Well in one of the matchmaking episodes Ricky told Sam (the guy that Dorothy was trying to snare) that wives are economical.
He said that Lucy saved money by serving leftovers.
"But the only problem is that I never had any of the meals that the meals were leftover from."
Regarding the $500 dress, Lucy's pride got in the way and she really should have found out the cost before she bought it. But then she was willing to model a tweed suit while she had a terrible sunburn so she could get the dress for free. Lucy did try to make up for some of her "stravagances" once in a while.
Of course when she played on Ricky's sympathy he gave her money to buy back the dress. I wonder what she did with that money? Return it to Ricky? No way! Would've been a nice gesture if she bought a Don Loper for Ethel. But I doubt it!
In the salad dressing venture, she and Ethel were trying to go into business to make money. They might've been successful if they had the slightest idea HOW to run a business! They did not figure in any expenses or taxes or postage. They made a couple of successful commercials and probably could've made a go of their business IF they had charged a little more for their salad dressing
The cheese on the plane? You mean Cheddar, er Chester? LOL In that instance she was trying to save money for Ricky. She didn't know babies didn't fly free on international flights. In that case I think Lucy was correct in wanting to take a gift for her mother. She DID stay with Little Ricky the whole time they were in Europe. Of course grandparents often do things like that for their kids. But it would've been a nice gesture to have a gift for Mrs. MacGillicuddy.
The "market" scam? Do you mean when Ricky hired a business manager? Lucy was kind of "resourceful" by doing the marketing for the whole building. Everyone paid her and while she did spend some of it, she would have had to pay the market bill at the end of the month. She said that Mr. Hickok would have to pay the bill, but boy(!) I am sure he would've informed Ricky that the grocery bill was over $500 that month. An astonomical amount at the time. I remember in the sixties when my mom would shop on Friday for a family of five for the week. The bill was usally about $25.
Of course in that instance, by sheer dumb luck, Lucy got out of a jam. Ricky thought "Buy Can Allpet" for Mrs. Trumbull's cat was Canadian Allied Petroleum. Ricky made a thousand dollars on that deal That probably made up for about five of Lucy's hats. LOL
She didn't really "force" Ricky to buy his train compartment twice. Ricky sold the car, bought tickets on the "family plan" and completely forgot about the Mertzes! Lucy couldn't bring herself to ask for the compartment tickets back in exchange for the upper berths.
I could understand her reticence. She was embarrassed and asked, "How can I say here (giving them the berths) and say the GOOD ones are for us?"
In that case Ricky should've "manned up" and been the head of the family and spoken directly to Fred. It was Ricky's forgetfulness that got them in the situation in the first place.
If Fred hadn't been so darned cheap he would have talked to Ricky before buying that silly motorcycle. He and Ethel should have known that Ricky wouldn't really "dump them" in California. And it wouldn't have broken Fred's budget to offer to buy the train tickets for himself and Ethel!! What a tightwad. The motorcycle might've been cheap but they would have had to stop for meals and for gas and stay at least a few nights in motels. Bus tickets probably would've been cheaper.
And when he saw the tickets were for a compartment, to exchange them for cheaper tickets and use the difference to pay for the motorcycle HE crashed, well, a very, very cheapo thing to do! But Ricky laughed it off.
Lucy's clothes and hats? Well ya got me there! She did spend a lot on her wardrobe. But I think some of it was exaggerated for the comedic effect. Lucille Ball herself said that she liked to "repeat outfits" because that's what a regular housewife would do.
In the first season the show didn't have a big budget so Lucy Ricardo's clothes were off the rack. Later when Elois Jensen designed Lucy's (beautiful!) clothes, Lucy often wore outfits a number of times, like the navy blue pant set she wore when she rehearsed with Van Johnson. Some of pieces were mixed with other pieces to create different looks.
I bought a Lucille Ball paper doll set as a keepsake. (honest! I don't play with it. LOL) I really wanted to see the color of the clothes. It lists the episodes when Lucy wore them. She really did repeat a lot of clothes.
But those $50 hats! Yeah that was a lot for a hat.
The second set of furniture was something Lucy won in the Home Show. The third set (that she hid in the kitchen) was something Lucy got on sale. You know Lucy couldn't pass up a bargain! And you saw what happened when she tried to economize and make her own dress and give herself a home permanent! What a mess.
At that point Ricky probably thought it was better to have a beautiful, stylish, if extravagant wife, than an economical wife who looked like a disaster!
Bottom line, Lucy did spend a lot on clothes and furniture. If it wasn't a sitcom, I think Ricky would have cut up her credit cards and taken away her checkbook.
But think of all the money they saved because they were married ten years before they had a baby! It's a good thing that Lucy didn't want a huge family. Ricky balked at first when she wanted an extra bedroom for Little Ricky.
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snsurone
8 years ago
That's quite a post, pj, and I'm glad that you are so kind to Lucy.
That episode where Ricky thought Lucy was making so much money by playing the stock market is one of my favorites.
It's just too bad that Ricky fired Mr, Hickock and Lucy had to pay the grocery bill from the $500 Ricky gave her after making a killing with "Can All-Pet", LOL.
Last year I started a thread where I asked if Lucy could have gotten away with it, or would she have eventually been arrested for fraud.
That thread is gone now, and I can't remember the replies it received.
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pjpurple-1
8 years ago
I don't think Lucy committed any actual fraud. When it came to all her "customers", everyone got the groceries they paid for.
When it came to the market, she did have an account set up by Mr. Hickock. It didn't have to be paid until the end of the month. Even without her half of the stock market winnings I tend to think that Lucy had a lot of money from her business venture left over.
She did buy a new dress and go to the beauty parlor. But as she told Ethel, "I've been in business a week and I have more money than I know what to do with."
I don't think she wanted to spend all that cash. She wanted to get over on Mr. Hickock for not giving her more money. Of course if she did come up short, she'd have to get the money from Ricky. He'd yell! But he wasn't a deadbeat who wouldn't pay his bills. It would just be "no new clothes" for Lucy for a while.
She wasn't trying to defraud the grocery store. She always intended for the bill to be paid, just not by her. LOL
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radrobd
8 years ago
In the salad dressing venture, she and Ethel were trying to go into business to make money. They might've been successful if they had the slightest idea HOW to run a business! They did not figure in any expenses or taxes or postage. They made a couple of successful commercials and probably could've made a go of their business IF they had charged a little more for their salad dressing
I think the reason Lucy and Ethel didn't charge more was because they were trying to undercut the price of the salad dressing sold at the market. But without figuring out costs, they screwed themselves. Kind of like the episode where the Ricardos and Mertzes bought the diner and were trying to outbid each other by underselling the burgers to the point where Ethel charged $.01 for a burger and Lucy and Ricky gave the bum a $1.00 and asked him to ask for 100 burgers.
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pjpurple-1
8 years ago
Yes, that's true that they wanted to undercut the store price. But it got me to thinking that Lucy and Ethel could have had a totally different business that didn't cost much money.
They could have started a business doing commercials for OTHER products! They had no experience yet they made two very successful commercials. They sold a brand new product on the strength of those two ads. The customers loved the "comedy" of the second one even more than the first.
Lucy was a natural ham and she loved performing. Back then TV shows did a lot of live commercials. I'll bet the two women could have made commercials for a lot of products and it wouldn't have cost them much to do it.
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gothic_vampire_darkknigh
8 years ago
well as Ricky pointed out at least they tried.
and that is true unless you try you don't know if something will work or not.
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