In what universe is Gale Gordon considered funny?

Fuck off and die...

In what universe was The Lucy Show considered funny?

OP = Vivian Vance

The universe of Lucy’s mind.

To R2 -

I KNEW I should have aborted your ass!!

But my pregnancy with you was too much of a ratings-booster.

I thought he was funny when I was a kid. Blustery. Cartoonish. Now I wonder how bored he must've been. How many different ways can you say, "Mrs. Charmichael!", "Lucille!" and deny allowances? At least he got to do a cartwheel once in a while. I'm sure he and Mary Jane fooled around behind Lucy's back. Poor Mrs. Mooney.

That kind of humor has its beginnings in vaudeville or something. Broad, slapstick-y type stuff.

I laughed when I was a kid but probably haven’t watched any of the shows with him in 40 years. Still laugh out loud at ILL.

He was far worse in Dennis the Menace. He killed that show with a bullet to the head. He must have been enormously liked and always totally reliable.

Even as a child I hated him. And the only way he was ever with Mary Jane was when he would go to her house to watch a Mario Lanza picture on Million Dollar Movie.

As I child I thought he was such a sexy man. I loved his mustache and his suits. I loved how excited and enraged he would become.

R7 got it right; he was a radio actor originally. His type of broad, blustery humor was an archetype of those early radio shows and they carried over to TV sitcoms for awhile. His style of acting blended in with the early radio and '50s TV shows, but unfortunately he stayed the same while styles changed, and since he was active into the 1980s, it really stood out. I don't know whether Lucy considered him a good luck charm or what, but let's face it, Here's Lucy and Life with Lucy wouldn't have been good no matter who her sidekick was.

He always seemed so gay

I really can't watch episodes of I love Lucy for some reason, it does nothing for me. I get my Lucy fix through Here's Lucy, The Lucy Show, The Long Long Trailer and Yours Mine and Ours. Gale is one of the best things about Here's Lucy and The Lucy Show.

And he did seem very, very gay.

I feel like Lucy grew less funny over the years.

Her schick worked on ILL and the first couple of seasons of TLS. Vivian was a perfect foil/sidekick. After Viv left, it was over.

She was a nasty, humorless cunt.

Beware OP. There's at least one ILL troll on here who insists GG would have been far superior to William Frawley as the Ricardo's landlord. Yeesh.

No love for Mr. Drysdale? He wasn't quite as bumbling an idiot as GG was, he was merely clueless. His dyke secretary ran his life, so it went smoothly.

Even as a kid, I knew Joseph Kearns was far superior on Dennis the Menace.

R18 I like much of Gordon's work, but you're right. He was not good on "Dennis," and had the unenviable task of being a replacement character.

He was genuinely funny on the radio in sitcoms like "Our Miss Brooks." He was a perfect foil to Eve Arden's sarcastic reaction to his blustery demands. (I'm not that old, I've listened to tapes).

He was Lucy's first choice for Fred Mertz, which would've make Vivian Vance happier than being paired with Bill Frawley. Gordon wouldn't have been as effective as Frawley though.

[quote][R18] I like much of Gordon's work, but you're right. He was not good on "Dennis," and had the unenviable task of being a replacement character.

The problem with that is that Dennis wasn't even a menace anymore. His conflict was with Mr. Wilson, and he was gone. There just wasn't strong enough of a motivation for him to be trying the same stuff with Mr. Wilson's brother. Of course, did we really need to see Dennis's teenage years?

Is it true Gale Gordon was also up for the part in Kramer vs. Kramer played by Meryl Streep?

Cunts.

He was a bad choice to replace Kearns on Dennis. Kearns was a fussbudget uncle type who still showed a fondness for Dennis. Gordon played the role as an asshole who hated kids.

His schtick was old hat by the 1970s. In the last two seasons of "Here's Lucy," his character was softened and he was able to be funny occasionally without resorting to his old schtick.

In the universe made of painted backdrops.

The last season of [italic]Dennis the Menace[/italic] overlapped with the first season of [italic]The Lucy Show[/italic], so the first season of the latter had Charles Lane as a banker trying to keep Lucy from going over budget.

R25 On 16" or 19" standard definition TVs, they didn't stick out like they do now.

He was pretty good on radio. I loved his "Mr Judson" on "Burns and Allen." He was a millionaire from Texas who thought everything was about Texas and anything about Texas was great. It was parodied as "The Rich Texan" on "the Simpsons."

He also was excellent with Bea Benaderet on "My Favorite Husband," the radio version of "I Love Lucy."

[quote] He was pretty good on radio. I loved his "Mr Judson" on "Burns and Allen." He was a millionaire from Texas who thought everything was about Texas and anything about Texas was great. It was parodied as "The Rich Texan" on "the Simpsons."

