S5;E16
~ January 8, 1973

Directed
by Coby Ruskin ~ Written by Bob Carroll Jr. and Madelyn Davis

Synopsis

When
Harry finds out his cousin Ben (Don Knotts) is rich, he wants Lucy to
go on a blind date with him. Ben is awkward and clumsy and Lucy
wants no part of the prospective millionaire, but she doesn’t know
how to break off the engagement and send him packing without hurting
his feelings.

Regular
Cast

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

Guest
Cast

Don
Knotts (Ben
Fletcher) is probably best remembered as the bumbling Deputy Barney
Fife on “The Andy Griffith Show” (1960-68), which was shot on the
Desilu backlot. He was also a regular on “Three’s Company,” one
of Lucille Ball’s favorite sitcoms. His best known films were The
Incredible Mr. Limpet
(1964) with Lucy protege Carole Cook, and The
Ghost and Mr. Chicken
(1966) with frequent “Lucy” character actor Charles Lane. This
is his only time acting with Lucille Ball.  

Ben
Fletcher is Harry’s cousin (on his mother’s side) from Indiana. His
father was also named Ben and his brother is named Fred. He is an
author of greeting card verses.

Mary
Jane Croft (Mary
Jane, below left) played Betty Ramsey during season six of “I Love Lucy. ”
She also played Cynthia Harcourt in “Lucy
is Envious” (ILL S3;E23) and
Evelyn Bigsby in “Return
Home from Europe” (ILL S5;E26).
She played Audrey Simmons on “The Lucy Show” but when Lucy
Carmichael moved to California, she played Mary Jane Lewis, the
actor’s married name and the same one she uses on all 31 of her
episodes of “Here’s Lucy. Her final acting credit was playing
Midge Bowser on “Lucy Calls the President” (1977). She died in
1999 at the age of 83.  

Vanda
Barra (Vanda, above right)
makes one of over two dozen appearances on “Here’s Lucy” as
well as appearing in Ball’s two 1975 TV movies “Lucy Gets Lucky”
and “Three for Two”. She was seen in half a dozen episodes of
“The Lucy Show.” Barra was Lucille Ball’s cousin-in-law by
marriage to Sid Gould.

Sid Gould (Sam, above) made more than 45 appearances on “The Lucy Show” and nearly as many on “Here’s Lucy.” Gould (born Sydney Greenfader) was Lucille Ball’s cousin by marriage to Gary Morton.  

Gould
and Barra have returned to playing Lucy’s friends Vanda (a co-worker
in Lucy’s building) and Sam (a waiter), after playing several other
character roles in season five. This is the first time there is a
hint of a romantic relationship between the two.

Ralph
James
(Luigi) was a voice-over artist who is probably best remembered as
the voice of Orson on “Mork and Mindy” (1978-82) as well as
voicing Dr. Doom on the “Spiderman” cartoon series.  

George DeNormand (Villa Roma Patron, uncredited) appeared in three films with Lucille Ball from 1937 to 1963. This is the just one of his many appearances on “The Lucy Show” and “Here’s Lucy.”

DeNormand is sitting directly behind Don Knotts in the Italian restaurant. 

Shirley Anthony (Diner Patron, uncredited) makes one of her many appearances of “Here’s Lucy.”  She also was spotted in at least two episodes of “The Lucy Show,” both in 1968.  In 2011 she was interviewed for a documentary short about Gale Gordon. 

Anthony has her back to the camera for the entire scene.

Robert
Hitchcock (Villa Roma Patron, uncredited) was
seen in “Lucy
and Phil Harris” (TLS S6;E20) at
the piano bar. This is the fourth of his six episodes of “Here’s
Lucy.”  In February 1974 he will play the here unseen Marvin, Mary Jane’s boyfriend, in “Milton Berle is the Life of the Party” (S6;E16). 

Hitchcock is the handsome man that Luigi ushers to his table at the start of the scene. At first, Lucy thinks he is her blind date. 

The diner patrons, cashier and other Villa Roma patrons are played
by uncredited background performers.

