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"Lucy Finally Cuts Guess Who's G-String." Lucy learns that Kim has been secretly working as an exotic dancer to offset her increased living expenses since moving into Uncle Herb's building. Planning to stop Kim, Lucy and Harry go undercover into the seedy club run by Dirty Jack. But upon seeing Harry, Dirty Jack instantly says "Hiya, Harry. You going to make it rain again tonight?"

Inspired by Neil's recent posting of an incorrect summary for "LA at Last," it got me thinking of other times TV Guide or newspapers posted summaries that may have been partially correct but overall completely missed the point. Like that infamous one for The Wizard of Oz: "A young woman arrives in a foreign land to discover she has killed, then conspires with three strangers to kill again." Let's come up with some joke summaries for Lucy episodes that intentionally miss the point along similar lines, or else get information blatantly misconstrued. Lucy Does a TV Commercial: An intoxicated housewife breaks a television set, impersonates a single woman and singlehandedly ruins her husband's variety show. Ethel's Birthday: A TradWife refuses to wear pants to the theatre. Lucy Wants to Move to the Country: A group of urbanites escape to the countryside by impersonating a band of criminals. Mr. & Mrs. TV Show: A vindictive housewife sabotages her husband's TV show by slandering an innocent sponsor. Lucy Raises Tulips: A woman resorts to desperate and illicit measures to aid the wax tulip industry. Lucy Gets Her Wires Crossed: An old woman breaks a vibrating lounge chair and causes the entire country to fear for her safety.

Wow! Fingers crossed for The Magic Carpet!

Don't know if we have Patricia Clarkson, but this comes from 2014. “I didn’t think about being a movie star when I was a young girl but my father and I had a huge love of Peter Sellers and Lucille Ball. Those are the people I remember from my childhood, of imprinting on me or having an effect on me. I was obsessed with Lucille Ball, I watched her all the time. I just loved her, and still, I have these beautiful neighbours who live across the hall from me, these twins who I’m quite close to who are now 13, and they have this incredible love for her too. We just sit and talk about our favourite episodes and relive the candy factory or the Martian. I could never pick a favourite episode; that would be sacrilegious. You can dissect it and pull apart what made her great but she was just fucking funny. And it just remains so, it never wavers, it never lessens, the impact of her comedic ability – it just remains great.”

The past few night I’ve been enjoying the first season of The Lucy Show. Often, I go right to my favorite episodes of a season but I’m watching all the rest this go around. Lucy Drives A Dump Truck. For being named that, this action only happens in the last ¼ of the episode. The fire department meetings seem to take up the bulk of this episode. Lucy’s wig in this episode is really nice. Very full and lots of nice curls. Top notch job by Irma this week. Both when Lucy is nervous about giving her speech and about the court martial, her demeanor is very nice. She really makes you feel bad for her. In later Lucy Shows or Here’s Lucy she tended to over do this type of scene but here she is more understated. Even when she pleads to Thelma and Mary Jane. It’s not pushy, just sad. The phone call among the newspaper stacks is so well done. As the bad news keeps growing Lucy keeps hiding further down in the papers. Great blocking to have that section constructed to allow her to hide from the others yet still be seen by the cameras. And my favorite little part among the papers is when Thelma finally leaves and says goodbye, all you see is the door open and close and the others says goodbye back. It makes me giggle for some reason. Once they get to the dump truck scene, I’m annoyed at that cop. Geeze, maybe you might want to help these ladies instead of keep giving them tickets. The episode also ends so abruptly with the cop being buried by the papers. Did they get any more tickets? Did the cop finally take pity on them? How did they get all the papers cleaned up? So from the time they had all those newspapers stacked in the living room until Don Shapre (nice drop on Lucy’s agent’s name) lets Lucy know she can get rid of them, where do they go? The court martial meeting takes place in a newspaper free living room.

Sadly, semi-regretfully I was one of those "shnooks" who bought back then (gawd that had to be 30+ years ago!!) t he ENTIRE Columbia series on VHS and yes, it eventually featured every single episode of the series, including the "lost (long unaired) pilot) as well as the Christmas episode, with the last tape's theme being "From the Beginning to the End", quite appropriately (must have had the Statue ep on it); and if I recall that last tape had 4 episodes on it. My memory is fuzzy now as it's been too long but along with the priced reduction (a whopping $5 per tape!) at some point I believe they bumped up the episodes per tape from 3 to 4. And yes...I still have the entire collection as I now can't believe what I paid for 'em and I just haven't had the heart to get rid of them ... despite the fact I havent played them in years! Listen, nobody knew, and believe me if I'd had any inkling... that someday her entire OUVRE would be readily available on DVD and streaming I would probably not put out so much money for now nearly obsolete tapes.... but then, when Laser Discs first came along, I did the same damn thing!! Am I sorry now? For the most part.... but then I still have a Lucy "collectible" in my collection that I probably wouldn't have otherwise.... But again, damn, if we had just known DVDs were coming... and how WUNDAFUL they would be.... No use in looking back I guess... Can't re-write history! 😫

There's been a fair amount of rain lately that has helped bring the fires more under control. Our area was very lucky to be in the middle of it by and large; the most dangerous fires never got too close. I'm hoping the worst is behind us by now, but you never know in this country!

