Housewarming

There's the Vitameatavegamin commercial, the chocolate factory assembly-line fiasco, the wine-vat cat fight, and then there's the luncheon between Lucy, Betty, and Ethel. It's up there with the others as one of the funniest scenes from the entire series. Ethel's stinging jabs at Betty Ramsey are priceless and delivered with mastery. Ethel Mertz is the best supporting character in sitcom history, and Vivian Vance is the best second-banana actor in sitcom history. There's Ethel/Vivian, and then there's everyone else.

With such a strong opening, the remaining portion of the episode isn't as funny, but the first part of the episode is pure gold.

Bob Carroll and Madelyn Pugh, the writers for the show, said they would think of the stunt first, then build up to it, how to get it to happen.

Lucy on the mower, Lucy with the eggs in her shirt, Lucy clucking like a chicken with baby chicks all around, Lucy drunk in a commercial, Lucy stomping grapes in Italy, and so on.

In this instance, I suppose the joke was how to get Lucy at a surprise party with her in her robe and with curlers in her hair.

I suppose the misunderstanding about the friendship between Ethel Mertz and Betty Ramsey was a good one.

But what makes this episode so memorable to me was the actual beginning of the episode. Lucy is trying to get Ethel and Betty to be friends. Betty is a bit of a snob, and Ethel feels like Betty is looking down on her, so Ethel is very reluctant for any kind of friendship.

At the start, it is Ethel who is hostile toward Betty. Vain Betty seems to be unaware of Ethel's behavior.

These little exchanges (Ethel saying she wears the same bathrobe every evening to what evening gowns Lucy and Betty would wear, Ethel saying her half of the egg business is the shells, Ethel going 'mm-hmm' from behind her coffee cup to answer Betty's question) are amusing on their own.

Lucy then says that Ethel has always lived on a farm since she was a little girl in Alberqueque.

"Albequeque?" Betty asks. "Are you from Albequeque?"

"mm-hmm."

"Well, I'm from Albequeque."

"You are?"

Betty and Ethel (reads like Archie in Riverdale characters) then realize they attended the same grammar school and their fathers were lodge brothers.

The mood turns on an incredible dime, but the saga isn't finished yet.

As the two women continue to recollect about Albaqueque, we suddenly hear "I'm from Jamestown" from left-out Lucy.

Later "I lived in Jamestown until I was sixteen." This then led to Lucy feeling mistreated.

Yet that breakfast table incident, of Lucy trying to bring them together and being left out herself, is a gem in and of its own.