#Tree House | papermoonloveslucy (2025)

S2;E16 ~ January 20, 1964

Synopsis

When Chris starts dating Mr. Mooney's son, Lucy gets the mistaken idea that they plan to elope and hides out in the boys' tree house to prevent it.

Regular Cast

Lucille Ball (Lucy Carmichael), Vivian Vance (Vivian Bagley), Gale Gordon (Theodore J. Mooney), Candy Moore (Chris Carmichael)

Ralph Hart (Sherman Bagley) and Jimmy Garrett (Jerry Carmichael) do not appear in this episode.

Guest Cast

Michael J. Pollard (Ted Mooney Jr.) was born on May 30, 1939 in Passaic, New Jersey. He appeared on Broadway in five shows, including Bye Bye Birdie and Enter Laughing, just before this appearance on “The Lucy Show.” At this time he was married to Beth Howland (Vera on “Alice”) who he divorced in 1969. In 1967 he was nominated for an Oscar for the film Bonnie and Clyde. This is his only appearance opposite Lucille Ball. He died on November 20, 2019.

Ted Mooney is Mr. Mooney's son.

Usual series writers Madelyn Martin and Bob Carroll Jr. are joined by Fred S. Fox and Irving ('Iz’) Elinson for this episode. Fox wrote 15 episodes of “The Lucy Show” and 26 episodes of “Here’s Lucy.” Elinson wrote a dozen episode of “The Lucy Show.”

This episode first aired on the 68th Birthday of comedian George Burns.1964 would see the death of his wife, Gracie Allan. Burns reinvented himself as a solo act and appeared on“The Lucy Show” as himself in 1966 and on“Here’s Lucy” in 1970. Burns will celebrate 31 more birthday before passing away in 1996 at age 100.

Opposite“Chris Goes Steady” on ABC, Kathleen Freeman was making the last of her five appearances on“Wagon Train”. Three weeks earlier she made the first of her five appearances on“The Lucy Show.”

That same night, Mr. Mooney’s predecessor Charles Lane (Mr. Barnsdahl) appeared as Mr. Frisby on“The Andy Griffith Show”, airing after “The Lucy Show.” Like Burns, Lane ended his life as a centenarian, living to the age of 102.

MY THREE SONS

This is the third 'son' of Mr. Mooney introduced on the series.

  • Barry Livingston played a young Arnold Mooney, Jerry's classmate, in “Lucy Gets Locked in the Vault” (S2;E4). The role will shortly be re-cast with Ted Eccles when Livingston is busy on “My Three Sons.”
  • Eddie Applegate played Bob Mooney in “Lucy and the Bank Scandal” (S2;E7). Applegate was reportedly too busy appearing on “The Patty Duke Show” to return to the role of Chris' boyfriend and it was re-cast (and re-named) for Pollard.

In an earlier episode, we hear that Mr. Mooney also has a daughter, who lives in Trenton NJ. Like her mother, the character is never seen on screen. Lucille Ball lived briefly in Trenton as an infant. On Mr. Mooney’s home office desk there is a framed photo a woman who may be Irma Mooney.

The title of this episode refers to the post-War practice of teenagers dating one partner exclusively - until they ‘break up’. Those not‘going steady’ were‘playing the field’. The boy generally gave his ‘steady’ a small token to wear as a sign of their commitment. Here, Chris is given Ted’s class ring to ‘make it official.’Two weeks after this episode aired,“The Patty Duke Show” produced an episode titled“Going Steady” and later in 1964, the song“I’m Going Steady With A Dream” hit the charts. The Studebaker automobile’s user manual was titled“Going Steady With Studie”.

Chris formerly dated Chuck Gibbons, who Lucy fondly remembers bathed in the glow of the light from her refrigerator.

Although Jerry and Sherman are not in the episode, their baseball glove and ball is visible on the side table and Lucy and Mr. Mooney occupy their backyard tree house as a look-out post.

Vivian can walk to the grocery store from their house. The malt shop is mentioned several times in the episode. This may or may not be a reference to the same location Chris and Cynthia worked in “Lucy is a Soda Jerk” (S1;E23). For the umpteenth time, Chris mentions her friend Cynthia, a character that was played in two episodes by Lucie Arnaz, but merely mentioned in dozens more.

Viv says that UNIVAC couldn't have come up with a better match. UNIVAC (UNIVersal Automatic Computer) was an early computer made by Remington Rand that was originally used mainly for weather forecasting, but would correctly predict that outcome of the 1956 Presidential election. UNIVAC was first mentioned on “Lucy and Bob Hope” (ILL S6;E1).

Ted: “I can't get married till I get more customers on my paper route.”

