Lucy’s PLANET OF THE APES

The Simian Citizens of the Lucyverse

During her long career on television, Lucille Ball worked with nearly every species of animal – but none more frequently than simians: monkeys, chimps, apes, gorillas, and even the rare (but fictional) gorboona!  

“The Amateur Hour” (1952) ~ Lucy says she’d babysit a baby gorilla for $5 an hour – but she hasn’t yet met the horrible Hudson twins!  Her words will come back to haunt her in future incarnations of the Lucy character. 

“Lucy Buys Westinghouse” (1958) ~ Desi Arnaz takes a Westinghouse representative on a tour of Desilu Studios (formerly RKO). At the props department Viv and Bill show off the model of Mighty Joe Young from the 1949 RKO film of the same name. 

In this promotional film for Westinghouse executives, however, they refer to it as King Kong, another RKO film about a huge gorilla made by the same creative team. Lucie Arnaz remembers playing with the model as a child when set loose at Desilu Studios to play. 

“Bilko’s Ape Man” (1959) ~ Lucille Ball guest stars in an 8-word cameo on “Sergeant Bilko” aka “The Phil Silvers Show”. In it, a fitness instructor is placed in Bilko’s platoon. To get rid of him (and to make some money) Bilko tries to get him cast in a Tarzan movie. Bilko tries to fix it so his man wins the Mr. Universe contest. First step: he hires a woman (Lucille Ball) to scream when his man goes on stage. When this fails, he dresses Private Doberman (Maurice Gosman) in a gorilla suit to fight his ‘Tarzan’. Colonel Hall (Paul Ford) sees the ‘gorilla’ and soon has the whole camp hunting for him.

“Lucy and Viv Take Up Chemistry” (1963) ~  At night school chemistry class, Lucy gets carried away trying to invent a youth serum.

LUCY: “Shouldn’t we test it on a monkey first?” 

VIV: “If there’s one thing the world doesn’t need, it’s younger monkeys.”

“Lucy and the Monsters” (1965) ~ Lucy and Viv have a dream about monsters after seeing a horror movie. In the dream, the maid of a haunted house is a gorilla named Loretta, played by George Burrows. Burrows played a gorilla in his very first screen credit, Tarzan and His Mate (1934). He donned the gorilla suit 18 more times from 1954 to 1978. His final simian character was on “The Incredible Hulk.”

“Lucy and Art Linkletter” (1966) ~ Lucy is picked from Art Linkletter’s studio audience and challenged not to utter a sound for 24 hours to win $200. Linkletter arranges for various shocking events to occur at her apartment to get her to speak, including the attack of a giant gorilla named Hilda. George Burrows returns to play Hilda. 

“Lucy and the Monkey” (1966) ~ Mary Jane warns an over-worked and over-tired Lucy that she could start having hallucinations. Meanwhile, Mr. Mooney gets a visit from his old college friend who has a monkey for a show business partner. Lucy sees the monkey and thinks it is Mr. Mooney!

Janos Prohaska played Max the Monkey. He was an actor, stunt man, and animal imitator who is probably best remembered as the talking cookie-mad bear on “The Andy Williams Show” (1969), although due to his thick Hungarian accent, his voice was dubbed. 

He returned to play animals in three episodes of “Here’s Lucy.” Prohaska died in a plane crash in 1974.

“Lucy Goes to a Hollywood Premiere” (1966) ~ On the red carpet posing as an usher, Lucy meets a variety of clelebrities, including Mimi Van Tyson (Beverly Powers) and Coconuts Mulligan (George Barrows), stars of the movie “Love in the Jungle”.  This is Barrows’ third and final female gorilla on the series. 

Coconuts goes rogue when she sees Lucy’s yellow autograph book and thinks it is a banana! 

“Lucy the Babysitter” (1967) ~ Lucy takes a job as a babysitter not knowing that they are baby chimps!  They are played by The Marquis Chimps.

The rambunctious chimps tire out Lucy with their antics. Lucille Ball was forced to improvise based on the behavior of the chimpanzees. 

The Marquis Chimps began appearing on television in 1955. They appeared in several TV commercials and on “The Ed Sullivan Show.”  The chimps were the stars of the sitcom “The Hathaways” (1961-62) in which a suburban couple kept three performing chimps as their children. The program lasted just one season on ABC. The act’s last TV appearance was in 1976.

One of the toys in the chimp’s bedroom is Clancy the Great, a plastic-cast roller skating monkey, not unlike the Marquis Chimps, who also roller skate. Clancy had pose-able arms and a removable cap to accept tips! It was manufactured by Ideal Toys in 1963.

