theatre troupe that has cast him
as Rhett Butler in a capsule stage version of Gone
With The Wind.
As the curtain goes up, the soundtrack plays the sweeping and iconic
“Tara’s Theme” from the film, which was written by Max Steiner.

Under
her cape Prissy has on an Abraham Lincoln t-shirt.  When Scarlet asks
if that’s a photograph of President Lincoln, Prissy replies “Well,
it ain’t Ray Charles!”  Ray
Charles
was a singer-songwriter who had great success during the 1960s.
While
he was with ABC, Charles became one of the first black musicians to
be granted artistic control by a mainstream record company.

In return for appearing on “Here’s Lucy,” Lucille Ball appeared on “Flip” (aka “The Flip Wilson Show”) in an episode that aired just three days after this “Here’s Lucy.”   

Lucille Ball’s protege Carol Burnett, who appeared frequently on “The Lucy Show” and “Here’s Lucy,” did a famous parody of Gone With The Wind in November 1976.  In the sketch titled “It Went with the Wind,” Carol played Starlet, Harvey Korman played Ratt Butler, Vicky Lawrence played Sissy, and Tim Conway played Brashley.  Not coincidentally, earlier in the month the film was shown for the first time on television.  

The
dress worn by Lucille Ball in the Gone
with the Wind
sketch was previously worn by her in episode “Lucy and Arthur
Godfrey (TLS S3;E23). It also appeared briefly during previous year
in "Lucy and  Carol Burnett” (S3;E22).

In
“Lucy Writes a Novel” (ILL S3;E24) Lucy Ricardo says “My
novel may turn out to be another ‘Gone with the Wind’!“  She
compares Ricky to Rhett Butler and herself to Scarlett O’Hara. 

Lucille
Ball not only got to play the role that went to Vivian Leigh, but she
also played Clark Gable (wearing a mask) during “Lucy Meets Harpo
Marx” (ILL S4;E28) to convince near-sighted Carolyn Appleby that
she hobnobbed with celebrities.

Kim Carter had a poster of Clark Gable on her bedroom wall in “Lucy and the Andrews Sisters” (S2;E6).  

“Lucy and Flip Go Legit” rates 4 Paper Hearts out of 5