#model-t

S1;E23 ~ March 10, 1969

Directed by Jack Donohue ~ Written by Bob O'Brien

Synopsis

A farmer (Ernie Ford) wanders into the Unique Employment Agency in need of farmhands. Instead, Lucy proposes they turn his farm into a vacation spot for city folks. They start with a TV commercial to get the word out!

Regular Cast

Lucille Ball (Lucy Carter), Gale Gordon (Harrison Otis Carter), Lucie Arnaz (Kim Carter), Desi Arnaz Jr. (Craig Carter)

Guest Cast

Tennessee Ernie Ford (Ernie Epperson) was the first and only celebrity to make three guest star appearances (playing a variation on himself) on “I Love Lucy.”  A popular country singer of the 1950s, "I Love Lucy” was his first credited ‘acting’ job, before his big hit with the song “Sixteen Tons” in 1955. Ford was first mentioned on season in “Lucy Writes a Play” (ILL S1;E17), when playwright Lucy mistakenly dubs herself the next Tennessee Ernie, instead of Tennessee Williams. He then appeared (also as a variation on himself) on “The Lucy Show.” This is his fifth and final appearance on a Lucille Ball sitcom. Ford was fond of alliterative character names. In addition to Ernie Epperson, he played Homer Higgins on “The Lucy Show,” Loser Lumpkin on "The Red Skelton Show,” and Kentucky Cal on the Desilu-produced "Make Room For Daddy.”  He died in 1991.

Epperson owns the Broken Plow Farm in the ‘sue-burb’ of Calabasas.  

The Back Porch Majority (Themselves) was a folk music group founded by Randy Sparks in 1963. It was intended to be a rehearsal space for The New Christy Minstrels, another group Sparks had established in 1961, but it ended up becoming successful on its own. The group released six albums and was chosen to provide entertainment at the White House in 1965. They previously backed up Ernie Ford on “The Lucy Show.”

The members of the group are Rusty Richards, Jet Sharon, Kathy Beaudine, Kittie McCue, and Kyra Carleton.  

Larry Billman (Dancer, uncredited) was seen on Broadway in the short-lived musical revue Vintage '60 (1960). He has less than ten screen credits and made his career in charge of live entertainment for Disney theme parks. He died in May 2017.  

The revue features a live cow, a donkey, and two horses. Other singers, dancers, and musicians appear uncredited. 

Two days after this episode was first aired (March 12, 1969) Lucie Arnaz made the first of her three appearances on NBC’s “The Kraft Music Hall”, hosted by Wayne Newton and featuring Judy Carne and Tim Conway. Lucille Ball does not appear.

All the singing and instrumentals are prerecorded, although naturally Desi Jr. played his drum solos live. Lucille Ball has only one brief line of solo singing during “Heavenly Music” and it does not sound like her voice. It is very likely Carole Cook, who has been Lucy's ghost singer on two previous occasions. Gale Gordon is also dubbed in that song.    

When Lucy asks the overalls-wearing Ernie if he is a farmer, Ernie replies “Well, I ain't that Omar Shareef on his way home from a square dance!” Actor Omar Sharif was nominated for a 1963 Oscar for Lawrence of Arabia and had won a Golden Globe in 1966 for Doctor Zhivago. There is a slight resemblance between Ford and Sharif because they both wore mustaches for most of their public lives.

Lucy and Ernie joke about Los Angeles' smog problem. The word smog is a portmanteau of the words smoke and fog. The problem was particularly acute in Los Angeles during the latter half of the 20th century. So much so that the word smog became synonymous with Los Angeles to many. Smog was the source of several jokes on “The Lucy Show” after Lucy Carmichael re-located to Southern California, one of them during Ernie Ford’s last appearance in “Lucy and Tennessee Ernie Ford” (TLS S5;E21). 

Ernie says he drives a Model-T. The Ford Motor Company manufactured the Model-T between 1908 and 1927, and it is considered the first affordable car.   

The commercial that Lucy and Harry do for Ernie's Fun Farm gives us a glimpse of them as a dysfunctional married couple, complete with two teenage kids! 

As the bickering couple, Lucy calls her husband (Sheldon) Porky Pig and the Jolly Green Giant. He calls her the Bride of Frankenstein. Porky Pig was one of the characters in the Warner Brothers cartoons voiced by Mel Blanc. Blanc had appeared with Lucille Ball on radio, films, and TV.  The Jolly Green Giant was the mascot of a frozen vegetable company of the same name frequently seen in television ads. “The Bride of Frankenstein” (1935) was a film sequel to 1931's “Frankenstein” based on the novel by Mary Shelley. Coincidentally, the Bride was played by Elsa Lanchester, who guest starred on “I Love Lucy,” and an upcoming episode of “Here's Lucy.”  

Amidst the clutter of the living room is a bath towel stolen from the Commodore Hotel, a historic building in downtown Los Angeles that has recently been converted to apartments. The Commodore of Hollywood opened in 1927 and has been home to countless celebrities as they launched their careers. 

One of the knickknacks on the coffee table is a glass bunch of grapes. If it looks familiar, it previously appeared in “Guess Who Owes Lucy $23.50?” (S1;E11) where there were two of them. After this appearance they became part of the living room set on “The Brady Bunch” which also filmed at Paramount.  The recent reality show “A Very Brady Renovation” mentioned tracking them down. 

Ernie pays the bickering couple a quick visit to bid them come to his Fun Farm, singing this a capella jingle:

“We're only 45 minutes from L.A. People all breathing fresh air. Even a hog smells better than smog When you're 45 minutes from there.”

