THE CARTERS MEET FRANKIE AVALON

S6;E11
~ November 19, 1973

Directed
by Coby Ruskin ~ Story by Fred S. Fox and Seaman Jacobs, Teleplay by
Bob O’Brien

Synopsis

Lucy,
Harry and Kim go to see Frankie Avalon perform and Kim is chosen from
the audience to sing with him on stage. This leads to her performing
in the nightclub’s talent competition as Cher, with Avalon as her
Sonny.

Regular
Cast

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

Guest
Cast

Frankie
Avalon (Himself)
was born in Philadelphia in 1939 as Francis Thomas Avallone. A
recording star and musician, Avalon’s movie career took off when
paired with Annette Funicello in Beach
Party (1963)
and its string of sequels. He played Teen Angel in Grease (1978) and
considers “Beauty School Dropout” to be his most popular song.
He
previously played Tommy Cheever (Bank president Mr. Cheever’s son) in
“Lucy and the Starmaker” (TLS S6;E4) on “The Lucy Show” in
1967.

Vic
Glazer (Vic,
Conductor / Pianist) enjoyed
a long career as an accomplished arranger, composer, pianist and
Music Director for many well-known entertainers, which included long
stints as Musical Director for Debbie Reynolds and Frankie Avalon. He
traveled the world for his work, and made two appearances at The
White House during the 1960s.

Sid
Gould (Maitre
D’) 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.

Jerry
Fogel (Mr.
Collins, Wilshire Room Entertainment Director and Emcee) is perhaps
best remembered as Jerry Buell on “The Mothers-in-Law” (1967-69),
produced by Desi Arnaz. He was also a semi-regular on “The White
Shadow” (1977-78) as Bill Donahue. This is his only appearance
with Lucille Ball.

Lucy
says his name aloud in the dialogue, although he is listed simply as
“M.C.” in the final credits.

Robert
Hogan (Jack
Lucas) played the Reverend Tom Winter on TV’s “Peyton Place”
(1968-69) and was
the inspiration for the naming of the title character on “Hogan’s
Heroes” (1965-71). His screen career began in 1961 and he
previously appeared as Captain Perry in “Lucy and the Astronauts”
(S4;E5).

Jack
is Avalon’s agent. Although his surname is never spoken in the
dialogue, it is listed in the final credits.

Bob
Whitney (Call
Boy) appeared with Lucille Ball in The
Facts of Life (1960).
This is the fourth of his five appearances on the series.

In
this context, a “Call Boy” is a person who gives the star his
“calls” (“10 minutes,” “5 minutes,” “You’re On.”)
while they are in their dressing room.

Bill
Lee
(Talent
Competition Singer) frequently
dubbed the singing voices of non-singing film actors such as John
Kerr in South
Pacific
(1958), Matt Mattox in Seven
Brides for Seven Brothers
(1954), and Christopher Plummer in The
Sound of Music
(1964). This is his last screen credit and one of his few on-camera
roles.

Marl
Young
(Talent Competition Conductor / Pianist, uncredited, above left) was the “Here’s
Lucy” musical director and often appeared on camera when episodes
included music.

Avalon brings his own musical director, Vic Glazer, for the first part of the show, his nightclub act, but “Here’s Lucy” musical director Marl Young takes over for the Talent Competition at the end.

Shirley
Anthony (Audience
Member, uncredited) makes the eighth of her 13 appearances of “Here’s
Lucy.”

As
the episodes opens (and the blue curtain in the title parts) Anthony is the very
first person on camera, sitting in profile.

George
Holmes (Audience
Member, uncredited) was previously glimpsed in the studio audience in
“Lucy and Art Linkletter” (TLS S6;E4). He also did three films
with Lucille Ball: The
Facts of Life
(1960), Critic’s
Choice
(1963) and Mame
(1974).

Other
audience members and the onstage musicians are played by uncredited
background performers.

This
is one of a very few episodes to have both a “story by” and
“written by” credit for the writers.

The
episode opens at the Wilshire Room nightclub where Avalon starts his
show with “It’s
Good to be Here”
written by Harold Karr and Matt Dubey for the 1956 Broadway musical
Happy
Hunting
starring Ethel Merman.

Bringing
Kim on stage, they sing “Can’t
Take My Eyes Off You”
to each other, a 1967 song
by Frankie
Valli and Bob Gaudio of The Four Seasons. The song earned a gold
record and
reached #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 for
a week. It is now part of the juke box musical Jersey
Boys (2005).

Avalon
says he has seven children (with another on the way) and is married.
He later says his wife’s name is Kay. Mrs. Avalon was born Kathryn
‘Kay’ Diebel. A former beauty contest winner, they were married in 1963.

