Do we
really love Lucy, or have we been brainwashed to think we do, like in The
Manchurian Candidate? When the laughter subsides, is Lucy truly
deserving of our love? Is she as overwhelmingly funny as we are lead to
believe? Does the Empress have no clown clothes?
Perhaps a re-examination is in order.
The
best way to do this, and to be fair, is to screen Season Four of I Love
Lucy. For what it’s worth, it is more than likely the funniest of all
Lucy seasons, concerning her cross-country trip to Hollywood and the
resulting antics.
However, most of us have been exposed to only the wackiest of Lucy
video clips (Lucy stuck in the meat freezer, Lucy working the candy factory
assembly line, Lucy attempting to get it together in a ballet class). You’ll
surprise yourself at how little schtik there actually is in the
course of a typical episode; talk about a show about nothing – all the
wackiness you are waiting for takes its good old time to get to you.
Still, the Arnazes give you your money’s worth – their typical television
season will run from September until June! That’s either generous or
greedy, depending on whom you ask (a fan or a sponsor, like Lilt Home
Permanent and Phillip Morris Tobacco. Lucy and Desi seemed to be mightily
pleased with both products, almost obsessively so.).
Even
if you do not loathe Lucy, you still won’t find her as funny as her 1954-55
audience did, but consider where you stand on the show’s post-hoc hilarity
(example: Lucy’s doddering mother consistently and mistakenly calls her
son-in-law Mickey rather than Ricky. Is this funny? Discuss.).
In
this particular season using a then-rare story arc, Ricky Ricardo (Desi
Arnaz) is summoned to “Hollywood”
to appear in a screen test for a major “picture,” called Don Juan. He
decides not only to invite his wife along, but also his upstairs neighbors,
and – eventually – his mother-in-law and his toddler son. To make matters
even more unrealistic, they decide to drive, rather than fly, from Manhattan
to LA (to make room for more cross-country-related fun).
This
trip – now considered a TV classic – gets the cast out of their humdrum New
York environment (they live on a busy Upper-West-Side street on which nobody
ever walks – maybe because it’s so obviously a painted backdrop in a
studio). They eventually take up residence in a Hollywood hotel (another
painted, creased backdrop is rolled down in front of their “window,” with
the same busy boulevard automobile traffic that stays frozen in the same
place in the road for weeks at a time). And even on the west coast, Lucy and
Ricky prefer separate twin beds.
This
alleged “fun” has an expiration date: Lucy sees the sights, which include
Eve Arden, Harpo Marx (living in character) and William Holden. Rednecks
(played by Tennessee Ernie Ford, and by fat twins named Hotsi and Totsi)
come in for a mean-natured ribbing, and Van Johnson is working on his
nightclub act (or is it just his life?). So that Lucy has time to annoy
everyone equally, neighbor Mrs. Trumble takes
Little Ricky “to the zoo” or “to the park”
(when the toddler does appear on screen
briefly, he’s visibly miserable and reluctant to be there).
What
to do about the baby who originally earned high ratings, just for being
born? That was fine a few years earlier. Now, with Lucy and Ricky frolicking
in sunny LA, they leave their two-year-old son with Lucy’s forgetful and
undependable mother for weeks on end. As well, Lucy mentions during a
particularly bad mood, “as soon as I start feeling better, I’m going to kill
myself.” Great choice of words from mom.
In
thirteen years of marriage, Lucy never picks up one word of Spanish from her
Cuban husband, but we at least we still get to hear Desi sing “Cuban Pete,”
and witness a tiny bit of film footage of the brand-new interstate highway
system, christened by then-President Eisenhower.
Speaking of choice, Ricky has no choice but to treat his wife like a child,
because that’s what she is, in essence. It’s uncomfortable for us to
witness, like dinner guests who did not ask for that spontaneous argument
and ensuing scene from their hosts.
Lucy’s personality pattern seems to oscillate between selfish child-woman
and selfish castrating bitch. Perhaps it’s due to her lack of a full-time
job and the fact that her baby son seems to take naps for
entire episodes –
she fills her empty days with an odd need to scheme and blackmail.
She
cries to her husband’s business manager about getting more money for the
household budget (by the way, her monthly utility bill is $8.75); her
insistence on appearing in her husband’s show business projects only
intensifies while in LA – she single-handedly destroys his screen test in
the burning desire to appear on film herself.
When
a near-sighted neighbor makes a surprise visit to Hollywood to see all the
stars Lucy had lied to her about knowing, Lucy steals the poor woman’s
glasses and then proceeds, from a safe distance, to impersonate stars
(costumes and all) in the need to cover her fib. “Lucy,” Ethel blasts
disapprovingly, “why don’t you just shoot her when she walks through the
door?”
Poor
Ethel, who puts up with all of this in order to take an exciting trip and
break up the monotony of her own trap. Her love for her husband, Fred, is
practically non-existent, and the building back in New York is hardly paid
for after many years. She was a former vaudevillian; now a less-than-willing
accomplice to her neighbor’s delusional schemes. This should have been the
show.
When
the gang visits Ethel’s hometown of Albuquerque, her old friends and family
make a fuss over her. Sure, it goes to her head a little, but we can
understand it and feel her. Not Lucy. Lucy can’t stand it. She goes
out of her way to humiliate Ethel on stage and to crush her small – and
possibly last –
chance at
happiness.
Funny? Or psychotic? You decide.
Simply, Lucy has a lot of ‘splainin’ to do: she knocks a hapless waiter into
William Holden; she worms her way into Richard Widmark’s bizarre den (filled
with stuffed, hunted game animals); she tortures Van Johnson during a
nightclub rehearsal; and she marvels at Rock Hudson, who is promoting his
latest “picture.”
We
are told that this Monday-evening series on CBS was so popular that
department stores would close early due to lack of business and that water
pressure in New York City would increase only during the show’s commercials.
There seems to be no hard proof to back this up, but a world like this would
seem magical at best.
Either way, Lucy will be around long after you and I are gone, which prompts
us to exclaim, just like Fred Mertz, “now, wait just a ding-dong minute!”
Ron Sklar
Copyright ©2006
PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved.
Posted: February 11, 2006.
