S1;E1
~ September 20, 1986

Directed
by Peter Baldwin ~ Written by Bob Carroll Jr. and Madelyn Martin

Synopsis

Widow
Lucy Barker moves in with her daughter, son-in-law, and two
grandchildren. She immediately clashes with her her brother-in-law
Curtis, with whom she is part-owner of a hardware store.

Regular
Cast

Lucille
Ball (Lucy
Barker)
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.

Gale
Gordon (Curtis
McGibbon)
was
said to be the highest paid radio artist of the 1930’s and was in
such demand that he often did two or more radio shows a day. His
professional collaboration with Lucille Ball started in 1938 as the
announcer of Jack Haley’s “The Wonder Show” (Wonder Bread was
their sponsor). He played Mr. Atterbury on Lucy’s “My Favorite
Husband” and was a front-runner for the part of Fred Mertz on “I
Love Lucy.” When scheduling prevented his participation, he
appeared as Mr. Littlefield, the Tropicana’s owner inntwoepisodes
of
the show. In addition to Mr. Littlefield, he played a Judge in “Lucy
Makes Room for Danny,”
a
1958 episode of “The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour.” “The Lucy Show”
solidified his partnership with Lucille Ball for the rest of their
careers. He went on to play Harrison Otis Carter in “Here’s
Lucy,” Omar Whittaker in “Lucy Calls The President,” and Curtis
McGibbon in “Life with Lucy.” He died in 1995 at the age of 89.

Ann
Dusenberry
(Margo Barker McGibbon) was born on September 13, 1953 in Tucson,
Arizona, two weeks before the start of the third season of “I Love
Lucy.”  In the film Jaws
2
(1978) she played Tina Wilcox, a victim of the great white shark. Her
screen acting career began in 1975 and ended in 1992.

Larry
Anderson
(Ted McGibbon) was born the same day the “I
Love Lucy” episode “The Saxophone” (ILL S2;E2) first aired.  He
started his career as a professional magician and and played himself
on the Bil Bixby series “The Magician” (1974), his screen debut.
He also played Harlan Ramsey on “Brothers and Sisters” (1979). He
recently appeared on “This is Us” (2017) and “Law & Order
True Crime” (2017). Larry
has hosted or been the ‘product expert’ on numerous successful
infomercial campaigns.

Jenny
Lewis
(Becky McGibbon) was born on January 8, 1976 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Her acting debut was in a Jell-O commercial. She played Neala on
“Shannon’s Deal” (1990) and Katie on “Brooklyn Bridge”
(1991). She is currently the lead singer of the rock band Rilo
Kiley.

Philip
Amelio
(Kevin McGibbon) made his screen debut on “Life With Lucy” at the
age of 10. He played Stephen Baldwin’s younger self in the film
Born on the Fourth of July
(1989).  He gave up acting by his early teens to pursue sports and a
career in teaching. In March 2005, he complained of a sore back and
his doctors assumed that he was suffering from herniated disc or
sciatica. However, he in fact had a bacterial infection of the heart
valve that flared up due to the misdiagnosis of his condition. Philip
died on April 1, 2005 at the age of 27.

Donovan
Scott
(Leonard Stoner) was born on September 29, 1947 in Chico, California.
He made his screen debut in 1979 and was seen on “Alaska Kid”
(1993) as Shorty. Lately, Scott has been frequently cast as Santa
Claus in more than 15 films and TV shows! He also played Santa Clause
on an insurance commercial.  

Leonard
is a clerk at M&B Hardware. He is trying to quit smoking.

Guest
Cast

Ruth
Kobart
(Mrs. Finley) was an opera singer who went into musical comedy and
played Miss Jones in How To Succeed in Business Without Really
Trying (1961) and repeated the role in the 1967 film. She was
nominated for a 1962 Tony Award for playing Domina, the shrewish wife
in another long titled show, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Kobart died
in 2002.  

