Two birthdays got America's attention this week. President Barack Obama turned 50 and I was disappointed to learn that Helen Thomas didn't don a clinging white evening gown to serenade him with "Happy Birthday."
But, the other birthday celebration was really a posthumous one. Yesterday, Lucille Ball would have turned 100. And, one hundred years from now, I doubt any politician will still have the positive effect on the world that Lucy and her "I Love Lucy" cohorts had. If there is still such a thing as television a century from now, chances are somebody will be laughing as more chocolate bon bons skip past Lucy and Ethel on the conveyor belt.
I've written about this landmark show several times on this blog. I named "I Love Lucy" as my #1 favorite TV program of all time. And those memories were rerun here just last May when one of the show's creators and writers, Madelyn Pugh Davis, passed away. Yet, I can never look back on it enough.
Truth be told, I don't remember my life without "I Love Lucy" in it. Of course, it was long gone from the primetime schedule when I first saw it. But, CBS ran reruns every weekday mornings at 10AM and you anxiously awaited a sick day from school so you could tune in. The best part of getting the measles and the chicken pox was being able to watch "I Love Lucy" every day throughout your sickness.
Around the same time, CBS still ran the "Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour" in primetime during the summer months. They were new to us as if they were still producing shows. Summer nights were planned around whatever night they were airing that year. There were only thirteen episodes. I always wondered why they couldn't make any more. Mom filled me in.
"Because Lucy and Desi got divorced."
Oh.
Not only was "I Love Lucy" my first exposure to comedy, it was also my entry into the world of that gut wrenching phenomenon.
When I got to high school, I was not out sick as much. But, the "I Love Lucy" connection didn't go away because WNEW Metromedia Channel 5 in New York saw fit to pick up the rerun rights and they showed it every night at 630PM. This is when the program really started to hit home with me. It began to form my personality and, more importantly, my creative DNA.
Entrenched in my mind were plots and comedic lines that would stay with me forever.
The "LA At Last" episode with Bill Holden that features not one but two of the best written comedy set pieces in television sitcom history. I will run one of them tomorrow as my Monday Video Laugh. To this day, when a dessert cart passes me in a restaurant, I will repeat Ethel's throwaway line.
"Oh, I'm gonna have a piece of that."
The hilarious episode where Lucy flies home from Europe disguising a twenty-five pound hunk of cheese as a baby. Another great line in that one as Lucy tries to get Ricky to sit next to her on the plane.
"I am not the father of that cheese."
As the series aged, it seemed like the writing and acting fused together even more. Madelyn Pugh Davis told us that the blend of talent behind the camera was "pure serendipity." Watch in this scene as Vivian Vance, Mary Jane Croft, and Lucille Ball advance a rather simple plot brilliantly.
After four years of a nightly diet provided by the Ricardos and the Mertzes, it's no wonder that my twelfth-grade English term paper was all about...yep, "I Love Lucy." Oh, sure, I contrasted it with the more current "All in the Family," but I did a bang-up research project on the show's creation and its place in television production history.
My parents thought I was nuts. They thought it a little less so when I scored an A+.
Indeed, those are the only TV shows that I can recall watching with both my mother and my father as a family unit. Dad particularly loved whenever Fred Mertz was dressed in a bizarre costume or when he took a pot shot at Ethel. There were delicious belly laughs in our living room and, trust me, those moments were rarities.
To this very day, I frequently quote my favorite lines of "I Love Lucy" during everyday life. Sometimes, the situation simply calls for it.
When work gets a little too complicated, I will be heard to say "if I can only break these ties that bind me." That's from the "Ricky's Screen Test" episode.
When life gets messy, I will exclaim "how can you stand there in the middle of all this and utter those four horrible words 'I've got an idea?'" That's an Ethel quote from "Ricky Needs an Agent."
And, whenever the city of Riverside is mentioned on television in the proximity of either myself or my writing partner, one of us will immediately yell out "Riverside?!!" Lucy asked the very same question in "The Great Train Robbery" episode.
The list goes on and on and on.
Oddly, I had two direct encounters with Miss Ball herself. The first was years and years ago. She and Bob Hope were promoting a movie together and, in those days, stars would come to the New York metropolitan area to promote the film. They would hop from one local movie house to another and come on stage for about ten minutes. In between stops at RKO in Yonkers and RKO in New Rochelle, they would be gracing us all at the RKO Proctors Theater in Mount Vernon.
The event had an added bonus. You could get in free with two box tops from Pepsodent Toothpaste. My mom countered.
"We use Crest."
Not for the next month or so, Mother.
On this momentous day, the movie house was packed to the rafters. The film was unspooling and suddenly stopped. The lights went up and the stars magically appeared before us. I suddenly, for the very first time in my life, was in touch with Hollywood.
They took questions from the audience and maybe my outstretched arm was higher than anybody else's. Or maybe I was just an adorable little kid. Lucy picked me.
"Lucy, how old are you?"
Eh, maybe not so adorable. Lucy did a take and then answered me.
"Okay, next question."
Big laugh from all around.
Many years later, I made my first trip to the Left Coast. And, as I was tooling the streets in my rented car, I would frequently find myself motoring up and down Roxbury Drive. Heck, all the stars lived there. Jimmy Stewart. Jack Benny. Peter Falk. Rosemary Clooney.
And, of course, Lucy.
One day, after several canvassing of the area, I decided to pass by again. I'd always slow down to take a longer peak. Suddenly, I noticed at the end of their driveway.
A woman wearing a purple caftan. And a pile of red hair that was noticeable from outer space. She was motioning to somebody in the backyard.
I slammed on my brakes. Loudly. Lucy turned to see who the fool was.
I waved sheepishly and continued on.
And that was it. Me and Lucy. Intertwined for a short ten seconds.
Oh, over the years, the connections multipled and got deeper. In Los Angeles, we worked on for a while a proposed PBS documentary devoted to the series. Elements of that twelfth-grade English term paper came back in spades. And, as I have written here before, we became friends with the "I Love Lucy" writers Bob Carroll Jr. and especially Madelyn Pugh Davis. The creative indoctrination from years of watching the show were punctuated by Madelyn's off-the-cuff remark one day at lunch.
"If we were still working, you would be working for us."
From lying on the living room couch with a faceful of chicken pox to that. A complete and amazing circle. All thanks to that fanciful "serendipity" created sixty years ago.
Happy birthday, Lucy. And one more cap tip from me to all those who worked right alongside you, creating moments of sheer wonderment that will be live forever.
Dinner last night: Sausage and sauerkraut sandwich at the Hollywood Bowl.
1 comment:
This should be in the NY Times.
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