The
band plays a brief fanfare based on “Hooray
for Hollywood,”
a song by
Richard A. Whiting first
featured in the 1937 film Hollywood
Hotel. It
launches the portion of Avalon’s show where he does impressions of
famous actors auditioning for the role of George
M. Cohan
in the film Yankee
Doodle Dandy.
Naturally, the audition song is “Yankee
Doodle Dandy,”
from
Cohan’s hit Broadway musical Little
Johnny Jones (1904).

Avalon
first does an impression of John
Wayne (1907-79),
who was a guest star on both “I Love Lucy” and “The Lucy Show.”

He then does his impression of Bela
Lugosi
(1882-1956) in which his idea of dancing is flapping his arms like
bat wings. Lugosi’s iconic character, Dracula, was humorously
presented on “The Lucy Show.” Finally, Avalon imitates
James
Cagney (1899-1986),
who actually played the role and earned an Academy Award for the
film. Kim did her own quick impression of Cagney during “The
Hollywood Unemployment Follies” (S3;E22).

When
Lucy says she has a son, Avalon wonders why he can’t play Sonny to
Kim’s Cher. Lucy explains that he is too tall. Ironically, Harry called Kim and Craig ‘Sonny and Cher’ in “Lucy Stops a Marriage” (S3;E16) three years earlier. Lucy never uses
Craig’s name, however, or mentions where he is.

Before
Avalon and Kim take the stage as Sonny and Cher in the talent
competition, an unnamed singer (Bill Lee) finishes up the last few
bars of “The
Impossible Dream,” a
song written by Mitch Leigh and Joe Darion for the 1965 Broadway
musical Man
of La Mancha,
which was filmed in 1972. The singer makes the applause meter hit
89.

Sonny
and Cher
were a pop
music duo,
actors, singers and entertainers made up of
husband-and-wife Sonny and Cher Bono
in the 1960s and 1970s. They also had two top ten TV
shows, “The
Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour” (1971-74) and The
Sonny & Cher Show (1976-77).
The couple’s career as a duo ended in 1975 following their divorce.
In the decade they spent together, Sonny and Cher sold over 40
million records worldwide. They had one child together, Chaz Bono,
who was born Chastity Sun Bono in 1969. Sonny Bono left show business
for politics and died after a skiing accident in 1989. Cher,
who has won an Oscar, Emmy, and Grammy, has continued her career as a
superstar solo act.

Cher and Lucille Ball appeared on an
Emmy-nominated special together in 1979.

Frankie
Avalon and Lucie Arnaz actually went to see a taping of “The Sonny
and Cher Comedy Hour” the week before they shot this episode in
order to get some pointers. Cher loaned Lucie the wig, the earrings, and a pair of her eyelashes for the episode.

Frankie
and Kim sing “I’ve
Got You Babe” written
by Sonny Bono in July 1965. The song became their signature song as a
duo. The original version spent
three weeks at #1 on the Billboard Hot
100 selling more
than 1 million copies and certified Gold. Avalon
and Arnaz sang to a prerecorded track.

Mid-song, ‘Sonny and Cher’ (aka Avalon and Arnaz) break into comic banter
just as they often did on their TV show. One joke references
“Gunsmoke,”
a TV western that aired just before “Here’s Lucy” on CBS. The
show was on television for two decades (1955-75), after two years on
radio. After two years on radio, Lucille Ball also moved to
television for a career that spanned from 1951 to 1986.

When
Kim and Avalon win the talent competition with a record-high score of
97, Avalon launches into a chorus of “Beach
Blanket Bingo” by
Guy Hemrik and Jerry Styner, written for the 1967 film of the same
name. Coincidentally, the film was written and directed by William
Asher, who also directed 102 episodes of “I Love Lucy.”

Frankie
Avalon played a young man who was torn between banking and singing in
“Lucy and the Starmaker” (TLS S6;E4) until Lucy Carmichael comes
to his rescue.

Cher’s
mother, model and actress Georgia Holt, was one of the two models
wearing the Jacques Marcel “potato sack” dresses in “Lucy Gets
a Paris Gown” (ILL S5;E20, inset). Ten years later, she modeled fur coats
for Lucy Carmichael in “Lucy and Pat Collins” (TLS S5;E11).

Distraction
Action!
Lucy keeps absentmindedly fiddling with the table card in the
Wilshire Room. She even starts gesturing with it in her hand.

Eye Catching! Not exactly a goof or a blooper, but sometimes production design can upstage the action, which is the case with this woman’s HUGE grey wig and this equally HUGE ceramic cat!

The crazy cat was first glimpsed in Flip Wilson’s office in “Lucy and Flip Go Legit” (HL S4;E1) and also (bottom photo) in Shirley MacLaine’s apartment in the Universal film Sweet Charity (1969).