LUCY AND ANDY GRIFFITH

S6;E8
~ October 29, 1973

Directed
by Coby Ruskin ~ Written by Robert O’Brien

Synopsis

When
Lucy meets a charismatic man (Andy Griffith) raising money for
underprivileged youth in the park, Kim decides to investigate to see
if he’s really who he says he is.  

Regular
Cast

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

Guest
Cast

Andy
Griffith
(Andy Johnson) was a former music teacher.  He began his screen
career in 1948 on variety shows hosted by Ed Sullivan and Steve
Allen.  In 1955 he was nominated for a Tony Award for his appearance
on Broadway in No
Time for Sergeants.
He also appeared in the 1958 film version of the play.  In 1960 he
appeared with Danny Thomas on “Make Room for Daddy” as Sheriff
Andy Taylor and the character was spun-off into his own series “The
Andy Griffith Show.”  He stayed with the show until 1968.  That
same year he appeared on “The Tennessee Ernie Ford Special” on
NBC with Lucille Ball.  He also appeared as Andy Taylor on two
episodes of “Gomer Pyle: USMC.” In 1971 he starred in “The New
Andy Griffith Show” which lasted only one season.  He had another
hit series in 1986 with “Matlock” which ran until 1995. Griffith
died in 2012 at age 86.

Sid
Gould
(Policeman) made
more than 45 appearances on “The Lucy Show,” all as background
characters. This is one of his nearly 50 episodes of “Here’s
Lucy.” Gould (born Sydney Greenfader) was Lucille Ball’s cousin
by marriage to Gary Morton.  

Randall
Carver
(Henry, left) began his career in 1969 and is best remembered as John Burns
on the first season of “Taxi” (1978-79). This is his only
appearance with Lucille Ball. He was 27 years old when he appeared
in this episode.

Rick
Kellman
(Jerry, above right) played Lucille Ball and Bob Hope’s son in the film Critic’s
Choice
in 1963. He started acting at age 6 and is best remembered for
playing Randy in “The Dennis O’Keefe Show” (1959-60) and Tommy in
“Our Man Higgins” (1962-63).  A year after this appearance on
“Here’s Lucy” he left show business.  

The
character’s name is not spoken aloud, just listed in the final
credits.

Hank
Stohl
(Bill Adams) began his career in 1959 and was the voice on the radio
on “The Waltons” from 1977 to 1980. This is his only appearance
with Lucille Ball.  

Bob
Whitney
(Stage Manager) appeared
with Lucille Ball in The
Facts of Life (1960).
This is the second of his five appearances on the series.

The
character has no lines. He tallies the donations on a chalk board at
the end of the episode.

Marl
Young
(Conductor) was the musical director for “Here’s Lucy” as well as
making several on-camera appearances when the shows included live
music.  

Vocalists:
Nancy
La Mar, Rosemary O’Brien, Dave Anderson Stuart, and
Marvin
Robinson

The
musicians and others in the park and restaurant are played by
uncredited background performers.

In
March 1965, Lucille Ball interviewed Andy Griffith for two
installments of her CBS radio show “Let’s Talk To Lucy” while he
was still playing Sheriff Andy Taylor on TV.  

Six
Degrees of Lucy!
Although none of Lucille Ball’s TV incarnations ever came face to
face with Sheriff Andy Taylor, they traveled in the same TV world:

• In
  1959, the year before Andy Taylor met Danny Williams on “Make Room
  for Daddy”, Danny Williams and family met Lucy Ricardo and family
  on a 1958 episode of “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour.”  
• Keith
  Thibodeaux, who played Lucy Ricardo’s son, Little Ricky, played
  Opie’s pal Johnny Paul Jason in 13 episodes of “The Andy Griffith
  Show” between 1962 and 1966.  
• Gomer
  Pyle, who lived in Mayberry, joined the Marines and was spun off in
  his own series “Gomer Pyle USMC” when he made a brief appearance
  on “The Lucy Show” in 1966.  
• “The
  Andy Griffith Show” had a sequel series titled “Mayberry RFD”
  starring Ken Berry, a protégé of Lucille Ball’s who had appeared on
  “The Lucy Show” in 1968.  

All
of these shows were filmed on the Desilu backlot (formerly RKO, later
Paramount).  

Don
Knotts, who played Andy Griffith’s bumbling sidekick Deputy Barney
Fife, guest starred in “Lucy Goes on Her Last Blind Date”
(S5;E6). Some other “Lucy” actors who frequently showed up in
Mayberry include Hal Smith, Parley Baer, Norman Leavitt, Amzie
Strickland, Dub Taylor, Stanley Farrar, Will Wright, Herbie Faye,
Jonathan Hole, Byron Foulger, Tol Avery, Reta Shaw, Lurene Tuttle,
Ruth McDevitt, Ruta Lee, Jay Novello, Ross Elliot, Maxine Semon, Herb
Vigran, and Sid Melton.