Viv sings a bit of “I Love You Truly.” The song was sung by Elizabeth Patterson when Lucy Ricardo renewed her vows to Ricky in “The Marriage License” (ILL S1;E26). "I Love You Truly” was written by Carrie Jacobs-Bond and first published in 1901. It was sung in the film It’s A Wonderful Life (1946) and was frequently heard on TV (often satirically). It was one of the earliest songs composed by a woman to sell over one million copies.

A few moments later, Viv sings a few bars of another traditional wedding song,“Oh, Promise Me!” an 1887 art song by Reginald de Koven and Clement Scott. She first sang it when Lucy’s sister got married in “Lucy’s Sister Pays a Visit” (TLS S1;E15) a year earlier. It was later heard on“Here’s Lucy” (1972) and “Happy Anniversary and Goodbye”(1974).

Mr. Mooney bristles when Lucy suggests that Ted and Chris may get married, dreading that they would be related. In “Here's Lucy”, Lucy's character is indeed related to Gale Gordon's – she is his brother-in-law. They are also related by marriage in“Life With Lucy.”

Chris:We both like the same ‘Hootenanny’ singers, we both wear Beethoven sweatshirts, and and we both do our homework listening to Dave Brubeck's Jazz Combo.”

Hootenanny” was a music series that aired on ABC from 1963 to 1964 during the height of the folk music craze. It taped performances at college campuses around the USA. Dave Brubeck is a jazz musician best known for his recording "Take Five." In “Lucy the Music Lover” (S1;E8) Jerry wore a Beethoven sweatshirt.

After they use 'reverse reverse psychology' on Lucy and Mr. Mooney, Chris and Ted get a smattering of exit applause from the studio audience.

To convince their parents that they are going to elope, Ted passes his father's study window carrying a long ladder. In fiction, a man usually accessed his prospective bride's bedroom window using a ladder.

To further add verisimilitude to their narrative, Chris borrows Viv's suitcase and purposely leaves out a travel brochure for Niagara Falls.NiagaraFalls is located on the border of New York State and Ontario, Canada, and is known for its majestic waterfalls. It has long been a favorite honeymoon destination, mentioned many times in films, TV shows and songs. For more than 200 years it has touted itself as “The Honeymoon Capital of the World.”

This is one of a few episodes where Ralph, Viv’s ex-husband is mentioned. We never learn the first name of Lucy’s late husband.

To spy on their kids, Lucy and Mr. Mooney take refuge in Sherman and Jerry's tree house, which Mr. Mooney describes as “early Huckleberry Finn.” Huckleberry Finn is a 12 or 13 old fictional character created by Mark Twain who first appeared in the book The Adventures of Tom Sawyer(1876)and is the narrator of its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884). Both Tom and Huck were known for roughing it living in the woods in and around the Mississippi River.

The boys have decorated their tree house with a yellow stop sign (above Mr. Mooney). The traditional red stop sign didn’t come along until 1954 because there were no red dyes that wouldn’t fade outdoors over time, so yellow was chosen when the signs were first standardized in 1922.

The scene with Lucy and Mr. Mooney in the tree house will be reused in the 1986 “Life With Lucy” episode “Lucy and Curtis are Up a Tree”which went un-aired when the series was abruptly canceled. It was also written by Madelyn Martin and Bob Carroll Jr.

In that episode, it rained instead of snowed because the characters of Lucy Barker and Curtis McGibbon lived in Pasadena, California.

Since the episode revolves around reverse psychology, Mr. Mooney invokes the name of Sigmund Freud. Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for treating psychopathology through dialogue between a patient and a psychoanalyst, often called ‘talk therapy.’

Trying to stay awake in the tree house, Lucille Ball uses her comic facial expressions much the same way she did fighting drowsiness in many other episodes of her shows.

Technical Note: This is the first episode of “The Lucy Show” to use a 'flip wipe' between scene one and two instead of the traditional fade transition. It is used again later in the episode.

Callbacks!

Reverse psychology was a common plot device on “I Love Lucy.” Ricky and the Mertzes use it to lift Lucy’s spirits in “The Inferiority Complex” (ILL S2;E18). They later use it when “Little Ricky Gets Stage Fright” (ILL S6;E4) to get him to play his drums. That same season, the girls use it on the boys to make them think they would be better at “Building a Bar-B-Q” (ILL S6;E24).

The rope ladder falling to the ground and stranding Lucy and Mr. Mooney in the treehouse is similar to when the ladder Lucy Ricardo planned to use to escape being locked on the roof falls to the ground in“Vacation From Marriage” (ILL S2;E6). Weather also gets the better of the stranded duo, albeit man-made weather via a garden hose.

In“Lucy Puts Up a TV Antenna” (TLS S1;E9) Lucy and Viv get stuck on the roof after their ladder breaks in half.

“Chris Goes Steady” rates 4 Paper Hearts out of 5

#Tree House | papermoonloveslucy (2025)
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