GEORGE IS MESSY (aka THE COOPER PIG PEN)

June 4, 1950

“George is Messy” (aka “The Cooper Pig Pen”) is episode #91 of the radio series MY FAVORITE HUSBAND broadcast on June 4, 1950. 

Synopsis ~ Liz is fed up with George’s messy habits around the house, so she draws a line down the middle of the living room and divides the house in two -her half and half his.

It served as the basis for “Men Are Messy” (ILL S1;E8) of “I Love Lucy” filmed on October 21, 1951 aired on December 3, 1951 on CBS TV. 

Main Cast

Lucille Ball (Liz Cooper)

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.

Richard Denning (George Cooper) was born as Louis Albert Heindrich Denninger Jr., in Poughkeepsie, New York. When he was 18 months old, his family moved to Los Angeles. Plans called for him to take over his father’s garment manufacturing business, but he developed an interest in acting. Denning enlisted in the US Navy during World War II. He is best known for his  roles in various science fiction and horror films of the 1950s. Although he teamed with Lucille Ball on radio in “My Favorite Husband,” the two never acted together on screen. While “I Love Lucy” was on the air, he was seen on another CBS TV series, “Mr. & Mrs. North.”  From 1968 to 1980 he played the Governor on “Hawaii 5-0″, his final role.  He died in 1998 at age 84. 

Bea Benadaret (Iris Atterbury) was considered the front-runner to be cast as Ethel Mertz but when “I Love Lucy” was ready to start production she was already playing a similar role on TV’s “The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show” so Vivian Vance was cast instead. On “I Love Lucy” she was cast as Lucy Ricarodo’s spinster neighbor, Miss Lewis, in “Lucy Plays Cupid” (ILL S1;E15) in early 1952. Later, she was a success in her own show, “Petticoat Junction” as Shady Rest Hotel proprietress Kate Bradley. She starred in the series until her death in 1968.

Gale Gordon (Rudy Atterbury) had worked with Lucille Ball on “The Wonder Show” on radio in 1938. One of the front-runners to play Fred Mertz on “I Love Lucy,” he eventually played Alvin Littlefield, owner of the Tropicana, during two episodes in 1952. After playing a Judge in an episode of “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour” in 1958, he would re-team with Lucy for all of her subsequent series’: as Theodore J. Mooney in ”The Lucy Show”; as Harrison Otis Carter in “Here’s Lucy”; and as Curtis McGibbon on "Life with Lucy.” Gordon died in 1995 at the age of 89.

Bob LeMond (Announcer) also served as the announcer for the pilot episode of “I Love Lucy”. When the long-lost pilot was finally discovered in 1990, a few moments of the opening narration were damaged and lost, so LeMond – fifty years later – recreated the narration for the CBS special and subsequent DVD release. 

Ruth Perrott (Katie, the Maid) was also later seen on “I Love Lucy.” She first played Mrs. Pomerantz (above right), a member of the surprise investigating committee for the Society Matrons League in “Pioneer Women” (ILL S1;E25), as one of the member of the Wednesday Afternoon Fine Arts League in “Lucy and Ethel Buy the Same Dress” (ILL S3;E3), and also played a nurse when “Lucy Goes to the Hospital” (ILL S2;E16). She died in 1996 at the age of 96. 

There is also a maid in “Men Are Messy,” but she works at the Tropicana Club. Her name is Maggie and she is played (gloriously) by Hazel Sunny Boyne. 

Guest Cast

Eleanor Audley (Leaticia Cooper, George’s Mother) would later play Eleanor Spalding, owner of the Westport home the Ricardos buy in “Lucy Wants To Move to the Country” (ILL S6;E15) in 1957, as well as one of the Garden Club judges in “Lucy Raises Tulips” (ILL S6;E26). 

Doris Singleton (Grace Davis, Magazine Writer) created the role of Caroline Appleby on “I Love Lucy,” although she was known as Lillian Appleby in the first of her ten appearances. She made two appearances on “The Lucy Show.” and four appearances on “Here’s Lucy.”     

