After the shambles Lucy makes of the Phipps Dept. Store commercial, trashing the store and its' services, what do you think would have been the real-life consequences for Lucy, if any?
The reality is that Ricky would've NEVER worked in TV again. He would've been blacklisted by every major sponsor. But this is I Love Lucy, of course. Ricky must've been pissed off at Lucy for a long time afterward.
On a different note: how lame of the writers to have Ricky adjust the clocks AND Fred and Ethel's! What did he do? Break into their apartment in the middle of the night and change EVERY clock, as well as wristwatches? All he had to do was tell everyone the show was airing later. Pretty lazy writing.
I have this one coming up to watch, as I'm currently in my month-long "Lucy in Costume" marathon for Halloween.
I agree Gary.
And I think that Phipps Dept. Store would have sued Lucy.
I've always thought that the idea of the writers to have Ricky reset everyone's time pieces was ridiculous. Good to know I'm not alone.
Yeah, resetting their OWN clocks was one thing, but resetting the Mertz's clocks was hardly believable.
I think that Phipps Department Store would have made the best of things and been big sports about Lucy's crazy commercial. The public will often go along with a joke. They love to see the "big guy" made fun of and still remain a good sport about it.
If you've ever seen Alfred Hitchcock Presents, you'll see that's true. Hitchcock always made fun of his sponsors upcoming commercials. His sponsors were wise to go along with his kidding and the public loved it. He (figuratively) got away with murder!
AHP is a great show!! I've recently gotten back into watching my DVDs of this great series.
Yes, Hitchcock's cracks about his sponsors were always very droll.
I think some sponsors might take that forgiving attitude, but I didn't get the impression that the head of Phipps Department Store would be one of them. He had such a sense of his own brilliance/wonderfulness, I think he would have been shocked and dismayed at how things turned out due to Lucy's distortion of the commercial.
Hitchcock. on the other hand, was great at kidding his sponsors. I think it's likely though,, that the sponsors knew what he was up to before the shows aired, which wasn't the case here.
Yes, the head of Phipps Dept. Store really, really took himself very seriously.
But I think that ultimately cooler and (wiser) heads would have convinced him not to take legal action or display his anger in public. I mean, how would it look if a big department store went after a little housewife?
Phipps depended on the business of many women and the majority of them were probably married. If they saw one of their own attacked for making what looked to be a joke, they might take their business elsewhere, e.g., Macy's, Gimbels, etc.
Better to go along with what looked like a joke than be perceived as a sorehead!
Are you talking about Harvey Cromwell? He wasn't the head of the department store. He was a television producer who was producing a show with them as the sponsor.
shareThanks for the clarification, Andrew.
Either way, in the real world I think Phipps Dept Store and Harvey Cromwell would have been furious at Lucy for what she did.