TVXOHOF BIRTHDAY SALUTE - "LUCY, I'M HOME IN THE HALL!"

From Wikipedia:

Desiderio Alberto Arnaz y de Acha III (March 2, 1917 — December 2, 1986), better known as Desi Arnaz or Desi Arnaz, Sr., was a Cuban-born American musician, actor, television producer, writer, and director. He is best remembered for his role as Ricky Ricardo on the American television series sitcom 'I Love Lucy', starring with Lucille Ball, to whom he was married at the time. Arnaz was also internationally renowned for leading his Latin music band, the Desi Arnaz Orchestra. Ball and he are generally credited as the inventors of the rerun in connection with 'I Love Lucy'.

Had he been alive today, Ricky Ricardo would have been 100 years old.  In 2000, Lucy Ricardo was the January inductee into the Television Crossover Hall of Fame to kick off a year long (for the most part) salute to the women of Toobworld.  On this special occasion it seems only appropriate that Ricky should join his wife in the Hall.  ('The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour' ended with Desi and Lucy getting divorced in real life.  However, the Ricardos vanished from our TV screens still married and I'd like to think they remained so til Death did them part.  Anything else, chiefly divorce, would have to be considered fanfic.)

We could have saluted Mr. Arnaz as a member of the League of Themselves in September when we pay tribute to the talent behind the scenes who make the crossovers possible.  (We did the same for Lucille Ball in April of 2000 - Ms. Ball dominated the Hall for those first four months of the year.)  But where's the sport in that?

So let's get some background on Ricky Ricardo, courtesy of Wikipedia.......

Lucy and Ricky Ricardo are fictional characters from the American television sitcom 'I Love Lucy', portrayed respectively by Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. The Ricardos also appear in 'The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour'.

Ricky is a character very similar to Arnaz himself, a Cuban-American bandleader whose trademark song is "Babalu". They have a son Ricky Ricardo, Jr., also called "Little Ricky", portrayed by child actor Richard Keith.

Ricky gives his full name in the episode "Hollywood Anniversary" as Ricardo Alberto Fernando Ricardo y de Acha, but in the episode "Lucy Raises Tulips" Lucy calls him "Enrique Alberto Fernando Ricardo y de Acha III".

When she was 22, Lucy was set up on a blind date by her friend Marion Strong. Her blind date turned out to be a Cuban conga drummer, Ricky Ricardo. The two fell in love and eventually got married at the Byram River Beagle Club in Connecticut. An alternate scenario given to guest star Hedda Hopper in the 'Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour' episode "Lucy Takes a Cruise to Havana," with Lucy and friend Susie McNamara (Ann Sothern, reprising her role from 'Private Secretary'), is that Lucy met Ricky while vacationing in Cuba in 1940.

O'BSERVATION: This is a Zonk which can be easily splained away by invoking future Hall member Helen Cutter.  Mrs. Cutter altered the original Toobworld timeline at some point in Earth Prime-Time's past.  Among the changes she caused which affected the Ricardos directly was the way Lucy and Ricky first met.  The blind date scenario took place in the original timeline, while the Havana encounter happened in the revised timeline. 

Let's go back to the Wikipedian information... information... information:

In the early 1940s, Lucy and Ricky moved into an old reconverted brownstone apartment at 623 East 68th Street in New York City (references made during the series date the move to 1940 or 1943). The apartment rented for $105 per month. Their landlords (soon to be best friends) were Fred and Ethel Mertz.

O'BSERVATION:  Other changes to the Ricardos' lives caused by Helen Cutter were the variations in Ethel Mertz's maiden name and the numbering of the Ricardos' apartment.

Upon moving to the city, Ricky ended up getting a job headlining the Club Tropicana where they were held over indefinitely.

In 1954, Lucy's husband is given a role in an upcoming MGM film based on the life of Don Juan. Lucy and the Mertzes followed Ricky on his journey to Hollywood stardom. While in Hollywood, Lucy meets many famous celebrities, including William Holden, Hedda Hopper, Rock Hudson, Cornel Wilde, Harpo Marx, Richard Widmark, Van Johnson, and John Wayne.

O'BSERVATION:  Some of the celebrities they encountered serve as connections to other TV shows by virtue of their appearances as their own televersions.  Harpo links 'I Love Lucy' to 'Mr. Smith Goes To Washington', for example.  Hedda Hopper links the Ricardos to 'The Beverly Hillbillies', as does Crossover Hall of Fame member John Wayne who also appeared in an episode of 'Maude' and 'Here's Lucy'.

Onwards, Wiki-wise.....