The character’s first name, Grace, was recycled on “I Love Lucy” for Grace Foster and Grace Munson. Her surname, Martin, would be the same as the episode’s writer, Madelyn Pugh, in five years time, when she married Quinn Martin in 1955. 

Harry Bartell (A Drunk) made three appearances on “I Love Lucy,” including as the headwaiter at the Hollywood Brown Derby in “Hollywood at Last!” (S4;E16) in 1955.  

“My Favorite Husband” was based on the novels Mr. and Mrs. Cugat, the Record of a Happy Marriage (1940) and Outside Eden (1945) by Isabel Scott Rorick, which had previously been adapted into the film Are Husbands Necessary? (1942). “My Favorite Husband” was first broadcast as a one-time special on July 5, 1948. Lucille Ball and Lee Bowman played the characters of Liz and George Cugat, and a positive response to this broadcast convinced CBS to launch “My Favorite Husband” as a series. Bowman was not available Richard Denning was cast as George. On January 7, 1949, confusion with bandleader Xavier Cugat prompted a name change to Cooper. On this same episode Jell-O became its sponsor. A total of 124 episodes of the program aired from July 23, 1948 through March 31, 1951. After about ten episodes had been written, writers Fox and Davenport departed and three new writers took over – Bob Carroll, Jr., Madelyn Pugh, and head writer/producer Jess Oppenheimer. In March 1949 Gale Gordon took over the existing role of George’s boss, Rudolph Atterbury, and Bea Benaderet was added as his wife, Iris.

CBS brought “My Favorite Husband” to television in 1953, starring Joan Caulfield and Barry Nelson as Liz and George Coope.  The television version ran two-and-a-half seasons, from September 1953 through December 1955, running concurrently with “I Love Lucy.” It was produced live at CBS Television City for most of its run, until switching to film for a truncated third season filmed (ironically) at Desilu and recasting Liz Cooper with Vanessa Brown. 

LIZ: “I might as well give up and admit I’m married to a mess-cat.”
GEORGE: “What’s a ‘mess-cat’?”
LIZ: “I dunno. But if they ever look for one, you’re the large economy size.”

The unusual expression also is mentioned in “Men Are Messy,” but it seems understood that Ricky knows the term. 

LUCY: "Men are nothing but a bunch of mess-cats!”

Perhaps a more fitting title for the TV episode might have been “Men are Mess-Cats”?  The radio installment is also known as “The Cooper Pig Pen.” 

The old axiom “a man’s home is his castle” is used in both scripts. The saying dates back to the writings of Cicero in pre-Christ Rome, and later is found in writings of Briton William Blackstone in 1765: On radio: 

MOTHER COOPER: “A man’s home is his castle.”
LIZ: “Well, he ought to learn how to pick up his drawbridge once in a while.” 

On television: 

RICKY: “A man’s home is his castle, and this is my castle.”
LUCY: “Oh, alright, your majesty. I bow to Ricardo the First, King of the Slobs!”

George mentions President and Mrs. Truman. Harry and Bess Truman were in the White House from 1947 until 1953.  George even mentions their daughter, Margaret, who would have been 26 years old at the time. 

Two years later, Harry and Bess will be mentioned by Lucy Ricardo in “Ricky Asks For a Raise” (ILL S1;E35, above) when Lucy plots to fill the Tropicana with guests who will not show up to see Ricky’s replacement, Xavier Valdez:

LUCY: “Harry and Bess Truman got the last table.”

Liz would like to find her home in upscale magazines like Young Homemakers, but she laments that as it is, it would probably only be suitable for Better Homes and Garbage. Liz is punning on the name of Better Homes and Gardens, a real life magazine that started in 1922. The joke was so good that the writers couldn’t resist incorporating it into “Men Are Messy”:

RICKY: “My press agent told me I was going to get the next spread [in Half-Beat Magazine]. It was going to be ‘Ricky Ricardo at Home’.”
LUCY: “What magazine was it supposed to be in? Better Homes and Garbage?”