Author's Note: Couldn't think of a less annoying title, so please excuse me. So here's a hypothetical situation: One night, while you're on the computer pre-ordering your Criterion edition of Dance, Girl, Dance, a fire breaks out in your home! The ladies of Danfield's Volunteer Fire Brigade are able to save almost all of your valuables, loved ones, ceramic cats, etc. However, due to an ugly little story involving the feuding couple downstairs, you're in a full body cast. You realize that you only have the ability to salvage a couple of items from your Lucy collection before you hurtle yourself onto the awning below your bedroom window. What do you save? My first pick would be a VHS tape that my grandma recorded off of TV Land for me at least 15 years ago, featuring "Ricky Gets an Agent" and a couple of other episodes- not to mention those nostalgic TV Land bumpers, early 2000s commercials, and even the last five minutes of an episode of Get Smart. For me, it makes me think of back when access to these shows was still fairly limited, and since we never had cable, friends and family would record classic shows and movies for me. The other item I'd take would be Michael McClay's book, which is one of the first pieces of Lucy merchandising I ever had; I could barely even read when I got it, but I loved looking through all of the pictures (especially behind-the-scenes photos that showed the layout of the soundstage) and imagining what the episodes I hadn't seen were like. It's been thumbed through so many times that the pages came unglued from the cover! So if you had to pick, what are a few items from your Lucy collection that you would save above all others?

"Legume Magnate" Great contributions!

Tennessee Ernie Visits: When a naive, aspiring musician from the country forces his way into the lives of an urban married couple, the wife attempts to scare him away through seduction. Lucy Makes a Hit with John Ritter: An elderly woman injures and then kidnaps an actor, then forces her way into his upcoming stage production. Lucy and Lawrence Welk: A woman attempts to gaslight her visiting friend by blinding her and impersonating a bandleader. Lucy Thinks Ricky is Trying to Murder Her: A housewife becomes increasingly paranoid when she suspects that her husband is having numerous extramarital affairs and plans to murder her. After being drugged by her husband, she confronts him and a pack of trained dogs at a nightclub. Lucy The Bean Queen: In an attempt to get new furniture, a woman and her friend successfully scam a series of supermarkets in the greater Los Angeles area before recklessly driving a forklift and nearly killing a legume magnate. I'd do one on "Ma Parker", but any description of that episode would sound bonkers.

I love how so many of these sound less like comedies and more like horror films or serious drama. First Stop would make a great horror film.

Off to Florida: After a meddlesome child steals their train tickets, two New York women hitch a ride south with a suspected hatchet murderess, who fears they plan to kill her. The Christmas Show: Four apartment dwellers are haunted by memories of the past and Santa Claus himself on Christmas Eve. Lucy Learns to Drive: A woman's failed attempt to make a U-turn in the Holland Tunnel causes chaos in the greater NYC area, culminating in a two-car collision. First Stop: A group of lost, starving travelers are gaslighted and abused by a creepy small-town businessman. Ethel's Home Town: An egomaniacal has-been manipulates her former beau into writing libelous, flattering copy to promote herself and denigrate her competitors in the hopes of achieving a comeback. L.A. at Last: A star-struck housewife causes an explosive pie fight at a chic Hollywood restaurant. Her subsequent lies to exonerate herself cause her nose to grow like Pinocchio's.

https://www.criterion.com/films/29633-dance-girl-dance One of Lucy's best movies and certainly one of the most acclaimed by film critics, Dance, Girl, Dance is being given the prestigious Criterion treatment!

It took me a minute before my brain registered Fred & Ethel Fight, and I thought you were describing your actual current circumstances! Clever idea! If I had to pick and choose, I guess I'd toss the few Lucy dolls I collected out onto the awning, along with the original I Love Lucy DVDs with the full-color artwork. Given the bushfire threat we've been under, we still have emergency suitcases with valuables packed and ready. Maybe I'll learn from that and just pack up all my precious Lucy items into a padded suitcase to have waiting by the window at all times.

Oh my! Where's Dave Woodman or Henry Lamar when you need him!!

Happy to help.

I came across this excerpt from an old trade publication called, "Television Digest with Electronics Report" from September 4, 1954: "Most comedy scenes have little to gain from color, according to Jess Oppenheimer, producer of "I Love Lucy", but he's considering filming in color selected scenes which he believes will clearly benefit in color, inserting them in black and white programs." This was the season CBS filmed one color episode of "Burns and Allen", "Jack Benny", and "Lassie". So it wouldn't seem to be a stretch to have a ratings champ like "Lucy" filmed in color. Although a complete episode rather than one scene would make more sense because of the wardrobe, lighting, makeup changes needed for the switch between b&w and color.

They have earlier in the festival a showcase of different comics and that always has women and they do late night comics in the Tropicana Room, where they have women as well. But you do make a good point. This is the second year in a row that the Friday night and Saturday night shows are men.

Episode nine of this season airs tonight. The Lucy episode should be number 16.