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What episodes are you listening to for "My Favorite Husband"?


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The Christmas Stag
It's not the funniest overall script, but the little moments really sell this one. I love the energy of the audience and the many spontaneous applause breaks. I especially enjoy Liz's line about men not having her hair color, followed by Iris's reply, "As a matter of fact, how many women have hair..." She can't even finish the line before the audience is in stitches.

Gumball Machine
I never tire of this episode. Anytime Florence Halop appears as Ruthie, the party-line nemesis, is worthwhile. Plus the story is well plotted and believable.

Numerology
One of the sillier entries, which inspired one of the sillier I Love Lucy episodes, but fun nonetheless. It's not as funny as "The Séance" TV episode because Lucy's delivery of the awkward material (too many number jokes) isn't as sharp as it would become on television. There, she and Vivian helped sell the premise more.

Liz Cooks Dinner for Twelve
This is a great one. Eleanor Audley was always a welcome presence, and the routine about the eight chickens is hysterical. "When last seen, 7 and 8 were going east on Bundy Drive." A very visual episode that allows you to picture the many sight gags.

Safety Drive
This one's a little slow going at times but is amusing. It must've been originally written to feature Bea Benadaret as Iris,  but she wasn't available for whatever reason. I can't imagine why else they'd have bumped up the otherwise minor character of Marge Van Tassel to Liz's partner in crime for merely one episode. All of Marge's lines could easily have come out of Iris's mouth. But Elvia Allman acquits herself nicely; it's unfortunate she didn't get to play Lucy's confidante more often.

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The Wills
This is one of the rare radio shows which I think is funnier than the I Love Lucy inspired equivalent ("Lucy Thinks Ricky is Trying to Murder Her"). Maybe because it's just made so obvious to the audience that George never means Liz any harm. Having Lucy think Ricky wants to kill her in the first episode shot maybe wasn't the best creative move. Thank God that one didn't air first.

April Fools' Day
Can't say I'm fond of this one. Though I'm definitely a proponent of knowing the context of the times rather than judging scripts by today's standards, I just don't find this episode funny under any circumstances. The whole plot has Liz and George at odds over a very cruel joke made by Mr. Atterbury, and the wife beater comments are very uncomfortable. It's kind of a pity that this one survives when other, funnier sounding installments appear to be lost.

Mrs. Cooper's Boyfriend
I re-listen to this one often. The final scene with the three "boyfriends" all colliding is very well done. "Aw shucks, back to lemons again."

 

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Liz Teaches Iris to Drive
This one's a hoot. It's fun that radio gave the audience a chance to actually be with Liz and Iris when the cars came unhooked on the road, though I Love Lucy certainly made a brilliant sight-gag out of it happening off-screen.

The Question of Another Woman
One of the funnier "jumping to conclusions" episodes, especially because the payoff of the two couples confronting each other in the restaurant is so satisfying. It also gave Bea Benadaret one of her greatest lines: "Well! If it isn't Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Philanderer!"

Trying to Marry Off Peggy Martin
The I Love Lucy remake with Hal March certainly stuck close to the original script. This and "The Black Eye" were perhaps the most loyal of all the radio show adaptations. Pretty much every scene plays out exactly the same in both versions. Bill Frawley's delivery of "HE must be out of his mind" was much funnier than Gale Gordon's.

Liz's Birthday
A decent show, but you can tell the writers were starting to run out of steam with the concept by this point. The routine about Liz wearing her coat downtown and George thinking she's talking about a nightgown was lifted verbatim from the "Anniversary Presents" episode. The funniest moment for me was when Atterbury's secretary repeated his "OH GAD!" catchphrase. "That girl's been working for me too long!"

Liz Changes Her Mind
This is another one which I think is a bit funnier than its I Love Lucy equivalent, not that I don't enjoy both. Their sorority being Delta Upsilon Delta ("Yes, she's a DUD, too") was inspired.

College Homecoming
I've noticed that "The Football Game" is frequently mislabeled as this one online, but they're actually two separate episodes. I enjoy how the story turns the tables, with the girls exasperated by the boys acting goofy for a change.