In “Redecorating the Mertzes Apartment” (ILLS3;E8), Lucy gets the idea for the painting party from the October 1953 edition of Better Homes and Gardens. It gets plenty of airtime here because the writers felt they owed it to the magazine after their ‘Better Homes and Garbage’ joke.

LIZ (to Iris): “We’re spending Sunday afternoon with the Slobbsey Twins.”

Liz is punning on the title of the children’s books, The Bobbsey Twins. There were 72 books in all, the first appearing in 1904 and the last in 1979. 

In 1953’s “The Camping Trip” (ILL S2;E29) Ethel referred to Lucy and Ricky as the Bobbsey Twins. In “No More Double Dates” (TLS S1;E21) they are mentioned again. 

Liz’s plan to teach George a lesson differs from Lucy’s. Liz will invite her fastidious mother-in-law to dinner, but Lucy’s plan revolves around a magazine photographer. Things don’t go quite how Liz planned. 

LIZ: “Apparently blood is thicker than dust.” 

While George and Mother Cooper nip out to the train station to pick up magazine writer Grace Davis, Liz makes the living room into a pig sty to teach George a lesson.

LIZ: “Watch out for that long-underwear, I got my head caught once…” 

On television, this image is brought to life with the help of Lucy’s partner-in-crime, Ethel Mertz (Vivian Vance). 

Liz agrees to Grace writing a story for her magazine, and even taking some photographs.  

On radio, Liz describes the clothesline that Grace and Mother Cooper must duck under to enter the room; on TV, Ricky and the photographer (Harry Shannon) just do it! 

Lucy has even populated the living room with ashcans and live chickens, things also mentioned on radio.  

To Liz’s dismay, it turns out that Grace is editor of Young Homemaker’s Magazine, the very periodical Liz wanted her home to be featured in! 

On television, Lucy thought the photographer was from Ricky’s music magazine, Half Beat, when he was from the prestigious national publication, Look!  

Curiously, both Young Homemakers and Half Beat are similar (but not exact) titles of real-life magazines: Living For Young Homemakers and Down Beat. 

LIVE COMMERCIAL SKETCH

At the time, sponsor General Foods’ Jell-O Puddings only came in three flavors: Vanilla, Chocolate, and Butterscotch. The episode ends with a live Jell-O commercial where Lucy plays a lady scientist and announcer Bob LeMond her assistant.  Lucy calls for scientific music from the maestro, Wilbur Hatch, who also did music for “I Love Lucy.” Lucy’s Lady Scientist voice is similar to the one she would adopt as Isabella Klump in the Aunt Martha’s Old Fashioned Salad Dressing TV commercial in “The Million Dollar Idea.” 

LADY SCIENTIST: “Many’s the night I burned my Bunson at both ends.”

The scientist is disappointed to learn that her invention, Jello-O puddings, has already been invented. 

A final tag between Liz and George in bed, has George suffering from the hiccups and Liz trying to scare him out of them by saying she is going to buy a new mink coat!  They say goodnight to each other and us!   

Announcer Bob LeMond adds:

“Watch for Lucille Ball in ‘Fancy Pants’ with Bob Hope!”

Fancy Pants was a musical adaptation of Ruggles of Red Gap that premiered on July 19, 1950. It was the second of four films Ball and Hope did together. 

A short commercial for Sugar Crisp Cereal (another General Foods product) is followed, for the third time, by the Jell-O jingle:

J – E – L – L – Oh! 
The big red letters stand for the JELLO family. 
Oh, the big red letters stand for the JELLO family. 
That’s JELLO – yum, yum, yum!
JELLO puddings – yum, yum, yum!  
JELLO tap – ioca puddings, yes siree!

The General Foods Company and Jell-O returned to sponsor “The Lucy Show” in 1962.