BEST California-based episodes

[rezny717]

I liked the back east-Danfield ,Conneticut -with Viv better than the California episodes.However,with that said,there were some really good California-based episodes-My favorites:1)The one with Jay North as Mooney's very bratty nephew Wendel,who gets his comeuppance when Lucy,dressed up as a robot "spanks brat's butt",much to Wendell's dismay and Mooiney's delight. 2)The one with Lucy and the late Mel Torme as rock and roll singers 3)The episode with the late Howard Morris as Lucy's date.The ending in which Mooney says at first softly to Lucy"Mrs.Carmichael,lightning doesn't strike twice in the same place.(then,louder almost pleadingly)Why must you?" is funny. and 4)The hilarious parody of "The Twilight Zone"",in which Lucy accidentally gets Mr.Mooney fired,Lucy,and Mr.Mooney team up to drive bank president Mr.Cheever crazy so he will hire Mr.Mooney back.Remember these?What are your favorites>

[rezny717]

Originally Posted by rezny717

I liked the back east-Danfield ,Conneticut -with Viv better than the California episodes.However,with that said,there were some really good California-based episodes-My favorites:1)The one with Jay North as Mooney's very bratty nephew Wendel,who gets his comeuppance when Lucy,dressed up as a robot "spanks brat's butt",much to Wendell's dismay and Mooiney's delight. 2)The one with Lucy and the late Mel Torme as rock and roll singers 3)The episode with the late Howard Morris as Lucy's date.The ending in which Mooney says at first softly to Lucy"Mrs.Carmichael,lightning doesn't strike twice in the same place.(then,louder almost pleadingly)Why must you?" is funny. and 4)The hilarious parody of "The Twilight Zone"",in which Lucy accidentally gets Mr.Mooney fired,Lucy,and Mr.Mooney team up to drive bank president Mr.Cheever crazy so he will hire Mr.Mooney back.Remember these?What are your favorites>

And I forgot one:The one where Viv comes to visit Lucy,who has a broken leg,and reminisce about the "good old days".The ending,in which Mr.Mooney waits on both Viv (who broke her leg,)and Lucy,who still has a broken leg,hand and foot,is hilarious.

[McGillicuddy]

My favorite California based episode is the very first one ,Lucy at Marineland. I also like Lucy Goes To a Hollywood Premiere and Lucy Bags a Bargain, (the Department Store episode).

Anxious to see Viv Visits Lucy and the other 2 Vivian episodes in seasons 5 & 6!

[Larry Surrell]

My favorite is the episode where Lucy goes to Jack Benny's house and he takes her down to his vault. I also like all the episodes with Viv. The one with Phil Harris composing a song in Lucy's apartment was pretty good too.

[Kasey]

Lucy in the Music World (aka the Wing-Ding episode) from S4

Viv Visits Lucy from S5

Lucy Meets the Berles from S6
Lucy Gets Jack Benny's Account from S6

Most of my favorites are from S1 and 3 however.

[LittleRickyII]

I'm very surprised with what several of you are listing as your favorite California era episodes because most of them are from the fourth season, and the fourth season is, hands down, my absolute least favorite season of this series. Except for season 4 of Here's Lucy, I think it was Lucille Ball's weakest season ever. There are only two episodes in season 4 that I think are worthwhile: the one with Dean Martin and the one with Robert Stack. Most of the rest I can't even sit through. I much, much prefer the 5th and 6th seasons to season 4.

One of my problems with season four is there's this ridiculous theme, episode after episode, where Lucy somehow manages to "coincidentally" run into Mr. Mooney somewhere in the far-flung greater Los Angeles area. In one episode, "Lucy Goes to a Hollywood Premiere," this actually happens twice in the same episode: first on the Beverly Hills street corner where Lucy is selling maps (and Mooney just happens to pass by on his bicycle), then at the premiere in Hollywood, where Lucy is working as a page and Mr. Mooney bizarrely shows up as an invited guest. None of this passes the believability test. And Lucy, with her movie star obsession and movie magazine collecting, comes across as the most shallow person on the planet. So it's hard to like her.

This Lucy-coincidentally-runs-into-Mr.-Mooney theme happens in "Lucy at Marineland"; "Lucy and the Golden Greek"; "Lucy and the Stunt Man"; "Lucy and the Sleeping Beauty"; "Lucy and the Return of Iron Man"; "Lucy Bags a Bargain"; "Lucy Goes to a Hollywood Premiere"; and "Lucy and Bob Crane." And I'm sure there are others I'm forgetting.

Besides this, there are too many waaaay over the top themes, like Lucy being chased around her apartment by a gorilla in one episode, and Lucy chasing a gorilla in another. (Give me a break!) But the absolute most ridiculous scene ever was when Lucy allows herself to be shot out of a cannon. That premise is absurd on several levels. Something like that would NEVER have happened in the previous seasons. And thankfully, there was nothing that ridiculous in the two seasons that followed.

