THE DANNY KAYE SHOW

November
4, 1964 (S2;E7)

Directed
by Robert Scheerer

Written
by Sheldon Keller, Gary Belkin, Ernest Chambers, Larry Tucker, Paul
Mazursky, Billie Barnes, Ron Friedman, and Mel Tolkin

Choreographed by Tony Charmoli

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Danny
Kaye
(Himself) was
born David Kaminsky in 1911 and left school at the age of 13 to work
in the Borscht Belt of Jewish resorts in the Catskill Mountains. It
was there he learned the basics of show biz. In 1939, he made his
Broadway debut in Straw
Hat Revue,
but it was the stage production of the musical Lady
in the Dark in
1940 that brought him acclaim and notice from agents. Also in 1940,
he married Sylvia Fine, who went on to manage his career. She helped
create the routines and gags, and wrote most of the songs that he
performed. Danny could sing and dance like many others, but his
specialty was reciting tongue-twisting songs and monologues. In
1962 Lucille Ball guest-starred on his CBS TV program “The Danny
Kaye Show” and made a second appearance on the program in
1964. A month before, he had appeared as himself on “The Lucy
Show.”  The
two redheads appeared together on variety and tribute shows from 1965 to 1986,
a year before his death from heart failure.

Lucille
Ball (Herself
) was born on August 6, 1911 in Jamestown, New York. She began her
screen career in 1933 and was known in Hollywood as ‘Queen of the
B’s’ due to her many appearances in ‘B’ movies. With Richard
Denning, she starred in a radio program titled “My Favorite
Husband” which eventually led to the creation of “I Love Lucy,”
a television situation comedy in which she co-starred with her
real-life husband, Latin bandleader Desi Arnaz. The program was
phenomenally successful, allowing the couple to purchase what was
once RKO Studios, re-naming it Desilu. When the show ended in 1960
(in an hour-long format known as “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour”) so
did Lucy and Desi’s marriage. In 1962, hoping to keep Desilu
financially solvent, Lucy returned to the sitcom format with “The
Lucy Show,” which lasted six seasons. She followed that with a
similar sitcom “Here’s Lucy” co-starring with her real-life
children, Lucie and Desi Jr., as well as Gale Gordon, who had joined
the cast of “The Lucy Show” during season two. Before her death
in 1989, Lucy made one more attempt at a sitcom with “Life With
Lucy,” also with Gordon, which was not a success and was canceled
after just 13 episodes. 

John
Gary
(Himself) was
one
of RCA’s top popular artists during the 1960s, and very much liked
and respected as a performer. His many best-selling albums (“Catch
a Rising Star,” “So Tenderly,” “A Little Bit of
Heaven”) are still treasured by fans. 

George
‘Red’ Callender (Double
Bass) was a songwriter
(“Primrose Lane,” “Pastel”), composer, conductor,
arranger, and musician who performed as bassist within Louis
Armstrong, Benny
Goodman, Nat
‘King’ Cole and Lester
Young.
Starting in the early 1950s, Callender was a much in demand studio
musician, both on bass and on tuba. He appeared on many television
programs and made many records.

Earl
Brown
(Himself) was choral director for “The Danny Kaye Show” and also
wrote special musical material for the series. This is the first time
he has appeared on camera. Kaye jokingly says Brown should go on a
diet!  

The
Skylarks (Themselves)
were regular performers on “The Colgate Comedy Hour” (1950-54)
and “The Dinah Shore Chevy Show” (1956-58).  

The
Notables
(Themselves) had appeared on screen singing in Arizona
Cyclone
and Babes
on Broadway
(both 1941) as well as Down
Missouri Way
in 1946.

Musicians
listed in the final credits, but not seen on camera:

Sammy
Prager
(Pianist) was Kaye’s accompanist on many of his TV and stage shows.

Sidney
Kaye
(Drummer) is not related to Danny Kaye, but he was Kaye’s drummer on
many of his TV and stage shows.