They also paid homage to Frank Nelson with the "Yessssssss?" guy.

As a kid, I found him mildly funny as Mr. Conklin, the pompous school principal, on reruns of "Our Miss Brooks" (his commitment to that series prevented him from taking the role of Fred Mertz), but tiresomely one-note on "The Lucy Show" and "Here's Lucy." But apparently he was very well liked; he worked constantly on radio and television.

[quote][R25] On 16" or 19" standard definition TVs, they didn't stick out like they do now.

They even looked fake on taped shows and even more so on filmed shows now that they've been remastered.

r26 Lucy fired Lane because he couldn't remember his lines and she refused to allow cue cards. He went over to Petticoat Junction and had the last laugh living until 2007, (he died at 102), working steadily until 1995. His last acting credit was a voice over, in 2006 as a narrator in a film short.

Lucie Arnaz says on "Here's Lucy," her mother was so busy with producing, directing and starring that she came to totally rely on cue cards to the point, she didn't really know what was going on with the script. "Of course," Lucie added "She never let anyone else use them. Desi and I were expected to know our lines."

Today's audience can't relate to the old shows and performers. Now, they only laugh is when a character utters and obscenity or gets hit in the nuts.

This thread made me remember that last night I had a dream about Vivian Vance. It had to do with a pun on "vents" (as in clothing). In the dream I was going to post excitedly about it on DL.

OP he was the straight man the funny people played off of. He wasn't supposed to be funny in the same way someone like Lucille Ball was. He was there to support & enable her and other's comedic brilliance.

Frank Nelson was funny. Similar type. Gale was not. Don't hire your friends, or you end up with your life's version of Here's Lucy.

A laugh AT rather than laugh WITH

r35 see Vivian Vance

r23 nails the Dennis the Menace dynamic

[quote]He was a bad choice to replace Kearns on Dennis. Kearns was a fussbudget uncle type who still showed a fondness for Dennis. Gordon played the role as an asshole who hated kids.

In fairness to Gordon, Jay North was pretty easy to hate. Not one of the better child actors.

R40 Gee, Mr. Wil-SON.

He was funny on the radio with Our Miss Brooks.

For some reason I find the radio version of that show hilarious but can’t make it through an episode of the TV show and the movie is awful.

For what it's worth, the 1980s cartoon was closest to the original [italic]Dennis the Menace[/italic] comic strip. The 1993 movie, which saw a concurrent cartoon reboot, tried to combined the mutually exclusive elements of those prior adaptations and mix it with the same John Hughes funny/creepy tone of [italic]Home Alone[/italic].

r40 = Jon Provost

Gale lived until 89 dying in 1995. I was really into Here's Lucy and The Lucy show a few summers ago. That summer I also watched The Burbs. I thought the neighbor that goes missing sounded like Gale Gordon, but thought there was no way he was alive then. It was him. His character in the movie was quite the eldergay. 1989.

Gale Gordon - You're no Frank Nelson.

Desi Jr. and Patty Duke sort of put a damper on Lucy's humor.

GG had sizemeat.

R48 For once, we agree.

Is that R45 toupee supposed to be funny?

R50 yes, he did not wear one in real life or on “Life With Lucy.”

So Frank Nelson was the guy who sells 0 calorie cola on Midnight With Madeline. Oprah could use somebody like him.

It's not that Gale Gordon was not funny at all, but was limited in how he was funny. Basically a one-trick pony. He was more of a straight man to Lucy.

FWIW, I had a small connection with a dinner theater where Gale G was a frequent performer through his later years. He would stay at the hotel with his wife of several decades, and they were both absolutely adored by all the staff, directors, fellow performers, restaurant staff and and even housekeepers. He (and she) were charming, witty, extremely kind and generous. He was also 100% reliable. Over the years, I never heard a negative word uttered about them.

He was just lovable.

(This video is mislabeled.)

I have never seen these opening credits before.

R56, Lucille Ball hated the Season 5 opening with her as a jack-in-the-box. It was used for only a few episodes and then replaced with a revised version of the kaleidoscope opening.

Thanks r57!

All five "Lucy Show" opening credit sequences.

Mr Mooney was a lot and I mean a LOT better of a character in Danfield than in Los Angeles. He was more rounded and had varied interests, but after the move to California, he just yelled and the writers clearly had no idea what a banker did.

Humor was different back then

Or maybe "The Lucy Show" just wasn't very humorous.

It was horrible even back then.

I would say like the Carol Burnett show but it was hilarious when it first aired and I was the same age. Now it's god awful.

I don't think any comic icon has worn as badly as her. And in drama she was always excruciating.

Sorry. 'as badly as she.' I think that's correct. Or is either correct?