Mrs.
Finley has been a customer of M&B Hardware for 20 years.

Gary
Allen (Customer
Who Just Wants To Browse) made his screen debut on “The Jack Benny
Show” in 1956.  He played Norman on “Harper Valley PTA” (1981)
and just prior to “Life With Lucy” he did a 13-episode stint on
the soap opera “Santa Barbara” as Owen.  

A
female customer with no dialogue is played by an uncredited
background performer.

“Life
with Lucy”
aired from September 20 to November 15, 1986. Only 8 out of the 13
episodes produced (14 were written) were aired before ABC canceled
the series. Unlike Ball’s previous sitcoms, “Life with Lucy”
was
critically panned and a ratings
flop.
In 2002, TV
Guide
named
the show
the
twenty-sixth worst TV series of all time.
Its quick cancellation was devastating to Ball, who believed that
America did not want her kind of comedy anymore.  

Lucy
Barker: “Being
despised takes a lot out of you.”

Ball
played a widowed grandmother who had inherited her husband’s
half-interest in a hardware store in South Pasadena, California, the
other half being owned by his partner, widower Curtis McGibbon.
Lucy’s character insisted on ‘helping’ in the store, even though when
her husband was alive she had taken no part in the business and knew
nothing about it. Lucy’s daughter Margo is married to Curtis’ son,
Larry, and all of them, along with their young grandchildren Becky
and Kevin, lived together under one roof.

In
1984 NBC had a massive success with “The Cosby Show” and “The
Golden Girls” so combining a family sitcom with comedy legends was
appealing to ABC as counter-programming. Producer
Aaron Spelling (who had appeared on an episode of “I Love Lucy”
in 1955, above) had been talking with Ball and her second husband Gary
Morton
since
1979 about possibly doing another series. Ball was hesitant, but
agreed as long as she was given complete creative control.
Spelling later regretted agreeing to her demands. Naturally,
Ball wanted her original writers, Bob Carroll Jr. and Madelyn Davis.

The
show’s theme
song
by Martin Silvestri, Jeremy Stone, and Joel Higgins, was
performed by Eydie

Gormé

, who had guest-starred on “Here’s Lucy” in 1973 (above).
An alternate theme was written by Ball’s daughter, Lucie
Arnaz,
with
Cy
Coleman, but was rejected.
Lucie had appeared in Coleman’s musical Seesaw
on
Broadway and on tour.

“Life
With Lucy” was never syndicated, re-run, or released on home video;
it briefly re-aired on Nick
at Nite
as
part of a Lucille Ball-themed marathon
in
1996. The episodes were originally aired by ABC out of filming order.

Peter
Baldwin directed
the first episode and four more episodes
of the series. He previously won a directing Emmy for a 1972 episode
of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.”  After “Life With Lucy” he
won two more Emmy Awards.  Baldwin died in 2017.

In
addition to writers Carroll and Davis, hairstylist Irma
Kusely and
sound engineer Cam
McCullough
had both worked on all Ball’s television shows since the early 1950s.
 

Madelyn
Martin was also a producer and hired her son, Michael
Q. Martin
(Quinn Martin’s son) as an assistant. Thomas
J. Watson,
president of Ball’s fan club and author of books about the star, was
also hired as a production assistant.

This firs episode went before the cameras on July 18, 1986, at Warners Hollywood Studios.  

The
same evening the series premiered, September 20, 1986 ABC also
premiered “The Ellen Burstyn Show” as Lucy’s follow-up. Like
“Life With Lucy,” it starred a beloved Hollywood actress in a
family situation comedy. Burstyn
played college professor Ellen Brewer, who had to deal not only with
the students, but also with her meddling mother (Elaine
Stritch),
her divorced daughter (Megan
Mullally),
and her five year-old grandson.
As with “Life With Lucy” it was not well received and was
canceled before the end of the year. ABC’s 9 o’clock hour fared no
better.  The new crime drama “Heart of the City” starring
Christina Applegate was also canceled after its initial 13 episodes,
although the first episode still managed to earn an Emmy Award for
cinematography. By the first week of 1987 ABC’s entire Saturday night
line-up had been gutted.

