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"The Ricardos and the Mertzes Have a Contest"
The episode was originally planned to end the 4th season, with the characters back in NYC after their Hollywood trip. But the writers had another half dozen story ideas on Hollywood, so that story arc continued into the 5th season, and this episode fell through the cracks.
The original projected air date was May 30, 1955, and one station, Pasadena's KTCC, actually acquired a copy of 'Contest' on film and ran it. This, the only confirmed airing of the show, resulted in the firing of the station manager and program scheduler. Every other CBS affiliate ran an episode called 'The Tour' that night.
Today, 'The Ricardos and the Mertzes Have a Contest' exists in a single copy on safety film in the popular culture collection of the Eisenhower Presidential Library. It is 'technically' available to scholars, but, in practice, has been inaccessible for decades. Archive notes are the basis of the following synopsis.
The Ricardos and the Mertzes Have a Contest
filmed: 5/2/55 run time: 26 min.
Cast: Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Vivian Vance, William Frawley, with Elizabeth Patterson (Mrs. Trumbull) and Frank Nelson (lingerie salesman)
Mrs. Trumbull leafs through Lucy's wedding album. The discussion turns to Latin lovers, and Mrs. Trumbull gets misty-eyed remembering Valentino in the movies. Ricky comes home and is confused by Mrs. Trumbull's increasingly overwrought statements: 'I bet you swept her off her feet!'
Ricky: Well, I dint zackly swop her off her fit.
Lucy: No, I dint get swopped off my fit!
The Mertzes come up, and the couples trade quips about their courting days. Mrs. Trumbull reminisces about a broken engagement of long ago and remarks, 'I've been true to him to this day...if you know what I mean.'
Ricky: What? No 'paja' or nothin'?
(CBS standards and practices allowed this obscure Spanish phrase to stand in for masturbation.)
Mrs. Trumbull: You're...darn...TOOTIN', Mr. Ricardo, and I bet you and Lucy and your friends couldn't refrain from -- THAT -- for a week!
Ricky: Well, would you care to make that interestin', Mrs. Trummell?
Mrs. Trumbull takes off her pearl necklace and says she'll give it to the couple or individual who can stay celibate for a week. 'And that means together AND alone!'
Lucy: A pearl necklace! Mrs. Trumbull, those pearls will match my new evening gown!
Mrs. Trumbull: Mrs. Ricardo, if your bright red 'drapes' match your 'carpets', you'll be on fire long before the week is up! (Exits laughing)
Lucy: WELL!
The couples ponder how to spend a purely celibate week. Ethel suggests a week-long Parcheesi tournament. She runs out to get the game. Lucy gets Ricky to call the club and cancel the chorus girl auditions, 'just to keep you on the up and up.'
Ethel returns: 'I'm out.'
Lucy: What?!
Ethel: I'm out. I'm out of the contest.
Lucy: You were only gone for two minutes!!
Ethel: Well, Fred left the TV on and Rudy Vallee was on. (Glassy-eyed) Rudy...Vallee...
Fred: Ethel Mae Mertz!
Ethel (snaps back to reality): Oh, shut up, Fatso.
(Commercial break)
Next day: Ethel agrees to help Lucy force the boys to masturbate. Then Lucy will win the necklace and share it with Ethel. Otherwise, they figure the boys will win the necklace, sell it, and do 'all those silly things that men like to do.' They decide to buy open-crotch dominatrix outfits and wear them at that evening's Parcheesi game. They go to a Fifth Avenue lingerie shop where the salesman (Frank Nelson) tries to fit them for head-to-toe harem gowns with veils.
Lucy: No, no, this is all wrong. We want our husbands to get the whole show, get me?
Salesman: Welllllll, madame, from what I've seen of your show, you're what killed Vaudeville.
Lucy: WELL!
That night Lucy and Ethel throw housecoats over their scanties and set up the Parcheesi table. Ricky comes home, looking sheepish, and confesses that he, too, is out of the contest. The chorus girl auditions were held after all.
Ricky: And... you know...one thin' led to another.
Lucy (jubilant): Oh, no! I can't believe it! Now it's just me and Fred! Say, where is Fred?
Fred enters, and claims to have spent the afternoon working on the furnace.
Ricky: Thass not importan', Fred. What we want to know, are you still jefe de su casa?
Fred: What in corn's sake is that?
Ethel (drily): He means, did you work it, jerk it, or twerk it?
Fred insists he is still in the contest. The couples sit down to Parcheesi. Ethel volunteers to round up some snacks. She returns from the kitchen wearing black panties and a bra with metal cones. Lucy goes to check on Little Ricky. She returns in a mink thong and a bra hung with hoochie koochie tassels. For several minutes the girls combine serving snacks and laying out the game pieces with suggestive bumps and grinds -- all aimed at Fred, who continues calmly to eat a sandwich and play his game pieces. Finally Ethel erupts.
Ethel: Fred Mertz, what is wrong with you? We're practically doing the Dance of the Seven Veils. What does it take to bring you off?
Fred confesses that, as a doughboy in France, he stepped on a Heinie landmine.
Fred: And it blew my cock and balls completely off. Honeybun, that's why I wear those baggy long johns and stay on my side of the bed.
Ricky/Lucy/Ethel (in laughter): Oh, no!
Ricky: Lucy, now it's jus' you an' Fred in a dead heat.
Lucy: EwwwWWWwww.
Ricky: What do you mean, EwwwWWWwww?
Lucy: Well... when I went to the bedroom to strip down, I looked in the mirror...and I looked so hot that I...I...
Ricky: Lucy, you dint!
Lucy (bawling comically): Yes, I did...Wahhhhhhhhh!