Very soon after returning home from Hollywood, Ricky's band is given a chance to tour around Europe. Lucy and the Mertzes again tag along on the trip and get a once in a lifetime opportunity. They sail on a cruise ship across the Atlantic,

O'BSERVATION: There were three major countries on the tour of Europe:

• England - Lucy took part in a fox hunt and got to meet the Queen of England.
• France - Lucy met Charles Boyer in Paris, but it could just as easily have been a "rogue" named Marcel St. Clair who was a con artist, thief, and Boyer impersonator.
• Italy - Lucy nearly drowned in a vat of grapes because she had angered the grape-stomper who didn't like Lucy seemed to be mocking her in her profession.  (In my Toobworld adventures, Toob Cooper tracked down the bottle of fermented grape which had come in contact with Lucy Ricardo's feet and was able to purchase it for an insanely low price.)

But the Ricardos and the Mertzes may have visited other countries with the orchestra but these trips were never seen by the audience of the Trueniverse.

And finally.....

In 1956, Lucy and her husband Ricky decide to move to Connecticut after making a trip there, and Lucy falls in love with the area.

O'BSERVATION: The farmhouse they bought was just outside Westport and by the early 1960s, Lucy and Ethel could have become friends with Samantha Stephens and even Gladys Kravitz.  (In fact, I came up with a little bit of fanfic where Ricky was hired by McMann & Tate to promote a product being sold by a Cuban expatriate.  But a spell bumbled by Aunt Clara turns Lucy into Fidel Castro and it takes all of Sam's magic to smooth things over.)

So these are the shows which cement Ricky Ricardo's qualifications to be in the TV Crossover Hall of Fame:

"I Love Lucy" 
181 episodes

"Make Room for Daddy"
    - Lucy Upsets the Williams Household 

(1959) 

"Sunday Showcase"
    - The Milton Berle Special 

(1959)

"The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour"
13 episodes

But that's not all, dear reader!

These commercials have as much validity in Earth Prime-Time as the appearances by the Ricardos in their own series.  And they show us that the Ricardos were serlinguists, able to talk to the people of the Trueniverse.

So welcome to the Hall, Mr. Ricardo.  And happy birthday - wherever you are - Mr. Arnaz....

LUCY @ 100: THE BALLAD OF LUCY AND THE DUKE... AND LUCY

Just sit right back
And take a look
At the tale of two Lucies
And a cowboy named Duke.....

Actually, I'll get to that in a minute. But first I have some splainin to do.......

There are TV crossover chroniclers out there who don't accept celebrities playing themselves to be valid links between shows. They're welcome to run their own TV universes as they see fit, but for the Toobworld Dynamic those celebrities have not been "caught in the act of being themselves." Instead they're playing televersions - characters based on themselves who are just as fictional as the characters who interact with them.

And if George Jefferson can link 'The Jeffersons' to 'All In The Family', 'The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air', and 'E/R', then I don't see why Sammy Davis Jr. can't link 'All In The Family' and 'Archie Bunker's Place' to 'Here's Lucy' and 'I Dream Of Jeannie'.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch.....

One thing I noticed while watching most of the 'Rifleman' marathon on AMC every Saturday morning (I missed the last two weeks because yet another DVR committed "queue-icide".), is how many actors kept repeating as guest stars on the show, and always in different roles. Sometimes - as was the case with John Anderson or Chubby Johnson - they'd appear in back-to-back episodes.

At least frequent guest stars Peter Whitney and Robert H. Harris changed their appearances with each new role, so they'd each be unique. But the others? And yet the regulars in North Fork never seemed to notice the similarities between these characters. Toobworld Central has come up with a couple of splainins for these cases of double vision: in the case of John Anderson's characters, there's a reasonably valid reason why so many of his characters looked alike. But with those played by John Milford, (about nine in all), the splainin is literally out of this world. (And there's another TV character connected to all of it. Can you guess "who"?)

So far, I've resisted the temptation to use a "quantum leap traveler" as the suspect for a series of repeat visits to North Fork by the same actor, but I can only hold out for so long.

But on the whole, there has to be a simpler, more generic, "one size fits all" reason as to why a TV character never notices that so many people he runs into - like 'Columbo' with all of the John Finnegan and Vito Scotti characters - look exactly alike.

The basic splainin has to be that there's just something unique about each of them that differentiates them to other TV characters, but which is unseen by the audience viewing at home in the Trueniverse.

This all brings me around to Lucille Ball. You remember Lucille Ball, don't you? In case you didn't notice, today's posts are all dedicated to the memory of Lucille Ball who would have turned 100 years old today.

Usually the look-alike characters are the guest roles, but this time it's a guest character - a televersion - who encountered a couple of TV series stars who could have been "identical cousins".

Several celebrity televersions have crossed the paths of more than one character played by Lucille Ball. But since Inner Toob is also celebrating the TV Western all month, we're going to use the one true king of the cowboys, John Wayne, as our televersion example.

