HARRISON CARTER, MALE NURSE

S5;E3
~ September 25, 1972

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

Synopsis

Lucy
finally comes home from the hospital to be cared for by her friends
and family. But when everyone but Harry has an excuse for canceling
their shift, Harry ends up becoming her full time nursemaid!

Regular
Cast

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

Guest
Cast

Mary
Jane Croft (Mary
Jane) played Betty Ramsey during season six of “I Love Lucy. ”
She also played Cynthia Harcourt in “Lucy
is Envious” (ILL S3;E23) and
Evelyn Bigsby in “Return
Home from Europe” (ILL S5;E26).
She played Audrey Simmons on “The Lucy Show” but when Lucy
Carmichael moved to California, she played Mary Jane Lewis, the
actor’s married name and the same one she uses on all 31 of her
episodes of “Here’s Lucy. Her final acting credit was playing
Midge Bowser on “Lucy Calls the President” (1977). She died in
1999 at the age of 83.

Vanda
Barra (Vanda)
makes one of 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.” Barra was
Lucille Ball’s cousin-in-law by marriage to Sid Gould.

Sid
Gould (Sam)
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.

Unlike
everyone else in the episode, Sam is not given any responsibilities
for Lucy’s home care. The character is not addressed by name and does not
have any lines – although there is quite a bit of ad lib (and
indistinct) dialogue in the opening scene.

The
two hospital orderlies who bring Lucy home are uncredited.

Except for the two orderlies, this cast is basically the “Here’s Lucy” family. Indeed, except for Gale Gordon and Mary Jane Croft, some of them are actually relatives!

This is the third installment in the longest story arc (Lucy’s
broken leg) of the series. This storyline was dictated by the
fact that Lucille Ball actually broke her leg skiing, necessitating
scripts for the first half of season five be tailored to her being in
a cast.

The
date this episode first aired (September 25, 1972) Time
Magazine
published an issue that looked at new trends in television. Although not overtly stated in the magazine, it heralded a new form of topical comedy, much different from the sort that Lucille Ball was presenting, which was still much like it was in the 1950s.

Lucy
calls Harry “a perfect Florence Nightingale.” Florence
Nightingale (1820-1910)
came to be known as “The Lady with the Lamp.” She was a
pioneering nurse, writer, and noted medical statistician. She tended
wounded soldiers in the Crimean War and became an advocate for care
of the wounded soldier. Her name has become synonymous with
nursing worldwide.
An episode of “The Lucy Show” was titled “ Lucy
Plays Florence Nightingale” (TLS S2;E11) also written by
Madelyn
Davis (then Martin) and Bob Carroll Jr.

This
is the first time in season five that we have seen the Carter living
room. It now features a proper dining table, replacing the square
card table previously used for meals.

The
excuses given to Harry by Lucy’s other “nurses” are:

Kim’s car
transmission went out (again)
Vanda
has a bad cold
Mary
Jane has to go to Santa Barbara for work, a reminder that Mary Jane
works for a lawyer, a fact revealed in a previous episode

When
all the others can’t make it, Harry says “now
I know for whom the bell tolls” referring
to the hand bell he gave Lucy to alert someone that she needs help.
For
Whom the Bell Tolls is
a novel by Ernest
Hemingway published
in 1940.
It was filmed in 1943 and was seen on television in 1959 on CBS.

On
the bookshelf behind the bed there is a copy of A
Thousand Days,
a book about John F. Kennedy in the White House written by Arthur M.
Schlesinger first published in 1965 and winner of the Pultizer Prize.
On a 1963 episode of “The Lucy Show,” Lucy Carmichael and Vivian
Bagley took their cub scout troop on a trip to Washington DC to meet President Kennedy. An off-screen voice actor impersonated JFK
for the final scene.

When
Lucy complains that she doesn’t like drinking milk,
Harry says “Everybody
like milk. Pat Boone likes milk. Dear Abby likes milk. Vida Blue
likes milk.”

