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What episodes are you watching on "Here's Lucy"?


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I absolutely love Lucy and Gale's "By the Light of the Silv'ry Moon." It is one of my favorite moments from the entire series. Other than that there isn't a ton to recommend in this episode. .... I won't defend this script by Fox and Jacobs, but after Bob and Madelyn returned, F&J seemed to pick up a few things from them and wrote some really fantastic episodes (Lucy's Tenant, Lucy's Punctured Romance, Mary Jane's Boyfriend, among them).

the only drawback to their "Silvery Moon" song is that the vocals are pre-recorded (including Gale's "He's quite good") and that always sucks a little life out of a musical performance. And while you have to excuse the where-are-they orchestra joining in, why was it necessary with Liberace at the piano?.....when Tim Matteson banging out "I Got Love" on a spinet for Kim suffices?

I like the three Fox/Jacobs shows you mentioned. I don't know why but Lucy always seems harsher with one of their scripts.

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Watched "NG as RN" again the other night, definitely the best ep on the HL "Best" single dvd release, along of course with the Liz & Dick ep.... some of the other ep choices were curious ("Great Airport Chase"???) but then my "Top 10" or "Best of" lists never match the majority either....call me a rebel! :lucy2:

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Watched "NG as RN" again the other night, definitely the best ep on the HL "Best" single dvd release, along of course with the Liz & Dick ep.... some of the other ep choices were curious ("Great Airport Chase"???) but then my "Top 10" or "Best of" lists never match the majority either....call me a rebel! :lucy2:

Yeah, like that dreadful Sammy Davis, Jr. episode on the old "Shout" best of. Some other curious choices there, too -- like the Helen Hayes episode, but not "Lucy, the Shopping Expert" or "Lucy's Working Daughter."
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Season 5 has the best three episodes on any Here's Lucy season....maybe of all the Lucy Show too.

Big Break--Eva Gabor as Hospital Roomie--Harry, Male Nurse.

Nothing that happens is unrealistic. No explosions with showers of sparks for no reason that Milt seemed to love to much. (Coincidentally this is the first Milt-less season).

Lucy is much sweeter, more the vulnerable Lucy of the past. And there are a lot of little touches, such as Dr. Lloyd feeding Lucy who says before one bite: "That needs more salt."

Give Bob and Madelyn something to center the show around and they come through. Likewise, the best Mothers In Law center around some big event---the wedding and the baby's birth.

I notice that unless Kim is intricately involved in the plot ("Kim Moves Out' "Wandering Mother"), a lot of Bob and Madelyn's scripts don't include her. (and IMO she is not missed). Trivia note: The original script of "Pickle" has only Lucy dressing up like the pickle and doing the song and dance. I don't know if Kim was in it at all.

I don't know if the "R.G" in his name R.G. Brown stood for "Really Gay" but his character, Eva Gabor's Ginger Rogers-"Spike" equivalent is the nelliest thing ever to appear on network TV and that includes Liberace who acts like John Wayne in comparison.

One of the best lines in the entire series:

Nurse Olgilvy on Dr. Lloyd Bridges: "I've been trying to get him to take me out for years. He won't even take out my appendix."

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Neil you are so right on this. I tended to watch the episodes all out of order when I would get the DVD sets. Not having seen much at all from Season 5 and knowing that the leg issue was part of a continuing story line I stared at episode 1 for this season.

 

That sweeter/ vulnerability is what struck me as I watched these 3 episodes back to back. I think I read one time that no one wanted to see Harry yelling at a woman with a broken leg so his meanness was toned down this season. Lloyd Bridges was very good in the first episode and you generally felt sorry for Lucy when none of her friends came to visit her. Eve Gabor was very enjoyable as well. I don’t think you could get anymore gayer than her assistant. Did people in the 70’s catch on to this sort of wink wink, nudge, nudge flamboyantness? Didn’t he also turn up in the Twimby episode as the antiques shop helper? Another very good episode that has many of the same qualities these 3 episodes contain. Harry as the nurse was very good and due to his not yelling at Lucy but taking every annoying circumstance in stride was much more enjoyable than when he just yells. The only time it got a little unrealistic was Harry on the motorized cart at the end.

 

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The only time it got a little unrealistic was Harry on the motorized cart at the end.

 

Which all things considered is not unrealistic, not in the way her Superwoman gymnastics, her 3rd season ski jump where she actually defies gravity or even her Kiddie Parties flight with the helium balloons were. Unless during the latter Danfield's wind currents shifted directions 180 degrees and back and forth.

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  • 1 month later...

Yeah, like that dreadful Sammy Davis, Jr. episode on the old "Shout" best of. Some other curious choices there, too -- like the Helen Hayes episode, but not "Lucy, the Shopping Expert" or "Lucy's Working Daughter."