In late 1955, while the Ricardos and the Mertzes were in Hollywood so that Ricky could pursue a movie role, Lucy decided to steal the cement block of John Wayne's footprints outside Grauman's Chinese Theatre to keep as a souvenir. But you know Lucy.....

'I Love Lucy'
"Lucy And John Wayne"
Lucy is spotted while attempting to "collect" a cement block with John Wayne's footprints from Grauman's Chinese Theater. To avoid publicity and keep Lucy out of jail, Ricky enlists John Wayne's help in replacing the block. One mishap leads to another, and the plot thickens -- as does the cement. John Wayne guest-stars.

For the full recap....

Eleven years later, John Wayne once again met Lucy, again for the first time:

'The Lucy Show'
"Lucy And John Wayne"
When Mr. Mooney sends Lucy to the movie studio to deliver some papers regarding the financing on John Wayne's new film, she ignores his warning not to bother Mr. Wayne and finds herself lunching with him. Nervous and excited, Lucy proceeds to talk his ear off and finally splatters him with ketchup. Mr. Wayne takes that as his exit cue, but Lucy soon tracks him to the set of his film, where she continuously screws up the production.

There's no recap, but if you still want to read more about the episode....

Now, granted, a mega-star like John Wayne is going to run into a lot of people over the course of his career, and he'd probably forget many of them. But how could he forget Lucy Ricardo, especialy after a stunt like that with the cement? Yet when he meets Lucy Carmichael for the first time, there's no sense of recognition, no sense of the expected horror actually, in his eyes.

You'd think at least the ketchup in the face would have served as a trigger to unlock the memories of another redhead who turned his life topsy-turvy for a day......

But nothing. So there has to be something about Lucy Carmichael that differentiates her from Lucy Ricardo. The John Wayne of Earth Prime-Time would see it; the John Wayne of Earth Prime would not.

Here's some video from that 'I Love Lucy' episode. It was actually the second of two parts. (John Wayne didn't appear in the first part.)

Lucy and the Grauman's Caper make the news



Lucy rubs down John Wayne



I just wish YouTube had the whole replacement cement sequence!

And after eleven long Lucy-free years, he runs into her "identical cousin" in that episode of 'The Lucy Show'. (At least this for this one, I found the full episode online!)












And not once does the Duke ask if she's the redhead who's married to the Cuban bandleader......

On a side note, I think the televersion of John Wayne was at that point in his career where he was making TV movies. This didn't have the look of a big screen venture to me.......

I have a feeling that if John Wayne ever met Lucille Carter ('Here's Lucy', perhaps while contracting the services of Harrison Carter's Unique Employment Agency?) or Lucille Barker ('Life With Lucy', which would have had to happen years before the series premiered in 1986, since he died in 1979), then the same sequence of events would have happened. The Duke would have been ambushed by some slapstick disaster inadvertantly engineered by yet another dizzy redhead... and he would have no recollection of ever meeting someone just like her in years past.

Wouldn't that have been a wonder to behold?

BCnU

FRIDAY HALL OF FAMER TV SHOW (MAY 29, 2020) - 'I LOVE LUCY"

As we’ve been doing all year, each month’s last Friday Hall of Famer is a TV series from Earth Prime (our world) which has a counterpart in Earth Prime-Time (Toobworld.)  And as we always celebrate the ladies during the month of May, there was only one obvious choice for this inaugural induction as our May TV Show….

I LOVE LUCY

From Wikipedia:
“I Love Lucy” is an American multinational television sitcom that originally ran on CBS from October 15, 1951 to May 6, 1957, with a total of 180 half-hour episodes spanning six seasons (including the 'lost' original pilot and Christmas episode). The show starred Lucille Ball, her real-life husband Desi Arnaz, Vivian Vance, and William Frawley. It followed the life of Lucy Ricardo (Ball), a young middle-class housewife in New York City, who either concocted plans with her best friends (Vance & Frawley) to appear alongside her bandleader husband Ricky Ricardo (Arnaz) in his nightclub, or tried numerous schemes to mingle with, or be a part of show business.

After the series ended in 1957, a modified version continued for three more seasons with 13 one-hour specials; it ran from 1957 to 1960. It was first known as “The Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show’ and later in reruns as “The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour”.

“I Love Lucy” became the most-watched show in the United States in four of its six seasons, and it was the first to end its run at the top of the Nielsen ratings (an accomplishment later matched only by “The Andy Griffith Show” in 1968 and “Seinfeld” in 1998). As of 2011, episodes of the show have been syndicated in dozens of languages across the world and remain popular with an American audience of 40 million each year. A colorized version of its Christmas episode attracted more than 8 million viewers when CBS aired it in prime time in 2013, 62 years after the show premiered; CBS has aired two to three colorized episodes each year since then, once at Christmas and again in the spring.