During
filming, Don Knotts several times mixed up the names of his character
Ben with that of Harry, causing several retakes. Lucy reprimanded
Knotts to “get with it” because it is costing money with each
retake.

The
episode opens in the red booth of the luncheonette with Lucy, Mary
Jane and Vanda sitting in the same seats they occupied in

“With Viv as a Friend, Who Needs an Enemy?” (S4;E23, above) and waited
on by Sam the waiter (Sid Gould). The first time we saw the girls at
the luncheonette was in “Won’t You Calm Down, Dan Dailey” (S4;E9)
in 1971. 

Mary
Jane mentions that she is dating a man named Marvin. Could this be
the unnamed gentleman (above left) from the group therapy scene in the “Lucy and the Group Encounter” (S5;E14)?  

Ben’s
grandfather left him 20 acres of property in Bel Air, California.
His grandfather bought it in the 1920s when he came to California to
build a golf course and marry Ruby Keeler, neither of which came to
pass. Ruby
Keeler (1910-93)
was a singer, dancer and actress most famous for her pairing with
Dick Powell in a series of movie musicals, including 42nd
Street. Carol
Burnett played Ruby Keeler in “The Hollywood Unemployment Follies”
(S3;E22). Bel Air is
a neighborhood in the Westside
area of Los Angeles
in the foothills of the Santa
Monica Mountains.
It was founded in 1923 and has always been one of the most expensive
neighborhoods in the greater Los Angeles area.
From 1990 to 1996 NBC aired the sitcom “The Fresh Prince of Bel
Air” about a street-smart
teenager from West
Philadelphia sent to live in with his wealthy aunt and uncle in their Bel
Air mansion.

Ben
tells Lucy he is late to their date because he took a wrong turn on
the freeway – three times – and ended up in Long Beach. The
third time he decided to take the tour of the Queen Mary (or – as he calls it – “The Mary”) which he
calls a hotel in the shape of a ship! The RMS Queen
Mary is
a retired ocean
liner that
sailed from 1936 to 1967.
Instead of being scrapped, the
ship was permanently berthed in Long Beach, California, and serves as
a tourist attraction featuring restaurants, a museum, and (yes) a hotel. These lines may not be as funny to viewers of the original airing as they were to the Southern California studio audience because the hotel did not open until November 1972, making headlines at around the same time as the filming of this episode.   

Ben
says that while in Hollywood he spent three hours in the forecourt of
Grauman’s Chinese Theatre because he got his foot caught in the hoof
print of Roy Rodgers’ horse. Lucy says “Well,
that couldn’t happen to just anybody.”
Lucy Ricardo also went to Grauman’s
Chinese Theatre
and saw the imprint of the horseshoe of Roy Rodgers’ horse (Trigger)
in “Lucy Visits Grauman’s” (ILL S5;E1). She also got her foot
stuck – but in a bucket of wet cement!   

Ben says he then
took a tour
of the movie stars homes,
something Lucy Ricardo also did in “The Tour” (ILL S4;E30). Ben
saw Jimmy Stewart’s gardener taking out the trash. Coincidentally,
Stewart and Lucille Ball both lived on Roxbury Drive in Beverly
Hills. Lucille Ball’s actual home was used for the exterior insert
shots of Richard Widmark’s house. Ironically, when the second unit
crew filmed the Aranz home, Lucy and Ethel were played by doubles.
Lucy Carmichael sold maps to the movie stars homes in “Lucy Goes to
a Hollywood Premiere (TLS S4;E20).  

Ben
is a writer of verses for greeting cards, one of which won a prize. Can you
guess which one?

Modeling
his outrageous cape and shoes for Lucy, Ben notes it is “genuine
fake leopard.”  [No leopards were harmed in the making of this comedy!] He
also bought a brand new Eye-talian Ferrari sports car.  “It’s
really neat!”  