French Lessons
For some reason, I always remember the beginning of this episode but never the end. I'd completely forgotten about the duel until I listened to it again. It's okay, I guess, but not that memorable. I'll probably forget it again come the next time I hear it.

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2 hours ago, Luvsbway said:

What I find interesting about some of these My Favorite Husband episodes is when some made it to TV, they ended up as a mashup of two episodes. The French Lesson one is a good example of this with the I Love Lucy version of The French Revue and The Adagio. 

I find that interesting as well. "The Marriage License" is another example - the part about the husband's name being misspelled on the license was taken from "Marriage License," while re-creating their early courtship was taken from "Anniversary."

Or sometimes one radio script got split up into multiple TV episodes. In the case of "The Wills," the basic plot inspired "Lucy Thinks Ricky is Trying to Murder Her," but the dialogue about writing their wills was incorporated into "The Pilot/Audition."

There was also a two-part radio episode about Women's Rights - the first part became "Equal Rights" in season 3, while the second part became "Job Switching" in season 2.  Makes me wonder what the I Love Lucy version would've been like if they'd followed the two-part format.

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  • 2 years later...

I listened to/"watched" this animated version of "Liz Cooks Dinner For 12," from 1950. 

I really enjoyed this episode! It sounds like Richard Crenna played the delivery boy, just a year before he played Arthur in "The Young Fans" episode of I Love Lucy. And hearing Eleanor Audley (who voiced Lady Tremaine in Disney's Cinderella and Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty) as Liz's mother-in-law, was a treat. I really liked the finale, where George tells Liz that the dinner is canceled, just as their friends have sent over fully catered dinners because they know Liz botched hers. 

While watching/listening to this episode, it was interesting to see how much of a creative role Lucy and Desi played in shaping the "I Love Lucy" and making it different from My Favorite Husband. In Lucille Ball's autobiography, she notes that Desi never wanted people to make fun of his or Lucy's in-laws on the show, so the scenes in this episode where Liz bickers with George's mother would have never happened on I Love Lucy. And Lucy Ricardo, unlike Liz Cooper, was a fine cook who would have had no problem reading a recipe. 

While watching/listening to the scenes with Bea Benaderet, I kept thinking of what I Love Lucy would have been like if Bea had played the part of Ethel (as Lucy had originally envisioned.) Granted, Bea was a character actress and might have adjusted her performance if chosen to play Ethel, but there was nothing about her voice/intonation in this episode that felt "right" for the Ethel character. I think Vivian Vance brought a sense of sarcasm/dry humor to her line readings that really made that character pop. 

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22 hours ago, teenageluminary said:

I listened to/"watched" this animated version of "Liz Cooks Dinner For 12," from 1950. 

I really enjoyed this episode! It sounds like Richard Crenna played the delivery boy, just a year before he played Arthur in "The Young Fans" episode of I Love Lucy. And hearing Eleanor Audley (who voiced Lady Tremaine in Disney's Cinderella and Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty) as Liz's mother-in-law, was a treat. I really liked the finale, where George tells Liz that the dinner is canceled, just as their friends have sent over fully catered dinners because they know Liz botched hers. 

While watching/listening to this episode, it was interesting to see how much of a creative role Lucy and Desi played in shaping the "I Love Lucy" and making it different from My Favorite Husband. In Lucille Ball's autobiography, she notes that Desi never wanted people to make fun of his or Lucy's in-laws on the show, so the scenes in this episode where Liz bickers with George's mother would have never happened on I Love Lucy. And Lucy Ricardo, unlike Liz Cooper, was a fine cook who would have had no problem reading a recipe. 

While watching/listening to the scenes with Bea Benaderet, I kept thinking of what I Love Lucy would have been like if Bea had played the part of Ethel (as Lucy had originally envisioned.) Granted, Bea was a character actress and might have adjusted her performance if chosen to play Ethel, but there was nothing about her voice/intonation in this episode that felt "right" for the Ethel character. I think Vivian Vance brought a sense of sarcasm/dry humor to her line readings that really made that character pop. 

Thanks for sharing this! I was disappointed to see the YouTube version was taken down and have been looking for it again ever since. 

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