The show, which was the first scripted television program to be shot on 35mm film in front of a studio audience, by cinematographer Karl Freund, won five Emmy Awards and received numerous nominations and honors. It was the first show ever to feature an ensemble cast. It is often regarded as one of the greatest and most influential sitcoms in history. In 2012, it was voted the 'Best TV Show of All Time' in a survey conducted by ABC News and People magazine.

Originally set in an apartment building in New York City, “I Love Lucy” centers on Lucy Ricardo (Lucille Ball) and her singer/bandleader husband Ricky Ricardo (Desi Arnaz), along with their best friends and landlords Fred Mertz (William Frawley) and Ethel Mertz (Vivian Vance). During the second season, Lucy and Ricky have a son named Ricky Ricardo Jr. ("Little Ricky"), whose birth was timed to coincide with Ball's real-life birth of her son Desi Arnaz Jr.

Within the “reality” of the TV Universe, ‘I Love Lucy’ is a TV show based on the life of a “real” person.  To be honest, Lucy’s life would probably never have been considered by a TV producer for adaptation into a series had she not been married to Ricky Ricardo.  (In fact, that’s probably how that TV producer in Toobworld learned about her – he must have already known the Cuban bandleader.)

To qualify for the Television Crossover Hall of Fame, the candidate for membership must appear or be mentioned in three separate TV shows.  By that criteria, ‘I Love Lucy’ surely must be the most over-qualified inductee ever!  (Or at the very least, tied with ‘Star Trek’.)

I’m not going to list all of the TV series which confirm that ‘I Love Lucy’ was a TV show within the TV Universe.  (Doing that for ‘Star Trek’ back in January was a killer and I doubt anybody reads those lists throughtly.)

But here’s a sampling:

Our Miss Brooks, The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show, December Bride, The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, The Andy Griffith Show, Mr. Ed, Green Acres, The Bob Newhart Show, Rhoda, Sanford and Son, MASH, Lou Grant, Mork & Mindy, Knots Landing, St. Elsewhere, The A-Team, Miami Vice, ER, Charles In Charge, Webster, Cheers, The Golden Girls, The Charmings, Murphy Brown, China Beach, Columbo, Wings, Designing Women, Seinfeld (even though he claimed that he never saw it), Roseanne, Married… With Children, The Nanny, Homicide: Life On The Street, Third Rock From The Sun, Babylon 5!, The Outer Limits, Hope Island, Brimstone, The Sopranos, Sabrina The Teenage Witch, Queer As Folk, Gilmore Girls, Star Trek: Enterprise, Stargate: Infinity, Oz, The West Wing, NCIS, Veronica Mars, Parks and Recreation, Mad Men, Californication, The Newsroom, Shameless, Orange Is The New Black, The Good Wife, Mom, This Is Us, The Goldbergs, Days Of Our Lives

I left out a lot of shows that just compared their own characters to combinations of Lucy, Ricky, Fred, or Ethel.  I didn’t bother with a lot of shows which just quoted the standards, like “Hi Lucy, I’m home!” or “You got some splainin to do!”

I also excluded series which take place in Skitlandia, the Tooniverse, and several alternate Toobworlds. (Although how could I resist ‘The West Wing’?)

This past season, the biggest and best reference to ‘I Love Lucy’ belonged to ‘Will & Grace’ in an episode leading up to the second go-round at a series finale.

So here’s to ‘I Love Lucy’!  By being a member of the TVXOHOF, it is now a recognized TV series in both the real world and Toobworld.  No longer will it be considered a Zonk if it’s mentioned in some way.

‘I Love Lucy’ has no longer got some splainin to do.

Hi, ‘I Love Lucy’!  You’re Home!

AS SEEN ON TV: LUCY CARMICHAEL

Here's another character you may not have known originated (somewhat) in BookWorld:

LUCY CARMICHAEL

AS SEEN IN:

'The Lucy Show'

ADAPTED FROM:

"Life Without George"

BY:

Irene Kampen

PORTRAYED BY:

Lucille Ball

TV DIMENSION:

Earth Prime-Time

After the death of her husband, Lucy Carmichael (Lucille Ball) and her friend, the recently divorced Vivian Bagley (Vivian Vance), move into a house together with their children. The series follows the adventures of the widow Lucy as she grapples with the comic complications of life on her own.

- DVD Release Note

'The Lucy Show' does not have the iconic status of I Love Lucy, but it was a worthy and very popular successor (it was the fifth-rated show in its inaugural season). Based on a book, Life Without George, it was something of a groundbreaking series in that it centered on two single moms: one, Lucy, a widower, and the other, Vivian (Vivian Vance), a divorcee (the first such sitcom character). Vivian and her son, Sherman (Ralph Hart), share Lucy''s suburban home in Danfield, New York, with her two children: teenage daughter Chris (Candy Moore) and wisecracking young son Jerry (Jimmy Garrett), who delivers zingers like a pint-sized Fred Mertz.