Somebody mentioned liking "Lucy, the Robot." That one really surprises me. Lucy, herself, didn't even like that episode. It seems very stale to me. Well, to each their own, I guess. The fourth season, to me, just seems like the result of a last-minute concept that was rushed into production. In fact, this format pretty much was a last minute decision as Lucille Ball's plan had been to end the The Lucy Show and start a new series based on her 1964 Lucille Ball Comedy Hour special that had guessed-starred Bob Hope. But CBS urged her to find a way to continue The Lucy Show. Also, Desilu determined it should continue at least another season in order to get past the 100-episode mark, which is considered the usual minimum number of episodes needed to run a series in syndication.

I digress a bit. But anyway, I like the 5th and 6th seasons much, much more. The show had adapted to the new format by then, and there were a number of episodes in those two seasons that were genuinely funny. There were also some stinkers, but it was generally an entertaining show in the last couple seasons, with a few standout episodes. None of the fourth season episodes, to me, were standouts or even funny.

[McGillicuddy]

I was going to say "Lucy at Marineland" would not be a "Lucy Coincidently Runs into Mr. Mooney" episode, because he took Lucy and Jerry to Marineland.----But actually its the ULTIMATE instance of this. Mr. Mooney just happened to get transferred to Los Angeles to the bank Lucy went to. I get what you're saying, totally unrealistic!!!

[LittleRickyII]

Originally Posted by markway895

I was going to say "Lucy at Marineland" would not be a "Lucy Coincidently Runs into Mr. Mooney" episode, because he took Lucy and Jerry to Marineland.----But actually its the ULTIMATE instance of this. Mr. Mooney just happened to get transferred to Los Angeles to the bank Lucy went to. I get what you're saying, totally unrealistic!!!

Yeah, I can remember when I first saw that episode as a kid. That scene where Lucy, newly arrived in Los Angeles, is directed into that office at the bank for assistance and there's Mr. Mooney! Huh??? No way, I thought. And then the rest of the season pretty much continued that way. Not only did it seem implausible that Lucy and Mooney would run into one another that way, but the fact that both of them moved to Los Angeles without the other knowing about it just didn't make sense to me. After all, wasn't Mooney stopping by Lucy's house in Danfield practically every week? He knew all her business, and with all the gossip in that town, Lucy knew all of his. Think about it: Lucy owned a house in Danfield. She couldn't just get on a plane for California without taking care of that. It would have taken some time to deal with that. If she was selling the house, renting it, or whatever, you'd think Mooney and the Danfield bank would have some inking about it, and they'd have to know why she was vacating the house: "I'm moving to Los Angeles." That's not a secret she could have kept from Mooney, and surely everyone in Danfield would have been talking about it.

As for all the other fourth season coincidental encounters, coincidences do happen, but not quite like that! I once ran into some people I knew from the U.S. while walking down a street in Madrid. Another time I ran into a friend from the U.S. while boarding a plane in Milan, Italy. And on another occasion, I met a couple on a train train in Germany, bound for Prague, and during the course of our conversation I found out they were the aunt and uncle of a friend of mine. And another time, I was visiting New York City and ran into a friend (also visiting there) while crossing a crosswalk in opposite directions on Avenue of the Americas in Manhattan. But these events involved different people and occurred over the course of several years, not once a week with the same person!

[1960'sTVfan]

The writers had to make changes to the show after Vivian Vance left, so these coincidental encounters with Mr. Mooney, regardless of how convienient or unrealistic they are, is the direction the writers chose to take. With TV shows, it is easy to write a script and create any type of scenario. Without Viv, The Lucy Show seasons 4-6 aren't as good as seasons 1-3, but the last 3 seasons still contain a fair share of good episodes. Viv did return for that one episode in season 5, and another in season 6.

[McGillicuddy]

The Lucy Show seasons 4-6 aren't as good as seasons 1-3, but the last 3 seasons still contain a fair share of good episodes. Viv did return for that one episode in season 5, and another in season 6.[/QUOTE]

Viv appears twice in season 6.

[LittleRickyII]

[QUOTE=markway895]The Lucy Show seasons 4-6 aren't as good as seasons 1-3, but the last 3 seasons still contain a fair share of good episodes./QUOTE]

I agree with that. My problem with the fourth season is a feeling the writers were just plain lost on what to do with the show without Vivian and simply didn't know how to make the new format work. By the fifth season they gained their footing and came up with enough laugh-out-loud episodes to keep my interest. None of the fourth season episodes, to me, are laugh-out-loud funny, and are often embarrassing: e.g., Lucy being shot out of a cannon, Lucy chasing a gorilla who stole her autograph book, Lucy being chased by a gorilla inside her own apartment. As I mentioned above, too many plots that season were a huge stretch. One critic at the time summed it up as follows in this January 1966 column: "Lucille Ball came along with a dramatic demonstration of talent triumphing over wretched material. The premise was that Lucy, to win a Linkletter prize, had to remain silent for hours. Things were pretty ridiculous. Since Lucy lost her regular costar, Vivian Vance, the show occasionally reaches pretty far for laughs."

