I don't know if this has been brought up here before or not, but throughout the years of watching ILL I've started to notice something. In almost every episode of ILL, usually before Lucy is about to do something wild/sneaky/devious/or, well, just being Lucy, you can here someone in the audience say "Uh oh". Now I know that the show (obviously) didn't have a laugh track, it was filmed before a live, so I can't figure out why I can here that same voice saying 'uh oh' every time. I know that Lucy's mom DeDe came to the filming of every episode so do you think it could be her? I can't think of anyone else who would have been at every filming. Has anyone else noticed this or am I getting far to obsessed? Wait, don't answer that....

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"Don't take this personally Ethel, but I'm sick of the sight of your face."

[This message has been edited by Roz1013 (edited 12-01-2001).]

I was wondering when someone would bring that up. I thought I was the only one who thought that. There is someone that says "Uh-oh" in a whole buch of episodes. This is the weird part though, in some 80's and/or 90's sitcoms, I remember hearing that exact same "Uh-oh" and then the laugh following and thought. They are using the lauging from the I Love Lucy shows. Now am I the only one who noticed that?

Funny you should mention that, Roz...my brother and sister and I noticed that when we first started watching reruns of the show in the late 60s and early 70s when we were growing up...and we always noticed that same "Uh oh", too!

In fact, after I became an adult (chronologically, at least)I started reading a lot of books on sitcoms and movies, and I remember being quite astonished when I found out that ILLucy was actually filmed before a live audience...and that constant "Uh oh" was the reason for my astonishment! I had always assumed that the "uh oh" was part of a laugh track, because it always sounded exactly the same. So when I heard that the show was indeed filmed live, literally my FIRST thought was, "but what about the uh-oh lady?" (as my sibblings and I would call her).

You raise an interesting theory about Lucy's mom being the possible source of the uh-oh. And what you said makes, to me, a lot of sense...Lucy's mom was indeed there all the time...I remember reading that Lucy experienced one instance when she just couldn't get her lines right, and after several unsuccessful attempts, broke everyone up by yelling "Don't worry Mom, I'll get it, I'll get it!" or something like that...

The fact the Lucy's mom was always there could mean that she had been to rehearsals, etc and therefore knew the plots of each episode in advance...so, it makes sense for her to react the way she did when a key element in the script presented itself on stage...and that she was the only one in the audience who "knew what was coming".

Forget about "who shot JFK?", I wanna know who the "uh oh" lady is!!

Originally posted by TVLanFan:

In fact, after I became an adult (chronologically, at least)
LOL!

Originally posted by TVLanFan:

I remember reading that Lucy experienced one instance when she just couldn't get her lines right, and after several unsuccessful attempts, broke everyone up by yelling "Don't worry Mom, I'll get it, I'll get it!" or something like that...

ROTFL! Really? I'm sure I already know the answer to this, but is there anywhere or anything that has I Love Lucy bloopers?


(Glad to know I wasn't the only one to notice this! http://www.sitcomsonline.com/ubb/smile.gif)



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"Don't take this personally Ethel, but I'm sick of the sight of your face."

i always heard that same "uh oh" and was very confused because i knew it was taped in front of a live audience so why was there that same "uh oh" every show?

You can find I Love Lucy bloopers on my Lucy web site!
www.TheILoveLucilleBallFanSite.cjb.net (http://www.TheILoveLucilleBallFanSite.cjb.net)

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[This message has been edited by ILoveLucyjg1514 (edited 12-01-2001).]

I've noticed this sound too. I thought it might have been a studio worker prompting the audience to laugh. You know kind of a head's up to the audience to wake them up.

Yes, folks, it WAS DeDe saying "Uh oh!" in all the shows. And yes, the laugh track was sold to several shows throughout time so you can hear "Uh oh" on many shows. http://www.sitcomsonline.com/ubb/smile.gif

Lucie Arnaz has claimed that "uh-oh" was her grandmother, Dede. But Gregg Oppenheimer has said that where Dede sat in the audience, it would not have been possible for her voice to have been picked up that audibly and distinctly. So who knows? Dann Cahn insists laugh tracks were never used on the show, But Gregg Oppenheimer says that there were times where, in transitional bits of film, some "sweetening" was done, including this 'uh-oh' voice. But he insists such sweetening only incorporated laughs recorded from actual "I Love Lucy" audiences. So while this "uh-oh" is obviously a recorded voice used over and over, it is still possible it could have been a recording of DeDe's voice (though, again, Gregg claims her voice couldn't have been picked up that well from where she was sitting).