Buddy
Collette
(Woodwinds) was a composer,
author, songwriter, conductor and flutist who led his own quintet in
Los Angeles. His songs include “Blue Sands,” “Santa
Monica,” “Soft Touch,” and “Room with Skies.”

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Director
Robert
Scheerer won
an Emmy Award for this season of “The Danny Kaye Show,” one of
several awards the show won that year. He would be honored with eight
more nominations during his long career. He died a month before this
writing, March 3, 2018. In
addition to its Emmy Awards, 1964 was also the year “The Danny Kaye
Show” won a Peabody Award, as well as a Golden Globe
Award for Best TV Show.

About the writers:

• Sheldon
  Keller
  later co-wrote Lucille Ball’s 1976 Special “What Now, Catherine
  Curtis?”.
• Gary
  Belkin
  co-wrote the first episode of “The Steve Lawrence Show” (1964)
  which guest-starred Lucille Ball.
• Ernest
  Chambers
  had co-written “The Danny Kaye Show” that Lucy had appeared on in
  1962.
• Paul
  Mazursky
  started out as a writer, and is now known as an actor and director,
  famous for such films as An
  Unmarried Women
  (1978), Harry
  & Tonto
  (1974) and Bob
  & Carol & Ted & Alice
  (1969). He received five Oscar nominations.  
• Billy
  Barnes
  was known as the ‘Revue Master of Hollywood’ in the 1950s and 1960s,
  creating the famous “Billy Barnes Revues”.
• Ron
  Friedman
  was one of the writers on “Lucy in London” (1966), an hour-long
  special that followed Lucy Carmichael across the pond.   
• Ron
  Tolkin
  had been nominated four times for an Emmy Award previous to this
  show. He finally won in 1966 for a Sid Caesar special.

Two
days before this “Danny Kaye Show” aired, “The Lucy Show”
aired “Lucy, the Meter Maid”
(TLS S3;E7).  

Following
this show, CBS aired the second of two episodes of “The Beverly
Hillbillies” set at Marineland. The first California-set episode of
“The Lucy Show” (TLS S4;E1) was also set at Marineland, as was a 1965
episode of “The Munsters.”  

This
show first aired the day after the United States presidential
election of 1964
on
Tuesday, November 3, 1964. Incumbent Democratic President Lyndon
B. Johnson defeated Barry Goldwater, the Republican nominee.

Danny
Kaye was mentioned in two episodes of “I Love Lucy”:

“Lucy
Meets the Queen” (ILL S5;E15) was
doubtless inspired by Danny Kaye’s November 1948 Command
performance for King George and Princess Elizabeth at the Palladium
Theatre. In fact, Kaye is referenced in this episode:

Lucy
(to the Bellboy): “Have
you ever seen the Queen?”
Bellboy:
“No,
ma’am. But I came frightful close during the coronation. I just
missed her. But I did catch a glimpse of him.”
Lucy:
“Philip?”
Bellboy:
“No,
ma’am. Danny
Kaye.”

In a
1959 episode of
“The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour” Lucy complains about how many meals
she’s cooked as a housewife:

Ricky
(reading
Variety): “It
says here that Danny
Kaye
is going to London to give another command performance for Queen
Elizabeth.”
Lucy:
“I
wonder what the Queen is cooking for Phil tonight?”

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To
open the show (before the opening credits), Danny Kaye sings “Slap
That Bass” accompanied
onstage by George ‘Red’ Callender. The song was written by George
and Ira Gershwin for the 1937 film Shall
We Dance.
It is now part of the score of the stage musical Crazy
For You.

Without
the use of costumes or scenery, Kaye and Lucille Ball perform a
sketch about a married couple (Emily and Harry) forced to fire a maid
named Brunhilde, who is monopolizing the care of their baby, Nancy.
Brunhilde is played by a shrill off-stage voice who only speaks
German. 