There
are some very basic similarities between “The Lucy Show” and “The
Andy Griffith Show.” 

• Both Griffith and Ball used their own first
  names, which consist of four letters ending in ‘y’ and also
  appear in the title. 
• Both characters have spouses that died before
  the series’ begins. 
• Both have children and faithful sidekicks. 
• Both
  started filming in black and white and eventually aired in color. 
• Both shows ended in early 1968 only to be re-born in the fall as
  newly-titled shows: “Here’s Lucy” and “Mayberry RFD.”  

The
Christian overtones in this episode are unusual for this series. A
few weeks earlier Kim jokingly said that they missed church on
Sunday!

When
Lucy and Andy are in the same shot together it becomes visibly clear
that Lucille Ball is being filmed by a camera with a filtered lens to
soften her look, while the other camera remains unfiltered. The
contrast is especially noticeable when Lucy is standing next to Andy
in the motel room and goes in and out of soft focus depending on
which camera angle is used.

The
show opens with Andy and his back-up singers performing “I’ll
Fly Away”
by Albert E. Brumley. First published in 1932 it has been called the
most recorded Gospel song of all time.
Andy passes the hat for donations for his Right Path Youth Camp in
Northern California – only getting thirty eight cents.

At
a local restaurant, Andy Johnson tells Lucy that after he came out of
the service he became a Sheriff. Lucy responds with disbelief: “A
Sheriff!”
Although he had left the role of Sheriff Taylor in 1969,
Griffith would play him again in the 1986 TV movie “Return to
Mayberry.” He would play another Sheriff on “Adams of Eagle
Lake,” a 1975 police drama that lasted just two episodes on ABC. The two episodes were later issued on DVD under the titles “Deadly Game” and “Winter Kill.”  

Andy
tells Lucy his fiancee Alice ran off with his best man Charlie.

Dressed
in her downmarket blue jeans, Kim says “What
do I look like? Jackie Onassis.” Jacqueline
Lee Bouvier Kennedy Onassis (1929-94)
was first mentioned in “Lucy Visits the White House” (TLS S1;E25)
in 1963, when she was First Lady of the United States. She married
Greek millionaire Aristotle Onassis in 1968.  

On
Bill Adams’ TV show, Andy and his singers perform “I’m
Gonna Write a Song”
by Jerry Reed and released in 1973. They raise $464.00 for the Right
Path Youth Camp – quite a step up from their initial take of thirty
eight cents!

The
TV camera is labeled ‘KBEX COLOR.’  KBEX were
the call letters for fictional TV and radio stations. They were used
in many TV shows and films, including in Desilu’s “Mannix” and
“Mission: Impossible.”  They were first used on “Here’s Lucy”
in “Lucy
Is Really in a Pickle” (S5;E15) and most recently in “Lucy,
the Wealthy Widow” (S6;E4). Starting
in 2005, the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) started using
KBEX for actual broadcast stations.
Similarly, the 555
telephone exchange is used exclusively for fictional numbers seen in
films and television.  Here, the telethon number on the chalkboard is
555-8732.  

Lucy
Ricardo also meet a charity organization in a public park in “Lucy’s
Last Birthday” (ILL S2;E25). They were called The Friends of the
Friendless.  

Recycling!

The exterior plaza where Andy sings in the first scene is the same
one used for the gallery courtyard in “Lucy and Danny Thomas”
(S6;E1). The red booth in the restaurant also makes the rounds.  It
has been seen many different restaurants throughout the series.  

Character
Consistency!
Lucy says that Kim works for a talent agency.  In “Kim Cuts
You-Know-Whose Apron String” (S3;E24) she said she worked for a
Public Relations firm.

“Lucy and Andy Griffith” rates 1 Paper Heart out of 5 

This
is an unusual and awkward episode – not funny or serious. The
chemistry between Andy and Lucy is given short shrift in favor of
Kim’s suspicions about his veracity.  When she allows Andy (an older,
single man from out of town) to bring her to his run-down motel room
things just get weird. Then he turns her over his knee and spanks
her with his slipper, and things turn from weird to uncomfortable. This sort of thing might have passed for funny in 1953, but not in
1973. She leaves the room through a window (luckily they were on the
first floor) after writing on the mirror in shaving cream “You are
a nice man.”  Huh? There’s also an undertone of religion (gospel
songs, mentions of ‘the Lord’), something that Lucy meticulously
avoided throughout her television career. The only exception to this
unpleasantness is the brief scene where Lucy schools Andy in how to
relax on television. This must have been something that Lucille Ball
did when coaching young actors as part of the Desilu Playhouse. There
are so many ways Andy Griffith could have been used on “Here’s
Lucy,” but this seems the least satisfactory showcase for his
talents.