When
Ben tells Lucy not to “bruise
the gin,”
Lucy asks what that means.  Ben says he doesn’t know – he heard it
in a Cary Grant movie once. “Bruising”
refers
to a slight bitter taste that can allegedly occur when gin is shaken.
Conversely, a vodka Martini benefits from being “shaken, not
stirred” (as James Bond used to say) because shaking better mixed
the grains and oils inherent in the product. Cary
Grant (above) was widely known as a connoisseur of the well-made Martini.  

Since
Lucy has burned her roast, Ben offers to take her to Chasen’s
for dinner. When “Lucy and Eva Gabor are Hospital Roomies” (S5;E2),
Gabor had her dinner catered by Chasen’s. Lucille Ball had her own
private booth at the Hollywood eatery and they catered the wrap party
after “Lucy Meets the Burtons” (S3;E1).

As
Kim leaves the house while Lucy breaks her engagement to Ben, she
tells her mother she’ll be at Wanda’s. This is probably a reference
to Lucy’s personal secretary Wanda
Clark.
Clark was not an actress, but once appeared on the show when Lucy
needed to cast a speedy typist.  

To
scare off Ben, Lucy refers to the movie Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Although there had been several film adaptations of the Robert Louis
Stevenson story of dual identity, Lucy is probably referring to the
1931 version starring Frederic March and Miriam Hopkins. In “Lucy
Cuts Vincent’s Price” (S3;E9) Craig was doing a book report on the
novel.  

Ben
tells Lucy that all the men in their family were named either Ben or
Fred. Lucille Ball’s grandfather was named Fred
Hunt. When creating the landlord for “I Love Lucy” the character
was named Fred in honor of Grandpa Hunt, who raised Lucy after the
early death of her father.

When Viv, Harry, and Eddie all can’t agree on where to go or what to do,

Lucy
Carmichael made a vow: “No More Double Dates” (TLS
S1;E21).

For
their blind date, Lucy and Ben meet at the Villa Roma Italian
Restaurant. Lucy Ricardo and Ethel Mertz went on blind dates with
their own husbands at an Italian restaurant called Tony’s in “The
Black Wig” (ILL S3;E26) in 1954.

Ben discovers that his grandfather’s property is in Bel Aire, a wealthy community outside Los Angeles, meaning Lucy is dating a millionaire. In 1964, Lucy Carmichael also dated a millionaire and dined at an Italian restaurant in “Lucy Meets a Millionaire” (TLS S2;E24). 

When
Vanda is trying on the engagement ring Ben gave Lucy, she says “Liz
Taylor, eat your heart out.”  This
is a direct reference to the massive diamond ring that Richard Burton
gave to Elizabeth Taylor in real life. The stars and the real ring
were featured in “Lucy Meets the Burtons” (S3;E1). 

Fact
Check!
Ben says his granddad came to Hollywood from Indiana in the 1920s to
marry Ruby Keeler, but Keeler’s first film wasn’t made until 1930, an
uncredited cameo in Show
Girl in Hollywood before
her breakout role in 1933’s
42nd Street.
From 1924 to 1929 Keeler worked exclusively on Broadway.  Ben’s
grandfather should have gone to New York, not Los Angeles!

Where
the Floor Ends!
In the luncheonette, the camera pulls back too far and viewers can
see where the red carpet meets the cement studio floor.

Oops!
When Lucy bangs the ring box down, a teaspoon flies off her saucer
and lands on the table. Lucy replaces it and continues.

The
Shadow Knows! As
Kim heads out the kitchen door and Lucy primps at the mirror on the
landing, the shadow of a camera or a person moves across the stereo
and banister.  

“Lucy Goes on her Last Blind Date” rates 4 Paper Hearts out of 5

Don Knotts fits perfectly in the “Lucy” format. His expressive face and ability to be sympathetic and outrageous (sometimes simultaneously) is delightful. He also brings out some very real and natural acting in Lucy. Ben is more Mr. Furley than Barney Fife. Only the show’s ending seems a letdown, with a very silly looking “Mrs. Hyde” get-up a major disappointment and Ben running off into the night.