Liz Cooper and My Favorite Husband

Surely that's not Lucy in the photo?

Just in case you missed it - you MUST watch

My Favorite Cugat

In the early days of the show, My Favorite Husband, husband-wife George and Liz were known as the Cugats.  Later they became the Coopers.

Although I have not read this anywhere, I happen to *think* the name Cugat was an homage to Desi Arnez's friend Xavier Cugat to whom he was sometimes compared.

Both Xavier and Desi were from Havana and were very good friends. 

Anyone know anything different?  Is this a plausible theory?

©Jimbo 2010/2011

My Favorite Husband/Lucy stuff

Here's an awesome article on Lucy plus a super My Favorite Husband cartoon that you don't want to miss!

My Favorite Husband

Comic Promos

Newspaper Promo Dump [#03]

©Jimbo 2010/2011

Or --- we could do I LOVE LUCY

My Favorite Husband photos, mini-review

Morning Walk: Stuff "Boston Blackie" thinks about [#01]

My friend "Boston Blackie" seems to be a bit like me in that he is preoccupied with old-time radio a lot. He may not listen to it all the time but he thinks about it all the time - something I certainly find myself doing more and more.

He's agreed to occasionally share those thoughts with us. Here's the first installment of "Morning Walk."


What Is So Charming About Old Time Radio?

I asked this question to myself on my morning walk.  The first thing that came to my mind is the sex content, or lack of it.  Well, not really lack of it, but, just simplified.  We get a daily dose of more raw sex in our daily tv shows and the movies we might go and see.  But, in old time radio we get kisses.  Yes, kisses.  I really get a kick of the Cisco Kid who often kisses the young maiden at the close of the show.  That is it, a kiss.  No jumping in the bed and you know what after that.  But, the Cisco Kid kiss is just as moving.  Other ways OTR handles sex is by ‘Stuff Pat Novak says'.  He describes the young gals he meets with descriptions of their shapes and color of the hair and whatever.  No bed jumping, though.  Same goes for the other detectives.  Philip Marlowe is what I call the ‘Great Describer.’  He paints the pictures of sunset, sunrises, ocean waves and the young ladies.  But, that is far as it gets.  We know these detectives have interest in sex, but, at best, the hint of something that might happen and we never find out. 

Another charm of old time radio is the way violence is handled.  Only on occasion are things blown up.  But nothing like the tv show Hawaii Five-O where things get blasted regularly and rely on shock value.  Not so for OTR.  Oh, our beloved detectives get hit on the head over and over and over again.  They wake up, say it hurts and move on.  I hate to think of the concussions they suffered and quality of life they suffer in later years.  But, it is not done for shock value.  TV seems to try to out-do each other to the extent of violence they can show.  Bodies are carved up and shown to the viewer.  OTR just has detectives hit in the head.  Yes people are shot, but, they just drop.  Violent, yes.  But, at the same time not shocking.  They are shot but not for shock value.  Even then, how many people did the Lone Ranger ever blast to their death?  I do not think it was many.  You can go to bed after listening to any of these shows and not have nightmares as you might get from watching Criminal Minds. 

Somewhat related to the charm of OTR is the word ‘gay.’  Every night I hear someone mentioning gay.  Gay was not what it means today.  I do not need to tell you what today's definition is.  Back during the time of OTR, gay was used routinely for those that are happy.  I believe My Favorite Husband used the word for every opening of the show.  The gay couple.  Yes, the gay couple.  Isn’t that charming???  Now, you would raise an eyebrow.  (By the way, I have nothing against ‘so called gay couples’ as known today.  But, just pointing out it is kind of charming to see how often that work was used in otr shows. ) 

©Jimbo 2010/2011

Review: My Favorite Husband

My Favorite Husband is another of the long line of old-time radio comedies that doesn't hold up so well today.  It's not that it's a bad show (most of the scripts were later turned into scripts for the I Love Lucy television show) or has bad acting (the show is blessed with Lucille Ball, Richard Denning, Gale Gordon and Bea Benaderet) nor is it loaded down with unbearable musical numbers every 10 minutes (ala A Day in the Life of Dennis Day) - this show has no musical numbers at all.

Everything is in place for this to be a classic radio show - but instead, what we get is a soggy version of The Lucy Show.

In my mind, there's not one episode of the show that I can pick out and say, "You know, that was a great episode."  The only thing that makes the show memorable is the endless comparisons that are made with I Love Lucy and perhaps that is the show's curse?  It wasn't Desi Arnez or the Mertz's who made I Love Lucy work - it was the writing and Lucy herself.

This is where we came in.  This show has both of those things: the scripts of Jess Oppenheimer (the I Love Lucy creator and writer) and a younger, more virile version of Lucille Ball.

But for some reason, it just doesn't work.  One thing that would have made the show better is to flip husbands.  Make Denning the husband of Benederet and Gordon the husband of Lucy.

There's a good chance that this would have turned the show into a hopped-up version of The Bickersons (which is not a good show at all) but a souped-up version with Lucy and Gordon as a married couple might have provided hours of entertainment.

Gordon was one of Lucy's favorite actors and she really wanted him to be Fred Mertz in I Love Lucy.  Gordon never played Lucy's husband in all of the shows they did together; why not?

At any rate, Denning is boring.  He's not horrible but like Alice Faye on the Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show, Denning is simply a piece of living room furniture.  And really, why would you want him to be anything else?

The blame for the lack of fun in this show then lands squarely on Lucy.  I have no idea what the deal was, I just know that the show is just like most of the others (actually, slightly less fun) during that time frame.  The situations may have been a little more outlandish than say, Our Miss Brooks - but I dare say, Our Miss Brooks is a better show on radio.

If I were rating the show on a 5 star system, I'd have to give the show 2 stars - maybe 2 and a half on a good day.

Lucy: pre-"My Favorite Husband"