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Plot[]
Ricky updates Fred and Ethel on the status of their newborn godson. Ricky also announces that Lucy bought a tape recorder from the women in the next hospital bed. This gets all of them remembering a time when Lucy showed how little sales resistance she has.
Lucy had bought a Handy Dandy Kitchen Helper to facilitate cooking in the kitchen. It turns out to be faulty and sort of a scam, so Ricky demands that she have the salesman come and take it back. When the salesman comes over to get the Kitchen Helper, he shows Lucy the shiny new Handy Dandy vacuum cleaner. Lucy eats up the salesman's pitch, especially when he tells her just how cheap the vacuum cleaner with the works is. Lucy finds out that the cheap price really was for "the works." It only bought her the actual vacuum. She has to fork over a lot more money to buy the hose and attachments and extension cord.
When Ricky finds out that Lucy bought the vacuum cleaner, he is, of course, angry. Lucy sets out to sell the vacuum herself, because she doesn't want to be around when salesman Harry Martin comes to take the vacuum away. She knows that he'll just sell her something else. So, she goes door to door trying to unload the vacuum cleaner. When she returns home that night, she is exhausted, disheveled, and still has the vacuum with her. Nobody would buy it.
Lucy asks if Harry Martin came to see Ricky, and he says, "Yes." Lucy quickly finds out that Ricky fell under the salesman's spell the same way Lucy did. Ricky ended up being talked into buying a new Handy Dandy refrigerator. Ethel says how she wishes somebody could sell Fred something. Ricky says that Harry Martin DID sell Fred something. Fred tells Ethel to come downstairs and look at her brand-new Handy Dandy washing machine. If Harry Martin sold FRED something that expensive, he MUST be a top-notch salesman!
Trivia[]
- The Handy-Dandy Kitchen Maker is supposed to take a full potato and cut it into 16 identical slices. Lucy didn't have this kind of luck with it.
- Sheldon Leonard is the fast talking salesman.
- Ricky sings "We Have a Brand-New Baby at Our House" for a recording at the beginning of this episode, the song that Desi Arnaz wrote for Lucie when she was born. This was the first episode aired after the birth of Little Ricky, so the song was quite appropriate. This scene is cut for syndication but included in the DVD version of the episode.
- Lucy loses one of her shoes trying to sell the vacuum cleaner. It got stuck in the door of one of the apartments she peddled at.
- The Handy Dandy Kitchen Helper peels, spices, cuts, rices, skins, and dices, all at lowest prices.
- The woman who didn't pay her electric bill and ended up having Lucy mess up her carpet with dirt is named Mrs. Simpson. She was played by the same actress who portrayed Mrs. Porter the maid in episode #58.
- Out of the two-minute block of time he had, it took salesman Harry Martin 25 seconds to vacuum up the dirt he threw on Lucy's carpet.
Quotes[]
- Lucy: [The Handy-Dandy Kitchen Helper] rices, dices, and splices.
Ricky: Lucy, how much [did it cost]?
Lucy: It cuts down on the time a housewife has to spend in the kitchen.
Ricky: How much?!
Lucy: About two hours a day!
- Ethel: Lucy's going to give us a demonstration.
Fred: Of what?
Ricky: A woman's stupidity.
Fred: That shouldn't take very long!
- Ricky: Lucy, either you're gonna call [salesman Harry Martin] up and tell him to take [the Handy-Dandy Kitchen Helper] back, or I'm gonna use it to demonstrate how to cut a wife into 16 identical slices!
- Lucy: (when Ricky discovers vacuum in closet) Oh, darn! You found your Christmas present!
- Lucy: One more hour, they'd have reported the death of another salesman!
- Ethel: Aw, Lucy, you get all the breaks. Nobody could sell old Fred anything.
Ricky: Oh, no?
Lucy: Oh?
Ethel: Fred?
Fred: Come on down and see your Handy-Dandy washing machine!