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id...an+vance&hl=en

The episode being referenced here is the one that ends with Lucy being chased around her apartment by a gorilla.

The episodes from the 5th and 6th seasons that I find at least have some good laugh-out-loud moments are the following. And there are several other episodes besides these I enjoy, even if they don't give me a belly laugh.

Season 5

113 5-03 26/Sep/66 Lucy, the Bean Queen
115 5-05 10/Oct/66 Lucy and the Ring-a-Ding-Ding (*love* this one)
116 5-06 17/Oct/66 Lucy Goes to London
117 5-07 31/Oct/66 Lucy Gets a Roommate
119 5-09 14/Nov/66 Lucy Gets Caught Up in the Draft
120 5-10 21/Nov/66 Lucy and John Wayne
124 5-14 02/Jan/67 Lucy's Substitute Secretary
129 5-19 13/Feb/67 Lucy Meets the Law (*love* this)
132 5-22 06/Mar/67 Lucy Meets Sheldon Leonard

• Season 6

133 6-01 11/Sep/67 Lucy Meets the Berles
134 6-02 18/Sep/67 Lucy Gets Trapped
135 6-03 25/Sep/67 Lucy and the French Movie Star (*love* this)
141 6-09 06/Nov/67 Lucy Gets Mooney Fired
144 6-12 27/Nov/67 Lucy Sues Mooney
145 6-13 04/Dec/67 Lucy and the Pool Hustler
149 6-17 15/Jan/68 Lucy Gets Involved
151 6-19 29/Jan/68 Lucy and the Stolen Stole
155 6-23 04/Mar/68 Lucy and Sid Caesar

As I mentioned before, I only like two episodes from the fourth season: "Lucy Dates Dean Martin" and "Lucy, the Gun Moll." But none of the episodes from the fourth season strike me as laugh-out-loud funny.

[McGillicuddy]

Lucy The Superwoman, was the most over-the-top to me. I understand this storyline was intended for Gilligan's Island! It should have stayed on Gilligans's island!

[LittleRickyII]

Originally Posted by markway895

Lucy The Superwoman, was the most over-the-top to me. I understand this storyline was intended for Gilligan's Island! It should have stayed on Gilligans's island!

Oh yes, and then there's that episode! I remember when I first saw it years ago, thinking it seemed like something more suitable for Gilligan's Island than a Lucy episode, not realizing it was written by Sherwood Schwartz's brother. No wonder! What made Lucille Ball's comedy work was that it was grounded somewhat in reality. That episode is a prime example of how to make a Lucille Ball comedy not work.

It would have been nice is The Lucy Show could have come back for the fifth season Patrick Duffy/Dallas style, with her waking up and realizing the entire fourth season was just a dream (or a nightmare). Maybe even waking up in Danfield. Perhaps it would have gone something like this:

LUCY: "Viv! Viv!

(Vivian comes running into Lucy's bedroom.)

VIV: "Yes, Lucy, I'm here. What's the matter?"

LUCY: "Oh Viv, I just had this terrible, terrible nightmare. I dreamed I was suddenly living in California. I sent my precious son away to military school, which is a terrible thing because if I had slept another hour more I was going to start calling him Jimmy! But anyway, you wouldn't believe this dream. At one point some people from a TV show let a gorilla loose in my apartment and it was chasing me all over my living room. At another point, I went to a Hollywood premiere where a famous actress came with a gorilla as her escort. And that gorilla stole my autograph pad and I was dumb enough to start chasing him inside and outside the theater. At another point, my adrenal glands went berserk and somehow made me fly through the air like Peter Pan. And then there was this really horrible moment when I got shot out of a cannon. And all throughout this nightmare, no matter where I went and no matter what I was doing, Mr. Mooney would suddenly appear!"

VIV: "Oh my dear, Lucy. I need to find you some help, quick! That's one impossibly crazy, unbelievable dream . . . even for you!"

[storrs19]

My favorite seasons are 1, 2, 3 & 6 tied, 5, then 4. Season 4 is just awful for me. Only a couple of episodes I really enjoyed, especially the Dean Martin one. That's a real laugh there. Season 5 was better but I really enjoyed Season 6.

It has some very funny ones in it including:
Lucy Gets Jack Benny's Account (I love Lucy and Jack Benny together)
Lucy Gets Trapped (one of my favorite of the entire series)
Lucy Gets Mooney Fired
Lucy Sues Mooney
Lucy Gets Involved (another one of my favorite of the entire series)

[1960'sTVfan]

Originally Posted by markway895

Lucy The Superwoman, was the most over-the-top to me. I understand this storyline was intended for Gilligan's Island! It should have stayed on Gilligans's island!

LOL Lucy The Superwoman is a HILARIOUS episode! Some great visual gags are in that episode.