Mr. and Mrs. TV Show

"" episode
"Mr. and Mrs. TV Show"
	Season 4, Episode #4 ; #101 in Series
Series:
Network:
Air date:	April 11, 1955▲
Written by:	Bob Carroll Jr.; Madelyn Pugh; Jess Oppenheimer
Directed by:	William Asher
Production code:	4-4 / 101
	Episode guide
IMDB	Mr. and Mrs. TV Show
Episode chronology
"The Business Manager"	"Ricky's Movie Offer"

Mr. and Mrs. TV Show was the 101st overall episode of I Love Lucy, also the 4th epidsode in Season four of the series. The episode, was directed by William Asher, originally scheduled to air on CBS-TV on November 1, 1954.▲

Synopsis[]

Matchmaker Lucy invites girlfriend Dorothy and her beau to a cozy dinner at the Ricardos' apartment, hoping to present an example of marital bliss.

Plot[]

Lucy meets a big executive when she has lunch at 21, and the executive is interested in doing a show with Ricky. When she tells Ricky about it, Ricky unfairly won't let Lucy be in the show, even though she is the one who set up the whole thing. But Ricky won't budge. When brainstorming for ideas for the theme of the upcoming show, the executive and his partner settle on a Mr. and Mrs.-themed show, starring Ricky and his wife. Now, Ricky has to convince Lucy to be in the show without knowing the real reason why, after he rejected her earlier. Ricky hears Lucy singing off-key as usual in the kitchen. He pretends to love her singing and dancing, and this cheers her up. He says that he MUST have her in the show with him, that it would be a "Mr. and Mrs. TV Show or nothing!"

The Mr. and Mrs. TV Show program is given the proper title of "Breakfast with Ricky and Lucy." It is really just a long commercial for sponsor Phipps Department Store. For rehearsal, Lucy and Ricky deliver their lines about how fabulous Phipps is, and then Fred and Ethel come in and sing an adorable little tune about Phipps while Lucy is changing into the beautiful new sparkly dress she just bought at Phipps.

After rehearsal, Lucy finds out from the producer's partner that it was the producer's idea to make the show be a Mr. and Mrs. Show, and that Ricky was against the idea. Lucy decides to get even by ruining the dress rehearsal the next morning. Unbeknownest to Lucy, the dress rehearsal is really going to be the live broadcast. Ricky turned all the clocks back an hour, and he hopes that Lucy and the Mertzes perform more naturally if they only think it's a dress rehearsal. Lucy goes ahead with her devious plot, badmouthing Phipps every chance she gets and wearing a hideous sack dress with fake teeth for the Phipps beauty makeover part. She is horrified when she finds out she just appeared on live television dressed so ugly.

Trivia[]

▲This episode's original scheduled network broadcast was pre-empted. It eventually aired on Monday, April 11, 1955.
Listen closely during the second rendition of Ethel and Fred's Phipps jingle. William Frawley messes up the last part about "first on your list of shopping tips, put..."
Ricky asks Lucy to sing "Sweet Sue" for him as a way to trick her into doing the Mr. and Mrs. show. This is the first time we've heard "Sweet Sue" on the show since episode #18.
Several Lucy books bring up a good point- how did Lucy afford to go to 21 for lunch?
This episode was rerun during the Ricardos' time in Hollywood. A flashback opening has Lucy mentioning the Mr. and Mrs. TV Show she was in, as a way to try and get Ricky's agent to let her be in Ricky's next gig. The reason this episode was chosen to be shown again was because, when it originally aired, not all stations showed it. CBS affiliate stations showed a political commercial from the Republican Party, whereas non-affiliate stations that still showed I Love Lucy aired the actual episode. So, only about half of Americans got to see this episode when it debuted. When the episode was rerun, the non-affilliate stations that saw the episode the first time saw a rerun of episode #44 instead, with the one part of the flashback dialogue being changed. For the episode #44 script, instead of Lucy talking about the Mr. and Mrs. TV Show she did, she mentioned the Flapper Follies of 1927/52. And instead of Ricky confirming on the phone that they did a Mr. and Mrs. Show, he confirmed that he did indeed lose his voice once.
The soundbite of Fred saying, "Hello out there in TV land!" from this episode used to be used on TV Land's website, when TV Land used to show I Love Lucy and other classic TV shows.
The big producer who ends up hiring Ricky for the TV show is named Harvey Cromwell.

Starring[]

Guest starring[]

John Litel ... as Harvey Cromwell
Lee Millar ... as Mr. Taylor