Over
on NBC at 9pm, Lucy’s Mame
co-star Bea Arthur was thriving on “The Golden Girls,” although
their season did not launch until September 27, 1986. Interestingly,
Elaine Stritch was nearly cast as one of the “Golden Girls,” but
instead landed instead on ABC with “The Ellen Burstyn Show.”  

CBS,
Lucille Ball’s former network home, was still airing repeats and
would not debut their new season until September 27. So for one
night, Lucy was up against Angela Lansbury’s ratings-winner “Murder
She Wrote.” Ironically, Lucy and Lansbury had both played the title
role in the musical Mame;
Lansbury on stage, and Lucy on film, so it was the battle of the
Mames!  Lucy won the night in the ratings, clearing the top twenty,
but likely because “Murder She Wrote” was a rerun. 

This
was the first time in Lucy’s career her sitcom was not seen on a
Monday nights. During the heyday of “I Love Lucy” in the 1950s
the evening ‘belonged’ to Ball. It is said that businesses often
closed or saw a drop off in sales on Monday evenings due to people
gathering around the TV to watch “I Love Lucy.”

While
she did not get her old time slot, Lucy did get to name her character
using the letter combination of “AR” that had brought her so much
luck in the past: ARnaz, RicARdo, CARmichael, CARter, and now BARker.
It was Carole Lombard’s mother who suggested to Lucy that the letters
would bring her luck.  

The
very first frame of the series is an exterior shot of a van with the
sign “Martin’s
You Move It! Pasadena, Calif. 555-1234” pulling
away from a suburban home, moving boxes on the front porch.  The
name is a tribute to writer Madelyn Martin, who had been writing for
Ball since her days on radio and contributed to all of her television
endeavors. The brief shot also quickly establishes the show’s
location (Pasadena) and that someone (Lucy) is moving in!

Margo
remarks that her mother brought all her board games:
backgammon, Trivial Pursuit, and Scrabble. Lucille Ball was a devoted
game player and even endorsed several commercially available games
with her photo on the box. Ball’s board game enthusiasm made its way
into the scripts of several episodes of “Here’s Lucy.”  

Lucy
Barker: “It’s
so good to be here!”

Lucille
Ball makes her much-anticipated first entrance two and a half minutes
into the episode, holding a potted plant and enthusiastically greeted
by her grandchildren, Becky and Kevin. Except for guest starring on
“The Practice” for her old friend Danny Thomas in 1976, this is
her first time on series television since “Here’s Lucy” ended in
1974. This is also the first time she has been called Grandma. Lucille Ball was then 75 years old and in real-life had four
grandchildren: Julia, Simon, Joseph and Kate, who was just one year
old at the time. Ball not only gets an enthusiastic round of applause
from the studio audience on her entrance, but also on her exit,
marching up the stairs to her third floor bedroom holding her plant.

When
Kevin asks Lucy what spider mites are, Lucy imitates them eating
plants by making one of her classic funny faces – the first sign
that Lucille Ball is back. More funny faces ensue when Lucy drinks
her own healthy concoction of yogurt, wheat grass and bee pollen. It
is similar to her face of shock and revulsion when Lucy Ricardo first
tasted Vitameatavegamin (above).

Curtis:
(To Lucy) “I
never think of you as family.”

Lucy
moves in while her brother-law Curtis (Gale Gordon) is on vacation in
Hawaii. Hawaii, a favorite get-away destination of the Arnaz family,
has been mentioned since the early days of “I Love Lucy.”
Gordon’s entrance comes nine minutes into the episode and he is also
greeted by studio audience applause and hugs from his grandchildren.
Gordon was 80 at the time and had no children or grandchildren –
just seven dogs!