-Donald Liberson

Tower Video Review

From Wikipedia:

Irene Kampen (April 18, 1922, in Brooklyn, NY – February 1, 1998 in California) was an American newspaperwoman and writer who wrote several books about events in her life.

Kampen's first book, "Life Without George", was published by Doubleday in 1961 and was about her divorce. The book became the basis for 'The Lucy Show', a TV series that ran from 1962 to 1968 and starred Lucille Ball, who had also experienced divorce recently in her split with Desi Arnaz. (Producers re-wrote Ball's character, Lucille Carmichael, as a widow, however, Vivian Vance's character, Vivian Bagley, is portrayed as divorced.)

The credits list the show's basis as the novel "Life Without George", by Irene Kampen. This book was a collection of humorous pieces about two divorced women and their children living together. A next-door airline pilot neighbor, Harry Connors, became a character in the series played by Dick Martin. The character of Chris, Lucy's daughter in the series, had the same name in the book. In a later volume of essays, "Nobody Calls at This Hour Just To Say Hello", Kampen wrote a piece entitled "How Not to Meet Lucille Ball," which detailed her efforts to meet Lucy when she visited Los Angeles. Ms. Kampen and Ms. Ball never met.

O'BSERVATIONS:

I suppose this will be considered heresy, but I preferred 'The Lucy Show' over 'I Love Lucy'.....

BCnU!

CHRISTMAS IN TOOBWORLD - DAY FOUR

When Santa Claus appeared in TV series, for the most part he was either impersonated by one of the regular characters or he's been one of "Santa's Helpers" who encounter the shows' stars.

I can't say for certain how many series regulars ever met the REAL Santa Claus, (I'd have to study that book by Diane Werts!), but two of them stand out in my mind because it's yet another thing they have in common.

I'm referring to Lucy Ricardo of 'I Love Lucy' and 'The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour', and Samantha Stephens of 'Bewitched'. ('Bewitched' has certainly been mentioned a lot these last few days in connection to Santa Claus. Better not tell the fundamentalists!)

Although Lucy met Santa Claus first from our viewing vantage point, Samantha more than likely knew him from long before that.

Lucy's encounter with St. Nick happened on Christmas morning, 1956, and it demonstrated how the jolly old elf had a mischievous sense of humor. Hoping to bolster Little Ricky's belief in Santa, his parents Lucy and Ricky and his honorary aunt and uncle Fred and Ethel all dressed up as Santa and showed up in the apartment at the same time. But when they took a head count, there were five Santas in the room. Once they figured that out, the real Santa magically vanished.

Apparently, Santa Claus never tired of that trick. About ten years later, when five members of 'The Addams Family' household dressed up in the red suit, he joined them as the sixth. It may have been his way os saying "Thank you" to adults who just wanted to keep the belief in Santa Claus alive for the kids.

And adults sometimes need a boost to their belief as well.

As mentioned previously, Samantha visited with Santa Claus on two occasions (that we know of).

I mentioned that Lucy and Samantha had something else in common: they both lived in Westport, Ct. The Ricardos moved there early in 1957, and Samantha moved to Morning Glory Circle after marrying Darrin Stephens less just over five years later.

I'm not a fanfic writer, only an enabler, so here's the idea I had: What better theme for mixing the characters of 'I Love Lucy' and 'Bewitched' than one about "Christmas In Connecticut"?

Aunt Clara wants to help Darrin close a deal with a client in time to be free for the holidays. But the client is proving to be a tough sell when it comes to hiring Darrin's fellow Westportian (?) Ricky Ricardo as the celebrity spokesman. Even though Ricky would be a natural in connection to the product, whatever it is (Hey! I can't do everything for you!), the client is a rabid anti-Communist and he equates all Cubans with Castro.

So when Aunt Clara casts her spell, she unfortunately (but expectedly) messes things up and turns Lucy into Fidel Castro just before the client is supposed to come over to their house for dinner. The fatigues, the cigar, the beard, the works! Although they don't know how it happened, Lucy and Ethel go to great lengths to disguise the fact that she now has a beard.

Hilarity ensues.

Luckily Samantha is able to save the day and find not only a reasonable explanation as to why Lucy looks like Castro, but also how it might be a great presentation for the product.

And everything is brought back to normal just in time for the big Christmas feast. And for good measure, maybe Santa Claus could revisit with both Lucy and Samantha.

That's my Christmas fanfic wish, anyway.

