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It's the little things they do together...


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HL Season 6 'Peacemaker' w/ Lawcrence and Gorme:

When Lucy and Steve sing 'Together Wherever We Go' from Gypsy(?) the way Lucy messes up the words and the way she moves are absolutely hilarious! It reminds me of the SNL characters who go on weekend update and make up songs and try to sing in unison.

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  • 7 months later...

Watching Lucy Misses The Mertzes for the umpteenth time tonight, I have to send a shout out to the actor playing the ticket clerk at the train station. I love when Fred and Ethel are having their argument about waking vs. cabbing to the Ricardos the clerk is just watching this all unfold as amused as we are. Great acting choice -- all too often actors in those types of roles pretend they're oblivious to things around them, but this one little thing was so natural.

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Betty Jaynes (2/12/21 - ALIVE) was the lead singer; was in three 'other' of Lucille's filming experiences; perhaps they were friends from early on?  Don't know HOW we can identify the 'others' in Operetta; but, I'm sure Jamie CAN....Sir?  Loving you, JK

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Watching The Ballet again this weekend I'm reminded of how wonderful I think it is that you can hear Desi off camera laughing when Lucy gets hit with the pie. Not just a little laugh but that huge wonderful laugh that goes on for quite a while.

 

In turn in Ricky ' s Movie Offer when Fred is trying to fix the lock you can hear Lucy offscreen laughing. I love how even though they may have seen this stuff all week or could have been off stage during these scenes they weren't. They were there enjoying how brilliant each other was.

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  • 3 months later...
  • 4 months later...

A test of Ontario's emergency alert service this morning interrupted my regular Wednesday morning "I have the day off!" programming, so I popped in The Freezer. Although I have seen it practically hundreds of times, today was the first time I noticed Lucy checking to see if she broke a nail while loading the beef into the furnace. A very tiny but very funny little moment.

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The title of this thread now has this song stuck in my head. 

 

A little off topic, but as to the topic itself, this is a big part of my issue with Laverne & Shirley   ( It's these little things that make the characters on I Love Lucy real and believable.  These little things are completely missing from L&S, which is why I can't get into that show.  They come across to me just as two actors doing silly stuff rather than two human beings getting caught up in a wild situation.

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A test of Ontario's emergency alert service this morning interrupted my regular Wednesday morning "I have the day off!" programming, so I popped in The Freezer. Although I have seen it practically hundreds of times, today was the first time I noticed Lucy checking to see if she broke a nail while loading the beef into the furnace. A very tiny but very funny little moment.

Even I noticed that one, i know how important her long manicured nails were to her.

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The title of this thread now has this song stuck in my head. 

 

A little off topic, but as to the topic itself, this is a big part of my issue with Laverne & Shirley   ( It's these little things that make the characters on I Love Lucy real and believable.  These little things are completely missing from L&S, which is why I can't get into that show.  They come across to me just as two actors doing silly stuff rather than two human beings getting caught up in a wild situation.

How appropriate, great find.

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A test of Ontario's emergency alert service this morning interrupted my regular Wednesday morning "I have the day off!" programming, so I popped in The Freezer. Although I have seen it practically hundreds of times, today was the first time I noticed Lucy checking to see if she broke a nail while loading the beef into the furnace. A very tiny but very funny little moment.

I actually have noticed that before because its something I would totally do.

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The title of this thread now has this song stuck in my head. 

 

A little off topic, but as to the topic itself, this is a big part of my issue with Laverne & Shirley   ( It's these little things that make the characters on I Love Lucy real and believable.  These little things are completely missing from L&S, which is why I can't get into that show.  They come across to me just as two actors doing silly stuff rather than two human beings getting caught up in a wild situation.

Whenever I see this thread I get the Sondheim song stuck in my head, but now you come and show this catchy darn thing! I completely agree with the consensus on L & S. They had chemistry but the writing was never good enough to spark a chemical reaction.

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Whenever I see this thread I get the Sondheim song stuck in my head, but now you come and show this catchy darn thing! I completely agree with the consensus on L & S. They had chemistry but the writing was never good enough to spark a chemical reaction.