“Viv Visits Lucy” (1967) ~ On the Sunset Strip, Lucy and Viv track down a wayward Danfield boy to a hipster club named The Hairy Ape. 

“Lucy Gets Jack Benny’s Account” (1967) ~ Lucy sets out to convince notorious miser Jack Benny to become a depositor at the bank. But first, they have to build a vault secure enough to satisfy Benny. One of the extreme methods of guarding the vault is Irving the Gorilla (who is managed by Benny). Although the actor inside the gorilla costume goes uncredited, it may be inhabited by George Barrows. 

“Lucy’s Safari” (1968) ~ When a rare ‘Gorboona’ escapes from The Topanga Zoo, the Carters help a big game hunter (Howard Keel) trap him.

A ‘gorboona’ is a rare, nearly extinct, cross between a GORilla and a baBOON. Janos Prohaska returns to play the Gorboona.

“Lucy, the Helpful Mother” (1969) ~ Kim and Craig babysit for an entire pet shop – transporting all the residents to Lucy’s living room – including Irving, a baby chimpanzee. 

Lucy sings a lullaby to the chimp:

“Rock-a-bye Irving

Hark to my chant.

You’re kinda cute

But you’re no Cary Grant.”

“Lucy and Viv Visit Tijuana” (1970) ~ Lucy, Harry and Vivian go sightseeing in Tijuana, but are stopped at the border after agreeing to take back a plush monkey that turns out to be carrying contraband!  

“Lucy Cuts Vincent’s Price” (1970) ~ Lucy visits horror maestro Price to get a painting appraised and he thinks she is auditioning for a part in his new horror film. This monkey corpse is one of the most unusual props in the mansion – if not all of the Lucyverse!

“Lucy and the Raffle” (1971) ~ At the permit bureau, a stone-faced woman at the back of the line (Jody Gilbert) gets snide with Lucy.

LUCY: “Thank you, Mrs. Kong. Give my regards to your son, King.”  

King Kong (1933) was a Hollywood film about a giant gorilla that attacked Manhattan.  A sequel titled Son of Kong was released that same year. 

“Lucy in the Jungle” (1971) ~ The Carters swap houses with a couple from the African jungle. The house comes with pets Fido and Rover – not dogs – but baby chimps. 

When Harry sees Fido and Rover, he reminds Lucy and Kim that King Kong started out as a baby, too! Fay Wray, one of the stars of the original film, also made The Bowery that same year, which was the uncredited screen debut of Lucille Ball.  

“Lucy’s Lucky Day” (1971) ~ Lucy goes on a TV game show and is challenged to teach an untrained chimpanzee to do a trick in order to win a thousand dollars. Jackie the Chimpanzee is the seventh chimpanzee to work with Lucille Ball on television.

Harry dresses up as a gorilla to try to coax Jackie into performing. In his DVD introduction to the episode, choreographer Jim Bates recalls that the chimpanzee only knew one trick – to cross its legs – so the entire routine was built around that. He also recalls that when Gale Gordon took off the gorilla head in the presence of the baby chimp, the chimp went into hysterics and had to be taken off set to calm down.  

Finally, on “Milky Way to Riches” Lucy, Harry, Kim, and Jackie perform “Tell Me, Pretty Maiden” written in 1899 for the musical Floradora. They finish with “Daisy Bell / Bicycle Built for Two.”

The Planet of the Apes franchise began as a 1963 sci fi novel by Pierre Boulle. Boulle was also responsible for The Bridge Over the River Kwaii in 1952, which was referenced in “Lucy’s Summer Vacation” (1959). The first Planet of the Apes film was made in 1968. It was followed by four sequels, a television series and an animated series, as well as a several film reboots. 

• Charleton Heston (Taylor) was mentioned in “Lucy Fights the System” (1974). 
• Roddy McDowell (Cornelius / Caesar / Galen) attended (uncredited) the “All Star Party for Lucille Ball” in 1984. 
• Claude Akins (Aldo) appeared on “I Love Lucy” (as the ‘Giant Native’) and “The Lucy Show” (as Lieutenant Finch).
• Ricardo Montalban (Armando) appeared as a Prince Hennepin on a 1972 episode of “Here’s Lucy.” 
• Victor Buono (”Beneath the Planet of the Apes”) appeared on a 1969 episode of “Here’s Lucy” as a suspected international spy. 
• Background players from the Lucyverse who appeared as humans or apes in some iteration of the franchise include: Jerry Maren, James Bacon, Jack Berle, Paul Bradley, Gail Bonney, James Gonzales, Shep Houghton, Arthur Tovey, James La Cava, Joyce Haber, Victor Romito, and Monty O’Grady.