LUCY AND JOE NAMATH

S5;E5
~ October 9, 1972

Directed
by Coby Ruskin ~ Written by Bob O’Brien

Synopsis

While
Craig is home from college and playing tennis, he is eyed by
quarterback Joe Namath for his potential as a football player.
First, however, they have to convince Lucy to give permission for
Craig to play the dangerous sport.

Regular
Cast

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

Guest
Cast

Desi
Arnaz Jr. (Craig
Cartrer) is the real-life son of Lucille Ball. His 1953 birth was
worked into the plot of “I Love Lucy” although Desi Jr. never
played the role of Little Ricky Ricardo. He did, however, appear on
the final half-hour episode of the series “The
Ricardos Dedicate a Statue” (ILL S6;E27) in
a crowd scene. He was occasionally seen as Billy Simmons and other
minor characters on “The Lucy Show.” At the time of filming
“Here’s Lucy” he was part of the band Dino Desi and Billy along
with Dean Martin Jr. and Billy Hinsche. Arnaz was married to actress
Linda Purl from 1980 until 1981. In 1987, Arnaz married Amy Laura
Bargiel. They lived in Boulder City, Nevada, with their daughter, and
own the Boulder Theatre, a cinema converted into a theatre and home
to the Boulder City Ballet Company. Amy died in 2005 after a long
battle with cancer. Desi Arnaz has a daughter, Julia.

This
is Craig’s first appearance since the end of season 3 in February
1971.

Joe
Namath
(Himself) born in 1943, Joe Namath was a record-setting and
award-winning professional football player. His career on the
gridiron began in 1965 with the Jets and ended 1977 with the Rams.
Nicknamed ‘Broadway Joe’, he also was an actor doing stage,
screen, and television commercials. He hosted “The Joe Namath
Show” (1969) and other television shows. Namath
appeared in summer
stock productions
of Damn
Yankees, Fiddler
on the Roof,
and Lil’
Abner,
and finally legitimized his nickname as a cast replacement in a New
York revival of The
Caine Mutiny Court Martial
in 1983.

Bob
Harks (Joe Namath’s Stand-In, uncredited) was seen in the
background of Mame
(1974). In 1970 he popped up on his first television show and was
seen in more than a dozen episodes of “Here’s Lucy.” He died at
age 83 in 2010.

Namath
tells Lucy his friends call him ‘Joseph’. Lucy says the papers
call him ‘Broadway Joe.’

Dick
Patterson
(Coach Hennessy) made his Broadway debut in David
Merrick’s Vintage
‘60,
and appeared in The
Billy Barnes People,
the national touring company of Bye
Bye Birdie, and
opposite Carol Burnett in Fade
Out, Fade In.
His last musical was Smile,
a spoof of beauty pageants. He was seen in “Lucy
Helps Danny Thomas” (TLS S4;E7).
This is the third of his four appearances on “Here’s Lucy.”

Coach
Hennessy was teammates and roommates with Joe Namath at the
University of Alabama.

Kenny
Endoso (Jimmy)
was a Hawaiian-born actor and stunt performer whose career began in
1967 and racked up hundreds of credits. He died in 2010.

The
voice of the TV announcer and the other college football players
(including one named Murphy) are uncredited.

This
episode was inspired by Lucille Ball’s appearance with Joe Namath on
“The
Super Comedy Bowl,”
a TV special aired the night before the January 1971 Super Bowl game,
although the segment was taped on November 23, 1970. In the sketch,
Lucille Ball played an ER nurse who ‘manhandles’ football player Joe
Namath after an accident. The sketch was written by Arnold Kane, who
remembers in his book, My
Meteoric Rise to Obscurity:

“Lucy
was a comedy genius. Namath was naturally frightened and nervous
about doing comedy but the thought of working with Lucy scared the
crap out of him.”

A
year later, Lucie Arnaz appeared on the second
“Super Comedy Bowl”
special, which was taped on November 22, 1971 and aired January 12,
1972. Lucie’s comedy partner was football great Bubba Smith.

On
the episode’s DVD introduction and in The
Lucy Book
by
Geoffrey Mark Fidelman, Desi
Arnaz Jr. said:

“I
came back to the show after not being heard from for two years. I’m
sure for some of the viewers it was like, ‘Craig? Craig who?’ I was
hardly ever referred to in the show once I was gone.”