BCnU!
Tele-Toby

SALOON GAL SHOWCASE - HERE'S LUCY

Vint Bonner:

"Boyd, you know she didn't like working here."

Boyd Lively:

"She's a saloon girl; that's all she is!"

'The Restless Gun'

'THE RESTLESS GUN'

"THE PAINTED BEAUTY"

Vint Bonner was visiting Copperhead Wells, hoping for a rest.  But instead he got pulled into a quarrel over a saloon girl which led to perhaps one of the most unique ways to link plenty of TV Westerns together.....

Two businessmen in Copperhead Wells, Misters Hopper & Watkins, had been visiting San Francisco where they noticed a strikingly beautiful painting hanging behind the Paradise Casino bar.  It portrayed a naked woman whose body was tastefully draped with her long blonde curls.  (At least Hopper thought she was a blonde.  Watkins thought she had black hair.  Vint Bonner was familiar with the painting and even he couldn't remember the color of her hair.....)

"A saloon ain't a saloon without it's got
a good-looking woman over the bar."

Hopper

JUNIPER DUNLAP, PROPRIETOR
SUDDEN DOLLAR SALOON

Hopper and Watkins got the idea that what the Sudden Dollar saloon in Copperhead Wells needed was a painting like that.  So with the reluctant agreement of the Sudden Dollar's owner, Juniper Dunlap, they commissioned the services of the artist who had painted that zoftig beauty for the Paradise Casino.

Stewart Woolsey was a celebrated artist from St. Louis, Mo., and he was willing to take on the assignment... especially after he met the former saloon girl Lucy Collins who nursed him back to health after a night of celebration with the men of Copperhead Wells.  Lucy was a strong-willed woman who was determined to maintain her independence.  She agreed to pose for the portrait even if it might bother the man she was supposedly stepping out with: miner Boyd Lively.

However, during the course of their sessions together, Lucy and Woolsey fell in love.  When Boyd Lively heard about this upon his return to Copperhead Wells, he tried to intervene by beating the artist to a pulp.  Unfortunately for the miner, Stewart Woolsey was skilled in the gentlemanly science of boxing according to the Marquess of Queensberry rules.  After taking a beating from Woolsey and a tongue-lashing from Lucy (who suffered a fist to the face from her former lover), a broken-hearted Lively begrudgingly stepped aside.

After the unveiling of the portrait, which was far more tasteful than anyone could have imagined (Juniper Dunlap proclaimed it acceptable enough to be seen by his own mother... and she was over 90 years of age!), Stewart Woolsey and his future bride Lucy Collins traveled back to St. Louis to live.  There Lucy held down two jobs - that of Stewart's wife, and as his model for all future portraits.  

"And of course you see pictures of her everywhere.

Look for them if you're in the right saloons.

You might enjoy them."

Vint Bonner

So there's the reason why I think Stewart and Lucy Woolsey will one day be in the Television Crossover Hall of Fame.  Unless otherwise stated within the dictates of the script, I'm going to claim that every painting we see hanging behind the bars of all those TV Western saloons was painted by Stewart Woolsey.  And if the woman depicted in such a painting is a blonde?  Then the model was none other than Lucy Woolsey.

Even if the model is seen as a brunette or a redhead, it could still be Lucy as the original inspiration.  Even if her facial appearance and even her body shape doesn't actually match, it could still have been Lucy who posed for it.  It kind of makes sense - Stewart might have been worried about some obsessive cowpoke trying to track down the woman in the pictures.  By altering her appearance, they could avoid such a dilemma.

O'BSERVATION:
Here's a theory of "relateeveety": Lucy Collins may have been the twin sister of a saloon owner named Fan.  We showcased her last week.......

Happy trails to you!

LUCY @ 100: THE TEEN-AGED LUCY, AS SEEN ON TV

Today would have been Lucille Ball's 100th birthday, so it would be O'Bvious to salute her with an ASOTV spotlight. But while it may have been easier to use a picture of Rachel York in "Lucy" (because there are plenty of pictures to be found), I decided to focus on her early life.....

LUCILLE BALL

AS SEEN IN:
"Lucy"

AS PLAYED BY:
Madeline Zima

From Wikipedia:
Lucille Désirée Ball (August 6, 1911 – April 26, 1989) was an American comedian, film, television, stage and radio actress, model, film and television executive, and star of the sitcoms 'I Love Lucy', 'The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour', 'The Lucy Show', 'Here's Lucy' and 'Life With Lucy'. One of the most popular and influential stars in America during her lifetime, with one of Hollywood's longest careers, especially on television, Ball began acting in the 1930s, becoming both a radio actress and B-movie star in the 1940s, and then a television star during the 1950s. She was still making films in the 1960s and 1970s.

