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Plot[]
It's the Mertzes' anniversary, and Lucy and Ricky buy them a new TV set for a present. The gang gathers 'round the new set, ready to watch the first program on it. Ricky acts like he's an expert about the TV and begins fiddling with the settings and wires in the back. He finds two wires that aren't connected, so he twists them together and plugs the TV back in. It instantly explodes. Fred gets so mad that he runs upstairs and kicks in the glass on the Ricardos' TV set.
The Ricardos and Mertzes are so angry that they end up suing each other for the cost of the broken TVs. Ricky decides to be his own lawyer, and he coaches Lucy on what to say during her testimony. He gives her a script filled with lots of stage directions that he tells her to memorize before the court session.
The trial arrives. It seems that both Lucy and Ethel have been told to memorize their testimonies and add in lots of exaggerated perjuries. Lucy says Ricky's an electronic specialist, and Ethel says that Ricky hacked at their TV with an axe and forcibly thrust Fred's foot into the Ricardos' TV glass. The judge has had enough of their obvious perjury. He has the bailiff bring out his own TV set and asks the foursome to re-enact what really happened. When Ricky goes to explain the part about the two unconnected wires, he finds that the same two wires are loose on the judge's TV, too. The judge doesn't believe that a TV would explode from merely twisting together those two wires, and he tells the group to go in the back room and work things out.
Soon, the Ricardos and the Mertzes come out of the back room all smiles. They're friends again, and they've settled on a compromise- Ricky is going to pay for the cost of the Mertzes' TV, and Fred's going to pay for the cost of the Ricardos'. The foursome leave, and the judge connects the two loose wires that Ricky pointed out. Like the Mertzes' TV, the judge's TV instantly explodes, and just like Fred, the judge angrily kicks in the TV glass.
Trivia[]
- Only last year (in season 1, episode #2, 'Be a Pal'), the Mertzes were celebrating their 18th anniversary. How is it already their 25th anniversary?! They will continue to say they've been married for 25 years for the rest of the series.
- Parts of this episode were cut for syndication. The DVD restores the scenes. We get to see Lucy's full practice the first time she reads the scripted testimony Ricky wrote for her. We also see Ricky feeding Lucy her part and Lucy stumbling over her memorized lines during court, and this is why Fred announces that the "subject's been rehearsed." Finally, the judge asks Lucy to repeat the part where she compliments him and she raises her skirt.
- This episode was shown as a rerun during the show's fourth season, between episodes #117 and #118. The new "flashback" opening has Ricky showing Lucy his Don Juan make-up. Lucy says that Ricky looks like a "Spanish Uncle Sam" in the make-up. The Ricardos receive a letter from Lucy's mother, and Mrs. McGillicuddy refers to Fred and Ethel as "Ted and Evelyn." She also says in the letter that she sent the Ricardos' and the Mertzes' television sets out to be fixed before she figured out that they weren't working due to the electricity being off in the building. Ricky says that the Mertzes' TV has been a problem ever since the Ricardos gave it to them for their anniversary. This leads in to the memory of what happened in "The Courtroom." Sadly, only the script for this flashback episode still exists. The footage has been lost.
- While Ricky is struggling to move the TV set down the steps, all Lucy cares about is him wrinkling the bow on top.
- When Lucy slams the door shut after the Mertzes storm out, she slams it so hard that the wall painting hanging over the piano falls down. It has been restored by the next scene.
- There really was no need for Fred to get so upset with Ricky breaking the new TV. It's not as if Ricky fiddled around with the wires on Fred and Ethel's old set. Fred didn't buy the new TV, so he didn't lose any money from Ricky breaking it, only a nice anniversary gift. Rather than going and spitefully kicking in the glass on the Ricardos' TV, he should have just made Ricky buy them a new TV to replace the anniversary gift. By vandalizing the Ricardos' set, Fred ended up having to pay for it after the court settlement.
- The glass in TV sets may have been thinner back in the 1950s, but it certainly isn't possible to kick in TV glass in today's TVs, unless you kick so hard that you break your foot!
Quotes[]
- Ricky: 25 years?!
Lucy: Sounds longer when you say it!
- Lucy: (whining about TV's weight) Ricky, all the weight's on THIS end!
Ricky: Well, it can't be on BOTH ends!
- Ricky: Fred, will you please [stop trying to turn the television set on]? Now, you don't know anything about this set.
Fred: (About the static lines) I can make it just as wavy as you can!
Ricky: Aw, that's just for people who don't know anything about this set!
- Fred: Look at this- "Danger: High voltage! Do not remove this back under any circumstances."
- Ricky: This set is just like ours, and I've fixed ours 100 times!
Fred: It is NOT like yours! Yours WORKS!
- Ethel: (yelling) THANKS FOR THE PRESENT!
Lucy: (also yelling) YOU'RE WELCOME!
- Lucy: And my husband happens to be an electronic specialist...
- Ethel: I solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, which is more than someone in this room did, so help me.
- (Ethel hikes up her skirt for the judge, mimicking Lucy)
Fred: (pulls down Ethel's skirt) What are you trying to do? Lose the case for us?!
- Lucy: Well, Your Honor, now that I think of it, maybe it WAS Ricky who took off the back of the set.
Judge: Really? Ricky: Well, now that she thinks of it, yeah..