One final point: While Gregg insists that any recorded laughter used on the show came from "I Love Lucy" audiences, you will notice that in the first couple episodes, there was heavy use of a laugh track. Obviously those laughs had to come from other sources because there were no earlier "I Love Lucy" audiences. But after those very early shows, subsequent recorded laughter and voices (which presumably did originate from "I Love Lucy" studio audiences) were used very sparingly.

was there ever a laugh track used in I Love Lucy?

Originally posted by ILoveLucyjg1514:
was there ever a laugh track used in I Love Lucy?

I think once or twice they used a laugh track because of the babies playing Little Ricky....they were afraid that they wouldn't perform on cue and I think the episode "Ricky Minds The Baby" was filmed without an audience. I read this somewhere, wish I could remember exactly where. But the laugh track was made from shows past when they recorded the audiences laughter. Hope this helps!

it sure does help! thanks! http://www.sitcomsonline.com/ubb/smile.gif

Quite a few of the later "Lucy-Desi" hours were filmed without an audience, BTW.

Originally posted by ILoveLucyjg1514:

You can find I Love Lucy bloopers on my Lucy web site!



Thanks, those are good, but does anyone know where there's like a video reel of them actually flubbing lines, etc.?

And while watching Gilligan's Island I kept hearing the uh oh and figured they obviously must be using ILL's laugh track. Well, if you're going to steal, steal from the best I suppose! http://www.sitcomsonline.com/ubb/smile.gif



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"Don't take this personally Ethel, but I'm sick of the sight of your face."

No, they didn't use laugh tracks and YES, that was DeDe saying "uh-oh" http://www.sitcomsonline.com/ubb/smile.gif

Originally posted by Roz1013:
Thanks, those are good, but does anyone know where there's like a video reel of them actually flubbing lines, etc.?


I think I read somewhere that Desi apparently destoryed the blooper and outtake reels, simply because it would have saved Desilu the cost of storing all that film. At the time Desi and company probably though the footage was useless, so why hang on to it? In retrospect, I bet he and millions of fans wished some of that footage was still viewable!

Joy

Originally posted by onlyonelucy:
No, they didn't use laugh tracks and YES, that was DeDe saying "uh-oh" http://www.sitcomsonline.com/ubb/smile.gif

They didn't use laugh tracks per se (except as mentioned above in the "Ricky Minds the Baby" episode), but there was sweetening done from time to time throughout the series. While it's been reported ever since Bart Andrews' first book that the "uh-oh" voice was Dede, there is still disagreement on that. And it was a recorded voice used over and over again (listen closely: it's an "uh-oh" followed by a twitering laugh), so the jury's still out on that.

Originally posted by Joicetti:
I think I read somewhere that Desi apparently destoryed the blooper and outtake reels, simply because it would have saved Desilu the cost of storing all that film.

That's possible. However, according to G. Oppenheimer, the show was so well rehearsed that bloopers were extremely rare. So there probably wouldn't been too many bloopers available even if they did survive.

Originally posted by Joicetti


I think I read somewhere that Desi apparently destoryed the blooper and outtake reels, simply because it would have saved Desilu the cost of storing all that film. At the time Desi and company probably though the footage was useless, so why hang on to it? In retrospect, I bet he and millions of fans wished some of that footage was still viewable!

Joy

I think that makes a lot of sense...while I don't watch blooper shows anymore, I used to watch them in the mid-late 70s (when they were only broadcast as an occassional special) and I don't remember ever seeing or hearing about bloopers from I Love Lucy...and I've never seen any ILLucy bloopers since...you'd think that, if they did still exist, they would have found their way to a broadcast by now...