Monthly Archives: May 2015

I love Lucy Props, Ricardo's Bookshelf

Booges: Ricky Reads a Bedtime story


In the I Love Lucy  episode, “Lucy Hires An English Tutor” (Season 2, 12/29/52) Lucy decides she only wants the best English for her baby. When she gives Ricky a book to read aloud, he butchers several words with the “ough” sound.
In this hilarious scene, the writers make fun of Ricky’s English with the words bough, rough, through and cough.
In real life, Desi Arnaz completed high school in Florida and was bilingual, speaking and reading both English and Spanish fluently.

The book that Lucy gives Ricky to read from is actually a “Peter Pan” children’s book published by Wonder Books in 1952. It even had washable covers! The prop department deleted the title “Peter Pan” for the scene but one can detect the characters in the front cover. PeterPan_WonderBook_CVR_52
PeterPan_WonderBook_BK_CVR_52
Click HERE to Find it on eBay

50's Television Set, 50s Retro, I love Lucy Props

RCA Victor 1953 Television Set

Lucy Does A TV Commercial
I Love Lucy episode Lucy Does A TV Commercial (5 May 1952)

In the I Love Lucy episode Lucy Does A TV Commercial (5 May 1952), the TV set Lucy climbs into to perform her Phillip Morris  commercial is clearly a fake but it resembles the typical cabinet tv set of the early 50’s

1953tv
RCA Victor

This is a vintage RCA Victor 1953 Television Set that looks similar in style to the fake set – it is currently on eBay “Vintage RCA Victor 1953 television set, “the Jeffrey” Blond mahogany wood cabinet excellent condition no scratches Model Number 21-T-313″

Kitchen, Vintage Electrical Appliances, Westinghouse

1952 Prices for Westinghouse Appliances

Use the Inflation Calculator below to see what Lucy Ricardo would have to pay for her Westinghouse refrigerator, range and vacuum cleaners in today’s money.  These are 1951 appliances on sale in 1952 – the regular pre-sale  price may have been closer to the 1951 price.

1952Westinghouse-sale
Source: 1952 Pittsburgh Post Gazette, May 16,1952

Inflation calculator from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics:
Continue reading 1952 Prices for Westinghouse Appliances →

I love Lucy Props, Kitchen, Vacuum Cleaners, Vintage Electrical Appliances, Westinghouse

Lucy’s “Handy Dandy” Westinghouse Vacuum Cleaner Ad 1952

Westinghouse
Tank Cleaner
With Floor Polisher

$89.95 Regularly $113.20

lucy-vacuumcleanerIts the famous Dyna-matic Tank Cleaner with a twelve-piece set of attachments to make all your home cleaning easy. And with all this you get the speedy floor polisher to keep your floors shiny and protected. All this at one remarkable price. ( Source 1952 Pittsburgh Post Gazette, May 16,1952)

Lucy's

Prices in Today’s Money:

Using an inflation calculator the full price of $ 113.20 in 1952 has the same buying power as $1,002.66  in 2015 and the sale price at $89.95 comes out to $796.73 in 2015.

I love Lucy Props, Kitchen, Vacuum Cleaners, Vintage Electrical Appliances, Westinghouse

Lucy’s “Handy Dandy” Westinghouse Vacuum Cleaner


lucy-vacuumcleaner1b 
In the I Love Lucy episode Sales Resistance Lucy falls for a slick sales patter and ends up with her “Handy Dandy” vacuum cleaner which is really an early 50’s  Westinghouse  Dyna-Matic tank vacuum cleaner.  The Westinghouse Dyna-Matic tank sweeper had a throw away inner bag and a set of attachments as seen on the show.

See another similar one on eBay HERE

Westinghouse Vacuum Cleaner 1950's
Pictured above is a well preserved  Westinghouse tank vacuum cleaner with attachments found  at http://www.vacuumland.org/cgi-bin/TD/TD-VIEWTHREAD.cgi?3848 looking very similar to the one seen on the show – even the paper tag looks the same.
lucy-westinghouse-vacuumcleaner-c

A 1950 newspaper ad gives the price as  $49.95  which is equivalent to almost $500 in 2015 so Ricky’s reaction is not surprising. Incidentally Lucy is seen using the upright model vacuum cleaner in The Black Eye episode.0_0_3020_4320

According to this NY Times article ” Hoover executives saw an episode of ”I Love Lucy” in which Lucille Ball peddled vacuum cleaners door to door. Hoover cut a deal with the show’s producers to have one of its products, and especially its brand name, displayed whenever a vacuum appeared in the plot, Mr. Kravitz said.”

The Hoover that appeared on the show was possibly a Hoover upright model 62.