The tune Ford uses is inspired by “45 Minutes from Broadway” by George M. Cohan, written in 1906 for a musical of the same name. The title refers to the length of time to travel by train from New Rochelle NY to Manhattan.  

The commercial turns into a fully-staged musical revue. Although a lot of standards and show tunes are used, special lyrics to suit the plot were written by Bob O'Brien.  

The orchestra plays “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning” from Oklahoma! written by Rodgers and Hammerstein in 1943. A film version was released in 1955. Lucy Ricardo once lied that she was in Oklahoma – then confessed she spent two weeks in Tulsa once. Rodgers and Hammerstein (aka Dick and Oscar) were names frequently dropped on “I Love Lucy.”  

The Back Porch Majority sings “On a Wonderful Day Like Today” from the 1965 musical The Roar of the Greasepaint – The Smell of the Crowd by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley, who also sang it in “Lucy in London” (1966, above). 

Ernie sings “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” a song written by Allie Wrubel and Ray Gilbert for the 1946 Disney film Song of the South. It won an Oscar for Best Song.

Ernie and the Carter Family sing “Heavenly Music” from the 1950 film Summer Stock written by Saul Chaplin and originally performed by Gene Kelly and Phil Silvers wearing similar costumes.

Ernie and the Back Porch Majority sing “Y'all Come” written by Arlie Duff in 1953. It was sung by Ernie Ford in “Tennessee Ernie Hangs On” (ILL S3;E29). Coincidentally, in that episode he was also on television, doing a (fictional) show called “Millikan's Chicken-Mash Hour.” Both times there were specially written lyrics to suit the episode's plot.  

Kim does a specialty dance backed up by the male ensemble – all wearing sombreros. The choreography was by Jack Baker, with assistance from Anita Mann. 

Lucy and Harry do an unusual combination of a square dance and the Mexican hat dance.  

Craig (also wearing a sombrero) does a drum solo using a variety of instruments.  

In a spotlight, Ernie sings a quiet version of "Little Green Apples" backed up by the Back Porch Majority. The song was written by Bobby Russell for Roger Miller in 1968, becoming a Top 40 hit.  

The episode ends with a reprise of “Y'all Come” and a hoe down, natur'lly.   

Lucy Ricardo did a TV commercial to sell Aunt Martha's Old Fashioned Salad Dressing in “The Million Dollar Idea” (ILL S3;E13) where she also played a bumpkin character.

In the commercial, Lucy wears a blue chenille bathrobe that looks very similar to the one that Vivian Vance wore in 1952's “Breaking the Lease” (ILL S1;E18) and other episodes. It is possible that it could be the same robe from the Desilu wardrobe racks!  It was also worn by Ann-Margret on a 1970 episode of “Here’s Lucy.” 

At the start of the musical revue, Lucy Carter is milking a cow, something that both Lucy Ricardo and Lucy Carmichael also did!  In real-life, Lucille Ball owned a cow she called Duchess of Devonshire when she lived with Desi at Chatsworth Ranch.

The last time viewers saw Ernie Ford on “I Love Lucy” he was calling a square dance. 

This was also true of his “The Lucy Show” appearance. Here, the last time Lucy and Ford perform together, he does the same thing. He even repeats a few of the same calls in both episodes:

“Grab yer partner, pat her on the head. If she don't like biscuits, feed her corn bread!”

In November 1968, Lucille Ball appeared on “The Tennessee Ernie Ford Special” where she blacked out her teeth for comic effect.

Get the Door! During the TV commercial, when Harry (as Sheldon) slams the front door, the suction causes the closet door to swing wider open, momentarily distracting Gale Gordon who quickly turns to see what is moving behind him.  

Fashion Magazine?  In the commercial, ‘Craig’ browses through Fashions magazine, an unlikely choice for a teenage boy. Perhaps this iteration of Craig is destined to become a fashion designer? 

Loose Lips! Although Harry's comical yodeling during “Heavenly Music” is obviously not Gale Gordon's voice, there are times he gets more involved with the wayward daisy in Lucy's hat than the lip synching.

“Lucy and Tennessee Ernie’s Fun Farm” rates 3 Paper Hearts out of 5

Model-T 1908 advertisement, design, and 1910 photo, designed by Childe Harold Wills, and Hungarian immigrants Joseph A. Galamb (main engineer), and Eugene Farkas.

Long before Bing and SEO, Henry Ford took the pejorative slang term 'flivver' and promised the world the Model-T of the air, the affordable personal aircraft, the "Ford Flivver" —had it (in a parallel universe?) gone into production, it likely would have been the 3-cylinder rotary-ish engine shown here on the prototypes and replicas...

With a very interesting exhaust manifold variations and alleged to have stolen a great number of parts directly off of the Model T assembly lines, the Ford Flivver would have brought affordable personal aviation to us mere peatones with affordable monthly payments...

In this universe, the Ford 268 Flivver prototype is preserved in a museum, and a rotary-engined production model isn't parked in my driveway «sigh» However, on YouTube there's some content so that will have to do.

Photograph of a Ford automobile parked in front of the GM&O Railroad building located on Beauregard Street in downtown Mobile.  

At the beginning of the 20th century, Ford changed how we travel and work with the Model-T.  A century later, museums are changing how we travel (not literally) to the past.

One of the many cool things about Granite Falls Museum, is that they have an archive of railroad, mining, and homestead boundary maps (now digitized) dating back to 1910.