(Fade to credits.)
The episode was originally planned to end the 4th season, with the characters back in NYC after their Hollywood trip. But the writers had another half dozen story ideas on Hollywood, so that story arc continued into the 5th season, and this episode fell through the cracks.
The original projected air date was May 30, 1955, and one station, Pasadena's KTCC, actually acquired a copy of 'Contest' on film and ran it. This, the only confirmed airing of the show, resulted in the firing of the station manager and program scheduler. Every other CBS affiliate ran an episode called 'The Tour' that night.
Today, 'The Ricardos and the Mertzes Have a Contest' exists in a single copy on safety film in the popular culture collection of the Eisenhower Presidential Library. It is 'technically' available to scholars, but, in practice, has been inaccessible for decades. Archive notes are the basis of the following synopsis.
The Ricardos and the Mertzes Have a Contest
filmed: 5/2/55 run time: 26 min.
Cast: Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Vivian Vance, William Frawley, with Elizabeth Patterson (Mrs. Trumbull) and Frank Nelson (lingerie salesman)
Mrs. Trumbull leafs through Lucy's wedding album. The discussion turns to Latin lovers, and Mrs. Trumbull gets misty-eyed remembering Valentino in the movies. Ricky comes home and is confused by Mrs. Trumbull's increasingly overwrought statements: 'I bet you swept her off her feet!'
Ricky: Well, I dint zackly swop her off her fit.
Lucy: No, I dint get swopped off my fit!
The Mertzes come up, and the couples trade quips about their courting days. Mrs. Trumbull reminisces about a broken engagement of long ago and remarks, 'I've been true to him to this day...if you know what I mean.'
Ricky: What? No 'paja' or nothin'?
(CBS standards and practices allowed this obscure Spanish phrase to stand in for masturbation.)
Mrs. Trumbull: You're...darn...TOOTIN', Mr. Ricardo, and I bet you and Lucy and your friends couldn't refrain from -- THAT -- for a week!
Ricky: Well, would you care to make that interestin', Mrs. Trummell?
Mrs. Trumbull takes off her pearl necklace and says she'll give it to the couple or individual who can stay celibate for a week. 'And that means together AND alone!'
Lucy: A pearl necklace! Mrs. Trumbull, those pearls will match my new evening gown!
Mrs. Trumbull: Mrs. Ricardo, if your bright red 'drapes' match your 'carpets', you'll be on fire long before the week is up! (Exits laughing)
Lucy: WELL!
The couples ponder how to spend a purely celibate week. Ethel suggests a week-long Parcheesi tournament. She runs out to get the game. Lucy gets Ricky to call the club and cancel the chorus girl auditions, 'just to keep you on the up and up.'
Ethel returns: 'I'm out.'
Lucy: What?!
Ethel: I'm out. I'm out of the contest.
Lucy: You were only gone for two minutes!!
Ethel: Well, Fred left the TV on and Rudy Vallee was on. (Glassy-eyed) Rudy...Vallee...
Fred: Ethel Mae Mertz!
Ethel (snaps back to reality): Oh, shut up, Fatso.
(Commercial break)
Next day: Ethel agrees to help Lucy force the boys to masturbate. Then Lucy will win the necklace and share it with Ethel. Otherwise, they figure the boys will win the necklace, sell it, and do 'all those silly things that men like to do.' They decide to buy open-crotch dominatrix outfits and wear them at that evening's Parcheesi game. They go to a Fifth Avenue lingerie shop where the salesman (Frank Nelson) tries to fit them for head-to-toe harem gowns with veils.
Lucy: No, no, this is all wrong. We want our husbands to get the whole show, get me?
Salesman: Welllllll, madame, from what I've seen of your show, you're what killed Vaudeville.
Lucy: WELL!
That night Lucy and Ethel throw housecoats over their scanties and set up the Parcheesi table. Ricky comes home, looking sheepish, and confesses that he, too, is out of the contest. The chorus girl auditions were held after all.
Ricky: And... you know...one thin' led to another.
Lucy (jubilant): Oh, no! I can't believe it! Now it's just me and Fred! Say, where is Fred?
Fred enters, and claims to have spent the afternoon working on the furnace.
Ricky: Thass not importan', Fred. What we want to know, are you still jefe de su casa?
Fred: What in corn's sake is that?
Ethel (drily): He means, did you work it, jerk it, or twerk it?
Fred insists he is still in the contest. The couples sit down to Parcheesi. Ethel volunteers to round up some snacks. She returns from the kitchen wearing black panties and a bra with metal cones. Lucy goes to check on Little Ricky. She returns in a mink thong and a bra hung with hoochie koochie tassels. For several minutes the girls combine serving snacks and laying out the game pieces with suggestive bumps and grinds -- all aimed at Fred, who continues calmly to eat a sandwich and play his game pieces. Finally Ethel erupts.
Ethel: Fred Mertz, what is wrong with you? We're practically doing the Dance of the Seven Veils. What does it take to bring you off?
Fred confesses that, as a doughboy in France, he stepped on a Heinie landmine.
Fred: And it blew my cock and balls completely off. Honeybun, that's why I wear those baggy long johns and stay on my side of the bed.
Ricky/Lucy/Ethel (in laughter): Oh, no!
Ricky: Lucy, now it's jus' you an' Fred in a dead heat.
Lucy: EwwwWWWwww.
Ricky: What do you mean, EwwwWWWwww?
Lucy: Well... when I went to the bedroom to strip down, I looked in the mirror...and I looked so hot that I...I...
Ricky: Lucy, you dint!
Lucy (bawling comically): Yes, I did...Wahhhhhhhhh!
(Fade to credits.)