 

I just happened to watched LUCY AND SAMMY DAVIS JR tonight as well as two others off the Shout Factory set and realized this was the first time I'd seen Sammy in decades other than his gag bit appearance on Beverly Hillbillies, haven't seen him in anything sizable since his last few tv appearances before passing away in the mid 1980's, that was kind of a shock to realize since he was always on tv in the 60s/early 80s but mostly on talk and variety shows so I've not seen him in action for nearly three decades. Re this episode, the problem was mainly they made Lucy too dumb as if she couldn't understand the difference between real life and a movie being filmed. I was surprised by the ending though with the Carter gang running off the movie set, I really thought it would end with Sammy getting smacked in the nose one last time.

 

LUCY AND SHELLEY WINTERS had some of the biggest (no pun intended!) laughs ever on HL. Interesting that Shelley plays a "fictional" movie star named Shelley who has won two Oscars and loves to eat. Shelley was not only a great actress but a great sport and this frequently un-PC episode was terrific and Lucy's pained mugging as Shelley obliviously sits on her hand was hysterical. I couldn't help but think of Ann Sothern who has been our poor bash girl recently at TLL particularly in the scene where "dieting" Shelley hides chocolates and food all over the place (according to an Sothern biography, Ann literally did that herself when staying at a fat farm in the early 70's!) Shelley actually looks wonderful though in every one of her scenes, didn't realize she was still so attractive during this the "character actress" phase of her career. Interesting that the show concocted a weight-loss contraption for Shelley, "an electric horse" that is slightly similar to the "bucking horse" thing from URBAN COWBOY albeit looking more like a homemade rocking horse.

 

THE GENERATION GAP wasn't bad for an almost entirely musical episode of HL, particularly given Lucy is obviously not singing for herself at all. The Roman Empire was the best with some good gags and Lucy looking particularly stunning; was disappointed though in her astronaut costume for the Space age given Lucy and Desi Jr had cool Jetsonsesque clothes. This one is of note for Lucy and Gale's "old-fashioned" dance titled THE MOONWALK more than a decade before Michael Jackson invented his own one with that name. I was surprised that this was from 1969 when the kids were still teenagers, they both could pass for early 20's here.

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I just happened to watched LUCY AND SAMMY DAVIS JR tonight as well as two others off the Shout Factory set and realized this was the first time I'd seen Sammy in decades other than his gag bit appearance on Beverly Hillbillies, haven't seen him in anything sizable since his last few tv appearances before passing away in the mid 1980's, that was kind of a shock to realize since he was always on tv in the 60s/early 80s but mostly on talk and variety shows so I've not seen him in action for nearly three decades. Re this episode, the problem was mainly they made Lucy too dumb as if she couldn't understand the difference between real life and a movie being filmed. I was surprised by the ending though with the Carter gang running off the movie set, I really thought it would end with Sammy getting smacked in the nose one last time.

 

LUCY AND SHELLEY WINTERS had some of the biggest (no pun intended!) laughs ever on HL. Interesting that Shelley plays a "fictional" movie star named Shelley who has won two Oscars and loves to eat. Shelley was not only a great actress but a great sport and this frequently un-PC episode was terrific and Lucy's pained mugging as Shelley obliviously sits on her hand was hysterical. I couldn't help but think of Ann Sothern who has been our poor bash girl recently at TLL particularly in the scene where "dieting" Shelley hides chocolates and food all over the place (according to an Sothern biography, Ann literally did that herself when staying at a fat farm in the early 70's!) Shelley actually looks wonderful though in every one of her scenes, didn't realize she was still so attractive during this the "character actress" phase of her career. Interesting that the show concocted a weight-loss contraption for Shelley, "an electric horse" that is slightly similar to the "bucking horse" thing from URBAN COWBOY albeit looking more like a homemade rocking horse.

 

 

Shel was terrific as Roseanne`s grandmother on the series, and again, the stupid Emmy voters did not recognize her great work at this very late stage of her career.
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I just happened to watched LUCY AND SAMMY DAVIS JR tonight as well as two others off the Shout Factory set and realized this was the first time I'd seen Sammy in decades other than his gag bit appearance on Beverly Hillbillies, haven't seen him in anything sizable since his last few tv appearances before passing away in the mid 1980's, that was kind of a shock to realize since he was always on tv in the 60s/early 80s but mostly on talk and variety shows so I've not seen him in action for nearly three decades. Re this episode, the problem was mainly they made Lucy too dumb as if she couldn't understand the difference between real life and a movie being filmed. I was surprised by the ending though with the Carter gang running off the movie set, I really thought it would end with Sammy getting smacked in the nose one last time.

 

 

I think Sammy was all over the tv screen , even had his own talk show at one point, which they made fun of in the great movie All That Jazz, they mocked him for his long winded intros of his guests who were invariably his great friends. Did you forget his appearances on Laugh In also, HERE COME DA JUDGE . . . of course at the end, he did those concerts with Sinatra and they had that great tribute special for him about a year before he passed, BUT, I think he died a short time after Lucy, not the mid eighties.
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I think Sammy was all over the tv screen , even had his own talk show at one point, which they made fun of in the great movie All That Jazz, they mocked him for his long winded intros of his guests who were invariably his great friends. Did you forget his appearances on Laugh In also, HERE COME DA JUDGE . . . of course at the end, he did those concerts with Sinatra and they had that great tribute special for him about a year before he passed, BUT, I think he died a short time after Lucy, not the mid eighties.