Any way Lucy could shoot out a zinger like nobody's business in her RKO days and she was also a very good dramatic actress which Burnett never was.

Mr Mooney times 3!

Watch from 2:45 to 3:15.

I agree completely about Burnett's show. I thought her sketches were hilarious when I was young (the "Gone With the Wind" parody mostly holds up, and the curtains/dress bit is a classic), but I find her show unwatchable now. Burnett also had a blind spot about Tim Conway, whom she thought was a comic genius. Even when I was young, I found him utterly predictable and painfully unfunny.

R59, the photo in the center right was an outtake from the famous TV antennae sequence. Lucy was in the store trying to get the owner to put up their antennae for free. He had these TV displays with the screens cut out and Lucy used one to demonstrate how bad their picture is.

Gordon was not bad in the first few seasons of The Lucy Show but the writing was much better as well. He just kept getting angrier and angrier in each season. Granted, the Lucy character got worse and worse as well.

[quote]FWIW, I had a small connection with a dinner theater where Gale G was a frequent performer through his later years.

How was his "Hamlet?" Willy Loman?

Was it the Mr. Burt Reynolds Dinner Theater?

I never understood the closing credits to the Lucy Show where she appears as a head coming out of a shoe, giving stern looks. WTF??

Lucy was WAY past her expiration date by the 1970s. Shows like Mary Tyler Moore and All in the Family captured the spirit of the decade.

Lucy was using thrice recycled scripts from ILL by that point.

She was repeating her own stuff, this time in color, before those shows premiered.

So did William Asher when [italic]Bewitched[/italic] copied the chocolate factory scene practically beat for beat in one of the Uncle Arthur episodes.

R70, I remember the episode. I believe Lucy got trapped in a mail bag and got shipped across country. When they opened the bag, she popped out. You'll note the expression is the same one she used in the ILL episode when she returned after going crosstown on the lawnmower.

[quote]She was repeating her own stuff, this time in color, before those shows premiered.

Many episodes of "I Love Lucy" were re-purposed from "My Favorite Husband" radio scripts.

R64: Lucy always played pretty much the same character--comedy or drama. Look at Stage Door and you can see Lucy Ricardo, Lucy Carmichael, etc. She needed structure and predictability, esp. as she got older. Her writers were capable of coming up with less dated, cliched stuff when they wrote for other shows.

Gordon was excreable on Dennis the Menace--he just got angry a lot--much like the Lucy Show. I suspect part of it was the writing, butI never saw him playing a different sort of character.

[quote]Her writers were capable of coming up with less dated, cliched stuff when they wrote for other shows.

Would it be blasphemous to admit [italic]Alice[/italic] aged better than many of the later Lucy shows?

R76 Actually, the last couple of seasons of "Here's Lucy" improved in a sense in that they allowed "Lucy" to act more her age (no more "young lady") and Gordon allowed more to be a friend/peer, not always yelling at Lucy.

It's funny because people said "I Married Joan" was just a writers thinking of something funny for Joan to do, physically of course, then coming up with a weak excuse for Joan to do it. And that is pretty much what it was.

But that is what the Lucy Show became after it moved to Hollywood.

[quote][R76] Actually, the last couple of seasons of "Here's Lucy" improved in a sense in that they allowed "Lucy" to act more her age (no more "young lady") and Gordon allowed more to be a friend/peer, not always yelling at Lucy.

And Lucie Arnaz left the show with the backdoor pilot for an unsold spin-off essentially being her farewell to the show. And when she finally did get a sitcom on CBS in 1985, it was no more successful than [italic]Life With Lucy[/italic] would be or her brother's [italic]Automan[/italic] was. But both of those were on ABC.

You can rag on Lucy all you want, but hopefully someone someday will find her screentest for Network, she read for the Beatrice Straight role and was electrifying, blew Chayefsky away. I think that the role was then paired down in pre-production and Lucy just couldn't accept such a small part. She probably would've won the Oscar. Lucy was also offered Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate and Angie Dickinson's role in Dressed to Kill, had she taken any three of these parts (and really she should have taken them all) the whole complexion of third act of her career would have changed not to mention her legacy.

Kearns on Dennis the Menace , was a closeted Queen . He had a massive pipe organ built in his house. He regularly used enemas as a diet or cleansing agent , and it eventually killed him . He was a bossy bottom , which should be a warning to most DL 'ers.

He was a master of the goggle-eyed double take!

He was ok. The look in OP's photo reminds me of a time when adults wore suits.

As a child when I watched the credits, I was fascinated by his name.

The original Dennis the Menace was extremely well cast except for Jay North. And yes the father was adorable.

Gloria Henry, who played the mother, is still alive at 96.

OP = Vivian Vance