Ball was born to Henry Durrell Ball (September 16, 1886 – February 19, 1915) and Desiree "DeeDee" Evelyn Hunt (September 21, 1892 – July 20, 1977) in Jamestown, New York. Although Lucy was born in Jamestown, New York, she told many people that she was born in Butte, Montana. At age 3, her family moved to Anaconda, Montana and then to Wyandotte, Michigan. Her family was Baptist; her father was of Scottish descent, and his mother was Mary Ball. Her mother was of French, Irish and English descent. Her genealogy can be traced back to the earliest settlers in the colonies.

Her father, a telephone lineman for Anaconda Copper, was frequently transferred because of his occupation, and within three years of her birth, Lucille had moved many times, from Jamestown to Anaconda, and then to Trenton. While DeeDee Ball was pregnant with her second child, Frederick, Henry Ball contracted typhoid fever and died in February 1915. Ball recalls little from the day her father died, only fleeting memories, a picture fell and a bird got trapped in the house. Ever since that day she had an intense bird phobia.

After her father died, Ball and her brother Fred Henry Ball (July 17, 1915 - February 5, 2007) were raised by her mother and grandparents in Celoron, New York a summer resort village on Lake Chautauqua just west of Jamestown. Her grandfather, Fred Hunt, was an eccentric who also enjoyed the theater. He frequently took the family to vaudeville shows and encouraged young Lucy to take part in both her own and school plays.

Four years after the death of her father, Ball’s mother DeeDee remarried. While her new step-father, Edward Peterson, and mother went to look for work in another city, Ball was left in the care of her new step-father’s parents. Ball’s new guardians were a puritanical Swedish couple who were so opposed to frivolity that they banished all mirrors from the house except for one over the bathroom sink. When the young Ball was caught admiring herself in it she was severely chastised for being vain.

This period of time affected Ball so deeply that in later life she claimed that it lasted seven or eight years, but in reality, it was probably less than one.

One good thing did come out of DeeDee's new marriage. Her new husband Ed was a Shriner. When his organization needed female entertainers for the chorus line of their next show, he encouraged his twelve-year-old stepdaughter to audition. While Ball was onstage she began to realize that if one was seeking praise and recognition, this was a brilliant way to receive it. Her appetite for recognition had thus been awakened at an early age. In 1927 her family suffered misfortune when their house and furnishings were taken away in a legal judgement after a neighborhood boy was accidentally shot and paralyzed by someone target-shooting in their yard, under Ball's grandfather's supervision. The family then moved into a small apartment in Jamestown.

In 1927, Ball dated a gangster's son by the name of Johnny DeVita. DeDe was unhappy with the relationship, but did nothing about it. She expected the romance to burn out in a few weeks. When that didn't happen DeDe took advantage of Lucille's desire to be in show business and "allowed" her to go to the John Murray Anderson School for the Dramatic Arts in New York City. There, Ball attended with fellow actress Bette Davis. Ball went home a few weeks later when drama coaches told her that she "had no future at all as a performer."

BCnU!

GLADYS KRAVITZ - STILL KICKIN', STILL ZONKIN'

Lucy Chambers:

Hello.

Frankie Bergstein:

Oh! No solicitors.

Lucy Chambers:

No, no, I-I live across the street, 

and I saw an ambulance here a couple of days ago.

Frankie Bergstein:

Are you Gladys Kravitz? 

Lucy Chambers:

No, I'm Lucy.

Oh, Grace! Grace! 

She knows me.

Grace Hanson:

Lucy.

Lucy Chambers:

Hello.

Lucy Chambers:

Hello.

Listen, what's going on? 

I've been very worried.

Grace Hanson:

Thanks for stopping by, Luce.

Lucy Chambers:

Ah! He's all right? 

Grace Hanson:

Yeah, he's fine.

Lucy Chambers:

Oh, well, I'm so relieved.

Grace Hanson:

We're all relieved.

'FRANKIE AND GRACE'

Team Toobworld knows how we should play this - if there is no attribution connected to the character mentioned, we should be able to assume that the character exists in the same TV dimension as the person who mentioned them,

But Gladys Kravitz lived in Westport Ct., while Frankie Bergstein was in La Jolla, California.  And even though she was subjected to a magic spell which transformed her appearance, that never raised her recognition factor within Toobworld because the spell was designed so that nobody would be able to notice the change.  But even so, she could have been known to the general public.

That's because Samantha Stephens' secret life as a witch did become public, to the point where a TV show was developed based on the news reports, the Kravitzes could have been a reference by Frankie to their place in the public consciousness.

Abner and Gladys Kravitz did visit California after Tabitha had moved to Los Angeles in order to force their niece Nancy back home.  And when that failed, they left to return to Westport.  

However.... 