Lucy Ricardo faced this same dilemma in “Lucy Hires a Maid”
(ILL S2;E23) in 1953 when she had to fire the domineering Mrs.
Porter (Verna Felton).  

Kaye
introduces John Gary, who sings “Here
I’ll Stay.”
The song was written by Kurt Weill and Alan J. Lerner for the 1948
Broadway musical Love
Life.
Gary then sings the folk song “Red
Rosy Bush”
accompanying himself on guitar. He duets with Kaye on “Way
Back Home” a
song by Tom Waring and Al Lewis. It was made famous by Bing Crosby,
which Kaye and Gary acknowledge in their introduction. During Kaye’s
brief banter with Gary, there is an offstage noise that Kaye quickly
acknowledges.  

Danny
Kaye and Lucille Ball perform “The
Balloonists” which
includes strains of “Hold
That Tiger” and
“The
Blue Danube.” 

Lucy
and Kaye make various playful noises with the balloons as they sing
and dance, ultimately popping every balloon on the stage.

Introducing
their next sketch, Lucy says she is looking forward to having Kaye
appear on her show in a few weeks time. She is referring to “Lucy
Meets Danny Kaye” (TLS S3;E15). 

Kaye also reminds her of when she
guest starred on his 1962 Special.  

The
next sketch (this time with elaborate costuming and sets) imagines
what would happen if a snowstorm kept all but two actors in a
traveling troupe from arriving at the theatre to perform their
Victorian melodrama, “Love Has Nine Lives.” It turns into a
quick change act for the two actors as Lucy and Kaye run on and
offstage trying to cover all the characters in the play.  

Lucy and
Kaye play:

• Lady
  Cecily Hunt
• Lord
  Cyril Hunt
• Sophia,
  their Italian upstairs maid
• MacIntosh,
  their Scottish butler
• Count
  Sidney Von Zeppelin, Cecily’s German paramour
• Inspector
  Fu Sheng, an Asian detective

During
the sketch, Kaye slips and calls Lady Cecily ‘Emily,’ but quickly
corrects himself. There are also lots of microphone boom shadows on
the set. Lucy’s mustache keeps falling off during the sketch, and
sometimes Ball and Kaye start to laugh, but it is all in keeping with the farcical premise of the sketch.  

Lady
Cecily
(dismissing her butler): “Thank
you, MacIntosh, that’s a good apple.”

Meanwhile,
Sidney and Sophia are planning to kill off Lord and Lady Hunt.

Sidney
(to
Sophia): “Zen
we will be ze masters of Hunt’s Hall.”   

‘Huntz’
Hall (1920-99)
was an actor best known for his roles in the Dead
End Kids
movies, which gave way to the Bowery
Boys
franchise, a highly successful series of comedies in the 1940s and
1950s. Hall
and Kaye appeared together in the Oscar-winning 1945 film
Wonder Man.

The
sketch ends with Lucy and Kaye both in drag!  

As himself, Kaye comes
onstage and tells the audience that as chaotic as it appeared onstage
during the sketch, it was even more so backstage. He then plays some
backstage footage of the rehearsal. In 1982, English playwright
Michael Frayn would also use this premise for his stage play Noises
Off,
which was filmed in 1992 starring Lucy’s friend Carol Burnett.  

Kaye
introduces his choral director
Earl Brown,
who has re-assembled two famous close-harmony quintets, The Skylarks and The
Notables, to perform a medley with Kaye.  

Danny
Kaye and The Notables perform “Pennies
from Heaven”
by Arthur
Johnston and
Johnny
Burke.
It was introduced by Bing
Crosby in
the 1936 film
of the same name. 

With The Skylarks, Kaye performs “Nevertheless
(I’m In Love With You)”
by Harry
Ruby and Bert
Kalmar,
first published in 1931.

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This
Date in Lucy History
– November 4th

“Lucy
Goes Duck Hunting”
(TLS S2;E6) – November 4, 1963

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