We
learn that Lucy’s deceased husband was named Sam. In both “Here’s
Lucy” and “The Lucy Show” Ball played widows, but her
husbands’ names were never revealed. It was Ball’s opinion that death was one of the things that couldn’t be funny.  

Margo: (To Lucy, who is laughing) “It’s not really funny, Mom.”
Lucy: (stops laughing) “No, not really.”

Health conscious Lucy warns Leonard about the dangers of smoking. Ball herself was a life-long smoker. “I Love Lucy” was initially sponsored by the Philip Morris tobacco company. 

When Lucy comes jogging through the front door jiving to unheard music on her headphones, Ted asks Lucy if it is Benny Goodman or Glenn Miller she’s listening to.  Lucy replies, “No, Top Jimmy and the Rhythm Pigs!”  Clearly this is a new-age Lucy. Benny Goodman (1909-86) had been mentioned in all of Ball’s sitcoms:

 In “The Publicity Agent” (ILL S1;E31) Lucy Ricardo reads that the Shah of Persia has a standing order for all Benny Goodman’s records, which inspires her disguise as the Maharincess of Franistan. 

In “Lucy the Music Lover” (TLS S1;E8) Lucy Carmichael prefers Benny Goodman over boring classical music when staging a benefit concert. 

Phil Harris’ clarinetist Ted Nash plays in the style of Benny Goodman in “Lucy Strikes Up the Band” (HL S6;E21) when Lucy Carter gets in the act.   

Pasadena
had often been used as the punchline of jokes about its senior
citizen population due to the popularity of the Jan and Dean song
“Little Old Lady from Pasadena.”  In “Lucy Meets Liberace”
(HL S2;E16) Liberace says of his light-up
jacket: “This’ll
really turn them on in Pasadena!”
 

In “Lucy and the Ex-Con” (HL S1;E15) Lucy
and Wally Cox go undercover as typical little old ladies named
Abigail Throckmorton and Lydia Perkins. Cox adds “of
the Pasadena Perkins’.”  

Coincidentally,
actor William Holden was raised in South Pasadena and graduated high
school there. Holden was the first celebrity guest-star on “I Love
Lucy” when the show was set in Hollywood.  

Throughout
the series, Lucille Ball indulges in physically comedy surrounding
the hardware store’s shelf ladder on wheels. This same device was
used by Lucy Carter in “Lucy, the American Mother” (HL S3;E7) when Lucy caused havoc in an otherwise quiet library.  

Another
physical comedy bit involves shredding Curtis’ necktie in a
hand-cranked pasta maker. Gale Gordon has lost a few ties to Lucy in
the past.  In “Lucy and the Missing Stamp” (TLS S3;E14) Lucy
accidentally sucks up Mr. Mooney’s tie in the hose of a Handy Dandy
vacuum cleaner and Viv has to cut it free.  

Lucy Carter stapled a
contract to Harry’s necktie in “Lucy, the Cement Worker” (HL S2;E10)
and cut the document off with a scissors. 

She then converted his
severed necktie into a bowtie!

Much
to the chagrin of Curtis, Lucy has re-arranged the merchandise at the
hardware store in alphabetical order. Filing has never been Lucy’s
strong-suit. It frustrated Gale Gordon as Mr. Mooney and Harrison
Carter!

When
the industrial-sized fire extinguisher turns the hardware store into
a virtual foam party, it is reminiscent of when Lucy Carter and Kim
were engulfed by suds while shampooing pooches in “The Bow Wow
Boutique” (HL S6;E5).  

Foam also flooded Mr. Mooney’s office in “Lucy’s Substitute Secretary” (TLS S5;E14) when a rug shampoo machine runs amok!  

This
Day in Lucy History ~ September 20th

• “Lucy
  and the Mountain Climber” (HL S4;E2) September 20, 1971