Dear Abby (aka Abigail Van Buren) was previously mentioned on “Lucy, the Superwoman” (TLS S4;E26) while Pat Boone’s first mention goes back to 1957′s “Country Club Dance” (ILL S6;E25) featuring Barbara Eden. This is baseball player Vida Blue’s first and only mention on a “Lucy” show.

Harry’s list of milk-loving celebrities comes from a very popular 1971 television and radio campaign by the California Milk Advisory Board “Every Body Needs Milk”
and its successor “Milk Has Something For Every Body.“ By late 1971 the
campaign also included Ray Bolger, Phyllis Diller, and Karen
Valentine.

While
trying to force Lucy to drink her milk, it spills all over Harry,
fulfilling the usual “Here’s Lucy” sight gag of Harry all wet.
This time with milk.

Lucy
asks Harry to play Scrabble, incorporating one of Lucille Ball’s
passions, word games. In the previous two episodes, she was seen
doing crossword puzzles. In 1974, Lucille Ball promoted a Milton
Bradley word game named Cross Up, with her photo on the box cover.

After
nine games of Scrabble, Lucy proposes she and Harry ‘chat.’ Lucy at
first proposes they talk about what water pollution is doing to our
ecological balance. Since neither are particularly well-versed on
the topic, they move on to books. Lucy asks Harry if he has read
David Niven’s The
Moon is a Balloon (no)
or Agatha Christie’s Nemesis
(no),
and Black
Beauty (yes,
but not all of it.)

Lucy
tells Harry the story of when she broke her arm bouncing on the bed
and when she sprained her ankle ice skating on Chautauqua Lake.
Chautauqua Lake (or Lake Chautauqua) is located adjacent to Jamestown
and Celoron, New York, where Lucille Ball actually grew up. The lake
was mentioned by Lucy Ricardo in “The Saxophone” (ILL S2;E2) when
she finds a small fish mounted on a large plaque that Ricky caught
while fishing there. Ethel
dubs it a “rainbow sardine.”

Harry
gets Lucy a modern wheelchair which looks and behaves like a
miniature golf cart. Lucy says it looks like “a surrey with the
fringe on top.” This is a reference to Rodgers and
Hammerstein’s musical Oklahoma!, which premiered on Broadway in 1943
and was filmed in 1954. In “Lucy Tells the Truth” (ILL S3;E6), Lucy Ricardo fibs that she was in Oklahoma! but then has to admit that she meant that she was in Tulsa once.

n Lucy’s bedroom, the camera briefly catches a framed black and white publicity photo of Lucy, Kim, and Craig in “Lucy and Ma Parker” (S3;E15).

The apron Harry wears was worn by Vivian Vance in “Lucy’s Contact Lenses” (TLS S3;E10) in 1964!

The
premise of a well-meaning care-giver being over-worked was previously
used in “Vivian Sues Lucy” (TLS S1;E10). Viv (Vivian Vance) is
confined to be after tripping on one of Lucy’s son’s toys. Like Lucy
Carter, Viv has a bell and her care-giver (Lucy) is run ragged up and
down the stairs bringing meals and fulfilling her every whim.

Character
Consistency!
This is the first time since the end of season 4 that we get a
glimpse into what is going on with Kim. In “Kim Cuts You Know-Whose
Apron Strings” (S4;E24), which was meant as a pilot for a possible
series starring Lucie Arnaz, Kim had moved into a Marina Del Rey
apartment and taken a job with a public relations company. The pilot
did not sell, so it appears that the writers have chosen to ignore
that episode and Kim is back at college. Her previous move to a
nearby garage apartment in “Kim Moves Out” (S4;E20) was also
never resolved.

Title Trouble! Lucy slightly mis-states the title of David Niven’s book. Lucy calls it The Moon IS a Balloon but the actual title is The Moon’s a Balloon. Small slip.