EH!, the Charlton
Mad imitator, turned the popular situation comedy,
I Love Lucy (1951-1957), into a hillbilly parody. Why? I guess someone thought turning Lucy’s husband’s Latin band into a hillbilly band was funny. Hillbillies in movies,
Li’l Abner, and hillbilly music were popular in those days. What redeems the story is the artwork of Dick Ayers. He drew Lucille Ball as a leggy beauty in a skimpy outfit. Ball began her Hollywood career as a glamour girl, but with her gift for comedy stepped out of the chorus line and into stardom. Ayers is a favorite of mine, but even with his drawing skills I give this satire a rating of 3 on a scale of 1 to 10 for funny, for its attempts at
Mad-style satire.
“Satire is what closes on Saturday night,” said humorist George S. Kaufman when his play,
Strike Up the Band, did not make it to Broadway. It could also apply to personal tastes in humor. Is satire funny? Often it is, and I like it. But I think the humor in satire depends on whether the person watching it is familiar with what is being satirized.
I Love Lucy was very popular in America in its time, and also known in other countries from syndication.
P.S. The title, “I Love Loosely,” sounds like a porno movie.
From
EH! #7 (1954).
It would seem that the author (did Ayers both write and illustrate this?) had a thing for Lucille Ball. The story pretty much devolved into popular band leaders of the time lusting after Loosely and nothing much else.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that the story was originally written as a simple hillbilly tale and the characters were changed to "parodies" of Lucy and Ricky in an attempt to cash in on the popularity of I Love Lucy. The only element that is at all similar to the sitcom was Loosely's desire to join Recordo's band. And how can a "parody" of I Love Lucy not include the Mertzes?
It feels like there are pages or panels missing from this story. On page 5 "Hickey" is shot by one of his band members wearing a yellow sombrero. Suddenly on page 6 there is what appears to be a flying boat with "Guy Lumbago" declaring himself the new leader. Where'd he come from and what happened to the guy in the yellow sombrero? Guy is subsequently shot by a shadowy figure wearing a shirt. In the next panel the guy (presumably the same guy) is shirtless and Loosely calls him Stan Lummox. He's then blown up by Kay Myser and on and on it goes with the killers appearance changing from one panel to the next. I know this is a parody but couldn't Ayers at least keep some semblance of continuity?
ReplyDeleteI get Guy Lumbago (Lombardo) and Kay Myser (Kiser) but cannot figure out who Stan Lummox is supposed to be. Only Stan I know from that era is Stan Getz...not even close to Lummox.
Wow, yeah, I don't think there's a joke that lands and I would have never gotten Lucy from Ayers art. That said, lots of good comic art here but the story just doesn't do it justice.
ReplyDeleteBrian, I got Lucy from the artwork, but not Desi.
ReplyDeleteIn real life Desi was the one who loved loosely. When Ball divorced him he made a comment, the gist being, "I don't know what Lucy is complaining about...they're only wh*res!" A guy with an attitude like that will be surprised by other things, also.
Rick, I don't know if Ayers wrote the strip. I think Ayers' talents lay in other directions; he did the original Ghost Rider, which had ridiculous plots that supposed a guy in a glow-in-the-dark cape fooled the bad guys into thinking he was a spirit. But Ayers made it look so good, and even spooky!
ReplyDeleteThe thing is, he gave this story a good try. He was a professional, after all...there are panels that would have seemed much better had the writing not been so bad.