Arnaz is right to say that for the first part of season 4 his absence
went unexplained. He was finally mentioned in “Lucy’s Bonus
Bounces” (S4;E16), and several more times for the rest of season 4.

Coincidentally,
“Here’s Lucy’s” main competition during the 1972-73 season was
“Monday
Night Football” on ABC TV.
The night this episode first aired the Oakland Raiders bested the
Houston Oilers 34 to 0.

This episode aired on Columbus Day 1972. This was only the second time in US history that the federal holiday was celebrated on a Monday. Before 1971, the holiday was celebrated on October 12, no matter which day it fell on. Lucy Carter spoke about Christopher Columbus during the Secretary Beautiful Contest in “Lucy Competes with Carol Burnett” (S2;E24).

Namath put on his NY Jets uniform for publicity photos, but he never wears the famous #12 jersey during the actual episode.

This
episode is the fifth 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.

After
the show was over, Namath sent Lucille Ball an autographed football.

In
real life, Desi Arnaz Jr. was an avid tennis player, so writer Bob
O’Brien included that into the script.

At
the end of scene two, Namath vows to get Lucy to give Craig
permission to play or he’ll give her his mink
coat!
Joe Namath had long worn fur, even on the bench. Lucille Ball was
also a fan of furs – especially mink. In 2014 Namath caused an internet stir when he
appeared at the Super Bowl game wearing a fur jacket.

Harry
says back when he was playing college football for State he was known
as “Twinkle
Toes Carter.”
In
the stage musical about college life in “Lucy, the Co-Ed”
(S3;E6), Harry plays a football player for Bullwinkle University
nicknamed ‘Crazy Hips.’ Two episodes later, in
“Lucy’s
Wedding Party” (S3;E8), we again hear of Harry’s football career at
Bullwinkle State (BS).

Lucy
and Namath watch “The
National Football League’s Salute to the Quarterback”
on her TV.

Actual clips of Namath on the field for the New York Jets
(#12) are featured. Namath is delighted, but Lucy cringes at the physical violence.

For
the final scene on the field. Lucy’s golf cart wheelchair is back –
this time without the canopy that Harry destroyed at the end of
“Harrison Carter, Male Nurse” (S5;E3).

Namath
tells Craig that he should give up football and join some rock group.
This is an inside joke referring to Desi Arnaz Jr.’s own rock group
with Dino Martin and Billy Hinsche called Dino
Desi & Billy.

When
Harry dresses up in his college duds in “Lucy’s Wedding Party”
(S3;E8), Lucy tells him that he looks as handsome as Joe Namath!

Nearly
a decade earlier to the day, Desi Arnaz Jr. played pee-wee football…

and Lucie Arnaz looked on from the sidelines in a October 1962
episode of “The Lucy Show” where Lucy Carmichael referees her son Jerry’s game.

Professional sports
figures that have played themselves on “Lucy”
sitcoms:

Jockey
Johnny Longden – “I Love Lucy”
Golfer F.G. Bo Wininger – “The
Lucy Show”
Baseball
Player Jimmy Piersall (above) – “The Lucy Show”
Golfer Jimmy Demaret – “I Love Lucy” and “The Lucy
Show”

Football
players Johnny Unitas, Jim Brown, and Jimmy Phillips were all
mentioned (but not seen) in “Lucy is a Referee” (TLS S1;E3) in
1962. In his high school football uniform, Craig was compared by Kim
to football player Y.A. Tittle in “Lucy the Fixer” (S1;E14).

Character
Consistency! We
learned that Craig played High School football in 1969’s “Lucy the
Fixer” (S1;E14). It is never mentioned here. Lucy’s over-reaction
to the dangers of the sport in this episode, three years later, would
surely have been tempered by past experience.

Oops!
When
Harry goes to sit down next to Lucy, he accidentally knocks the chair
cushion to the floor and must retrieve it before sitting. This is
the second time this has happened to Gale Gordon.

One
Hand Clapping! After
Craig’s blustery exit speech in the first scene, exactly one person
in the studio audience gives Desi Arnaz Jr. a round of applause.
Ouch!

Age
Check!
Although the Coach and Namath were supposedly roommates and teammates
at college, Dick Patterson (Coach Hennessy) is actually 14 years older than Namath.