This is one of the best season one episodes because of the scene in which Lucy starts her new office job; the typewriter, the pencil sharpener, the water cooler ... it's all very funny stuff. The rest of the episode is fine but that one part is simply terrific. And John McGiver as the stodgy boss was perfect casting.
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ProfessorPizzicato25 November 2019
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kgraovac26 October 2023Lucy needs money to buy Jerry a bicycle for his birthday and when snapping at Mr. Barnsdahl (she's surprisingly aggressive for a second there) doesn't work she resorts to the famous Lucy crying jag. He's not having it and suggests she get a part-time job.
This is the first time we see Lucy playing secretary and the office scene is funnier than most of the ones she will do with Gale Gordon. In fact, Mr. Mooney would have had her head for behaving the way she does here. There's trouble with the intercom, pencil sharpener and typewriter; but the water cooler bit is the corker. If you ask me, John McGiver's character is way too lenient with her.
Lucy is given a second chance and is asked to deliver some documents to a restaurant for a lunch meeting. An earlier scene at home cleverly had Viv mention a loose thread on Lucy's dress, and the payoff is huge when it gets caught in the elevator doors, causing Lucy to literally become unraveled before our eyes. She's hysterical when doing the "jump rope" bit. Seeing her in nothing but a slip must have been kind of risqué for a sitcom at the time.
The third big comedic scene has Lucy in a kangaroo costume, eating onion soup in front of bewildered and bemused restaurant patrons, but the office and elevator scenes were much funnier.
It ends on a more sentimental note than usual, as Jerry gleefully rides his new bike around the house, making all of Lucy's trouble worthwhile. This is one of the best of the early episodes. Lucy basically carries the whole episode all by herself. -
This is one of the few episodes I remember, having been under age 10 at the time it was in syndication. So bear this in mind when you read what follows.
Lucy is wearing a knit dress that she may have made herself and it has a seemingly minor flaw. She gets off an elevator in and a thread from her dress catches on the door as she steps into the lobby. The elevator goes up and Lucy's dress unravels. She spins like a top. A dizzy Lucy, now clad in a slip, eyes a mannequin clad in a big fuzzy kangaroo suit and holding a sign in the lobby. She dons the suit to preserve her modesty and hops off to the restaurant to meet a client or prospective employer.
While the kangaroo suit has a convenient pouch for carrying her purse, the attached mitten hands prove to be quite a challenge. An attempt is made to pick up a spoon and partake of a bowl of soup. She has to pick up the soup bowl with the cumbersome paws to drink it. We can be thankful that the attached headpiece lacked a long muzzle, which would've rendered poor Mrs. Carmichael with more difficulty and embarrassment.