 

I don't know if I'm familiar with the Sondheim song.  As for L&S, it's the writing that's lacking as well as the nuanced things Lucy and Vivian would do -- gestures and expressions and such -- that would make them seem human.  I never saw nuance on L&S; it was all very broad and loud and over the top.

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I don't know if I'm familiar with the Sondheim song.  As for L&S, it's the writing that's lacking as well as the nuanced things Lucy and Vivian would do -- gestures and expressions and such -- that would make them seem human.  I never saw nuance on L&S; it was all very broad and loud and over the top.

 

Anyway, on L&S, I really think it was a show more geared towards kids. I think of Garry Marshall as the preteen Norman Lear of the 70s. The audience does sound like it has kids in it and the episodes were never super risqué.

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  • 4 months later...

Ricky Asks for A Raise, following this exchange:

 

:gale1: I assure you if you stay you won't be disappointed.

:lucy1:HA!!!!!!

 

After it gets a big laugh, Lucy looks directly into the camera for a split second -- inadvertently, of course -- almost as if to say, "Yep, nailed it."

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  • 5 months later...
  • 5 months later...
  • 11 months later...

In "Lucy Changes Her Mind", the restaurant scene opens with Fred whistling. Without looking up from her menu, Ethel promptly says "Stop whistlin'!". It doesn't get a laugh, but I thought it was hilarious and authentic. You get the feeling Fred's whistling gets on Ethel's nerves a lot.

Another great example of why my fave episodes are more the "foursome"-centered episodes like this one rather than the more iconic, "obvious" big pay-off scene episodes (e.g. "Job Switching", et. al.).. helped make them seem more realistic.... I'd have to watch it again, but something tells me that little authentic moment wasn't scripted...but, I guess we'll never know! :vanda:

 

(Which makes me wonder...wouldn't it be WUNDAFUL if there were an online archive of all the Lucy scripts from each series with free easy access?? Now THAT would be something!!) :HALKING:

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  • 6 months later...

"The Ricardos Change Apartments"- Ethel brings the news of the Bensons' daughter getting married ("He was laughing, she was crying")- and Ricky says something to the effect of "He probably thought he'd never unload her." Lucy is sitting on the couch blankly staring at something in/on the fourth wall. The way she laughs at Ricky's joke is so authentic I wonder if it's Lucille Ball's genuine reaction or if it was a planned beat. I'd believe both. 

Also, not a "little thing" from the characters, but certainly a facet of the show that tends to go unnoticed: I think ILL might be the most technically sophisticated show ever produced. Everything they did with those cameras is absolute gold- the picture quality, the blocking, the camera movement, it's all above and beyond anything that's been done on sitcoms since. For sets that are very simple, you still get an incredible sense of depth of field with seemingly nonstop camera movement. All this done in real time in front of an audience, with no monitors to boot! Take that, Friends!

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 2/20/2018 at 3:59 PM, Freddie2 said:

"The Ricardos Change Apartments"- Ethel brings the news of the Bensons' daughter getting married ("He was laughing, she was crying")- and Ricky says something to the effect of "He probably thought he'd never unload her." Lucy is sitting on the couch blankly staring at something in/on the fourth wall. The way she laughs at Ricky's joke is so authentic I wonder if it's Lucille Ball's genuine reaction or if it was a planned beat. I'd believe both. 

Also, not a "little thing" from the characters, but certainly a facet of the show that tends to go unnoticed: I think ILL might be the most technically sophisticated show ever produced. Everything they did with those cameras is absolute gold- the picture quality, the blocking, the camera movement, it's all above and beyond anything that's been done on sitcoms since. For sets that are very simple, you still get an incredible sense of depth of field with seemingly nonstop camera movement. All this done in real time in front of an audience, with no monitors to boot! Take that, Friends!

...AND they didn't take 9 hours to shoot, like today's sitcoms (seem) to do!! Okay, "only" 4 or 5 hour but still...it borders on the ridiculous. :vanda:

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