The Lucy Show - Production Notes

Production Notes

While filming the 1963 episode "Lucy and Viv Put In A Shower", in which the leading ladies attempted to install a shower stall (but become trapped inside, unable to shut the water off), Ball nearly drowned while performing in the tank of water. She was unable to bring herself back to the surface, and it was Vance who realized there was a problem and pulled her co-star to safety; Vance went on to ad lib until Ball could catch her breath to resume speaking her lines (all the while, cameras continued to film). Neither the film crew nor the live studio audience realized there was a problem.

In her autobiography Love Lucy, Lucy talks of this episode:

...I found I had no room to manoeuvre. I couldn't get back to the surface again. What's more I swallowed a lot of water and was actually drowning right there in front of three hundred people who were splitting their sides laughing. Vivian (Vance), realising in cold terror what had happened, never changed expression. She reached down, pulled me safely to the surface by the roots of my hair and then calmly spoke both sides of our dialogue, putting my lines in the form of questions. Whatta girl! And whatta night.

An episode from the 1966-67 season called "Lucy Flies to London" served as the basis for a standalone one-hour special called Lucy in London, which featured Ball with guest stars Anthony Newley and the Dave Clark Five. Much of the "Lucy Flies to London" episode, which centered around Lucy’s lack of experience in air travel, was based on an unsold pilot written and shot in 1960.

The two special episodes to feature Ethel Merman ("Lucy Teaches Ethel Merman to Sing" and "Ethel Merman and the Boy Scout Show") were originally just one episode, "Lucy Teaches Ethel Merman to Sing". According to Geoffrey Mark Fidelman, author of The Lucy Book, this installment was a consolation prize to Merman after her Desilu-produced pilot, Maggie Brown, was rejected as a regular series by CBS. The plot was much as it remains today with Lucy and Viv trying to pass off Agnes Schmidlap as Ethel Merman, not knowing that it really is Ethel Merman, and Lucy attempts to teach her how to sing. In the original version, Lucy's voice lesson scene with Merman (which was lifted from the previous season's episode "Lucy's Barbershop Quartet" in which Hans Conreid was the instructor and Lucy the pupil) was much shorter than it is today and that episode ended with the Boy Scout show, with Jerry Carmichael hosting, Sherman Bagley dancing, and Lucy joining Viv for a brand new version of Merman's great hit "Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better". But then, Desilu Productions thought that maybe too much had been crammed into one half hour and since Ball and Vance (who both were great friends of Merman) were having such a marvelous time working with the legendary Broadway belter, they decided to expand it into two episodes, thereby taking advantage of Merman's formidable talents. So, a second filming was scheduled. In Part 1, Ethel was to be the houseguest of Lucy and Viv for a few weeks, and then in Part 2, a full blown episode was created that included scenes of Lucy once again, trying to get into the act. An all new Boy Scout Show was filmed also, with Jerry once again hosting, Sherman dancing, and Lucy, Viv, and Ethel, this time joined by Mr. Mooney, singing and dancing through a history of show business.