 

You're right, I checked and he died a year after Lucy. I was thinking he passed away circa 1987 as I could have sworn I read somewhere Lucy was a great comfort to his widow at the time, maybe it was another celebrity. I guess I was thinking if Desi and Sammy passed away around the same time perhaps they offered each other support as they mourned.

 

That's what I meant though about him being one of those variety entertainers that were on tv all the time but then after their deaths you never really see them again because they made few if any movies and maybe just a few appearances acting on a tv series. People like Sammy, Kate Smith, Perry Como, Dinah Shore.

 

Have never seen reruns of LAUGHIN and probably not even ALL IN THE FAMILY for a good 20 years so, no I haven't seen Sammy in anything since his death other than this HERE'S LUCY role and the HILLBILLIES bit.

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You're right, I checked and he died a year after Lucy. I was thinking he passed away circa 1987 as I could have sworn I read somewhere Lucy was a great comfort to his widow at the time, maybe it was another celebrity. I guess I was thinking if Desi and Sammy passed away around the same time perhaps they offered each other support as they mourned.

 

That's what I meant though about him being one of those variety entertainers that were on tv all the time but then after their deaths you never really see them again because they made few if any movies and maybe just a few appearances acting on a tv series. People like Sammy, Kate Smith, Perry Como, Dinah Shore.

 

Have never seen reruns of LAUGHIN and probably not even ALL IN THE FAMILY for a good 20 years so, no I haven't seen Sammy in anything since his death other than this HERE'S LUCY role and the HILLBILLIES bit.

I don't even recall his guest shot on Hillbillies. Man, you and I have such similar tastes, I haven't sat through an ep of All in the Family in over twenty years also. Laugh In I bought on dvd, they had two boxed sets and I couldn't go on after watching two episodes of the lot, it just doesn't hold up. Only worth something for the guest stars cameos, but the jokes are too topical to hold up after all those decades. Maybe that's why ILL made it, it was rarely topical. Kate Smith was terrific on the Dean Martin show that had Lucy as a guest, can't wait to get that one on dvd, all I have now is a copy. Dinah's estate should release all her talk shows on DVD and maybe a compilation of her variety series. Same for Perry, he was as big as Andy Williams and Dino back then with HIS variety show. The star's widow that Lucy comforted was Henry Fonda's by the way. She saw him shortly before he died, they lived near each other and Hank must have asked Lucy to guide Shirley, after he passed.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Some real funny episodes:

 

Lucy and Lawrence Welk w/Vivian Vance (season 2)

Lucy Runs The Rapids (season 2)

Taylor/Burton Espisode (season 3)

Lucy and the Astronauts (season 4)

Lucy and Kim dressed up as pickles (season 5 - hysterical)

Lucy & Joan Rivers Do Jury Durty (season 6)

Lucy Plays Cops & Robbers (season 6 - one of my all time favorites)

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Some real funny episodes:

 

Lucy and Lawrence Welk w/Vivian Vance (season 2)

Lucy Runs The Rapids (season 2)

Taylor/Burton Espisode (season 3)

Lucy and the Astronauts (season 4)

Lucy and Kim dressed up as pickles (season 5 - hysterical)

Lucy & Joan Rivers Do Jury Durty (season 6)

Lucy Plays Cops & Robbers (season 6 - one of my all time favorites)

Agreed this is a great bunch you chose. As for me, that Taylor/Burton ep is about as familiar as Vitameatvegamin, I am playing it way too much, LOL!

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I was in a musical HL mood tonight and watched

  • The Case of the Reckless Wheelchair Driver (is it just me, or does that diner serve the world's weakest coffee? lol)
  • Lucy & Jim Bailey
  • Lucy & Donny Osmond
  • Lucy & Petula Clark
  • My Fair Buzzi ("Her face looks like an unbaked pie. :mellow: ")

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I was in a musical HL mood tonight and watched

  • The Case of the Reckless Wheelchair Driver (is it just me, or does that diner serve the world's weakest coffee? lol)
  • Lucy & Jim Bailey
  • Lucy & Donny Osmond
  • Lucy & Petula Clark
  • My Fair Buzzi ("Her face looks like an unbaked pie. :mellow: ")

 

 

Thank God for people like YOU, who have seen all the shows so many times that you can recite dialogue. I hadn't noticed but it was YOU who pointed out their obsession with the song I Know A Place. Same as it was YOU who made me LOVE Lucy the Fixer, I thought it was so old fashioned and BEEN DONE TOO MANY TIMES BEFORE but now it's one of my all time faves from the series.

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