Abner Kravitz passed away around 1980, leaving Gladys a widow.  I think it's pozz'ble, just pozz'ble, that Mrs. Kravitz may have taken stock of her life after the death of her husband and thought she should move closer to her only close relative - her niece Nancy Kravitz in Los Angeles.  So that's what must have happened - Gladys Kravitz moved to the West Coast and down to the La Jolla area.  I think she may have been a neighbor living not too far away from Grace Hanson.

And even in her advancing years, her nosy behavior remained unabated.  I think Gladys Kravitz was such a snoop into the private lives of the Hansons (especially after Robert had his "episode".)  And Grace must have complained about it all the time to Frankie.

So when Lucy Chambers showed up, showing just as inquisitive an attitude as Gladys Kravitz, then Frankie naturally assumed it was the former Connecticut native.

So our decision: the reference to Gladys Kravitz was about the actual woman, but she was also fictionalized in the Toobworld version of 'Bewitched'.

One final note - Sandra Gould, the second woman to have played Gladys Kravitz, died in 1999 at the age of 82.  Had she been alive still, she would be reaching the century mark.  This is not out of the realm of possibility for Gladys, if not for Sandra.  (My great-uncle just turned 100 last week.)

So I have no problem thinking that Gladys Kravitz could still be alive, so that Frankie's mention of her was a contemporary one.  And who knows?  Maybe when Samantha transformed her so that her physical appearance was changed, it also caused her basic cellular structure was "refreshed", literally giving her a new lease on life.

As the Claviger for the Toobworld Dynamic, I'm going to stick with that theory.

BCnU!

(My thanks to "Cousin" Steve Goldmintz for bringing the reference to my attention.  I am way behind on my Netflix queue!)

TWO FOR TUESDAY - WATCHING "I LOVE LUCY" AT THE OLD ONE-TWO

'BARNEY MILLER'

"COPYCAT"

Nick Yemana had the lead on a case involving a store owner who was robbed by a guy who threatened to blow the place up with the dynamite he had shoved down his pants.  The victim said that he had seen a similar robbery already... in a TV show.

So Nick conducted his own kind of research - he read that week's TV Guide....

Barney didn't know that's what he was doing when he caught Nick perusing the issue.  He just figured Nick was goofing off as usual.  But the Captain should have realized something was up because it wasn't the Racing Times he was reading.

Barney was slightly impressed with Nick's initiative and asked him if he found anything yet that would lead them to the copycat.

Nick showed him one entry: Lucy was pregnant and didn't know how to tell Ricky.  Barney added that this was also the episode in which Ricky lost his job.

Actually in the Trueniverse, these were actually two different episodes.

'I LOVE LUCY'

"RICKY ASKS FOR A RAISE" 

Episode aired 9 June 1952

After Ricky loses his job when he asks for a raise, Lucy comes up with a plan to demonstrate to his boss how important he is.

'I LOVE LUCY'

"LUCY IS ENCIENTE"

Episode aired 8 December 1952

When Lucy learns that she's going to have a baby, she tries to find the right way to tell this to Ricky.

Had this been in the real world, I might have just shrugged it off as Barney conflating the two plots into one.

Forget it, Jake.  This is Toobworld.

Long ago I had to accept the reality that even though most TV shows share the same dimension, many times they would refer to each other as TV shows.  Paraphrasing Warhol, everybody in Toobworld will have a TV show made about them.

So there is a televersion of the 'I Love Lucy' sitcom.  It's been mentioned in other TV shows beside Barney Miller:

• 'Our Miss Brooks'
• 'The George Burns And Gracie Allen Show'
• 'The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis'
• 'Green Acres'
• 'Sanford And Son'
• 'Rhoda'
• 'M*A*S*H'
• 'Lou Grant'
• 'St. Elsewhere'
• 'E/R'
• 'Webster'
• 'Charles In Charge'
• 'Miami Vice'

And most recently, 'Gilmore Girls', 'Fuller House', and 'Mom'.

The shows from the 1950s, which would include 'M*A*S*H' on the Toobworld timeline, mean that the show is as old as it is here in the real world.  And that means it was being produced around the same time as Ricky Ricardo was performing at the Tropicana, acting in "Don Juan", traveling through Europe, and the family moving to Connecticut.  It's not surprising that a show about the Ricardos would be on the air before their full story had played out in their "real" lives - after all, they were celebrities and thus of interest to the general public.

But the show doesn't have to be exactly as it was in the Trueniverse, the one we all watched over the years.  And this is a good example that the show they talked about was not the same sitcom that we watched in the real world.  The real 'I Love Lucy' had two episodes - one dealt with Lucy being pregnant and the other about Ricky losing his job.  But in Toobworld, the televersions of the show's producers combined those two plots into one.

Two for Tuesday!