I’m home sick today and was sitting on the sofa blearily watching The Hitler Channel, when I was informed of a branch of “The Red Orchestra,” The Lucy Ring, also known as Operation Lucy, a collection of Zany Reds who worked to overthrow Hitler, banded together with a network of ex-vaudevillians, dumpy landladies and Cuban orchestra leaders.
I’m on a lot of medication, so I spent the rest of the show trying to figure out how Lucy Ricardo might have brought down the Third Reich . . . [wavy Eve “dream sequence” effect] . . .
Hitler Goes on a Diet
To his dismay, Hitler finds out that he’s put on 22 pounds since invading Paris. Eva Braun refuses to be seen in public with him till he loses his paunch, so Hitler hires Lucy Ricardo as his exercise coach. In one zany scene, he gets so hungry he tries to steal food from Blondie, the dog! Hitler finally resorts to using a steam cabinet, and manages to get down to his svelte self. He and Lucy perform “Cuban Pete/Sally Sweet” for a Leni Riefenstahl musical short subject. Adolph is a hit, but at the end he collapses, suffering from malnutrition. He then has Fred Mertz executed.
Men Are Messy
“Men are nothing but a bunch of messcats,” insists Eva Braun, while Hitler insists that “a man’s home is his Wolf’s Lair.” Lucy Ricardo comes up with a hare-brained scheme to divide the Berghof retreat in Berchtesgaden half, so that Adolph can be as messy as he likes on his side. Lucy then arranges to teach the sloppy dictator a lesson by turning the Berghof into a regular pig pen. Little do Adolph and Eva know that the Mertzes have arranged for a photographer from Der Stuermer to do a photo essay that day! Hitler then has Fred Mertz executed.
The Iron Fist Hitler has an important speech to give, but his Fuhrer jacket is at the bottom of the closet. Lucy offers to give it a quick touch-up with the iron, but is distracted by Ethel long enough that the hot iron leaves a scorch mark right in the center of the jacket’s back. Lucy resorts to zany antics to keep Hitler from seeing the back of the jacket. Everything goes well until Hitler completes his speech and turns around to leave the podium. The adoring crowd sees the scorched imprint of the iron on the back of Hitler’s jacket and bursts into laughter.
Lucy is sent to do laundry on the Russian front.
Barrage Balloon Hitler is proud to dedicate the newest defense for Berlin, a network of barrage balloons tethered to the ground. Lucy swings a bottle of pre-war champagne to launch a balloon, but the jagged edge of the bottle severs the tether rope and the balloon begins to float away. Lucy grabs the line, and is pulled off the ground. Ethel grabs on to Lucy, then Fred grabs Ethel, and soon all three are floating over Berlin.
Lucy and the General Desperate to meet superstar field marshal Erwin Rommel, Lucy and Ethel hide along the French border disguised as a 200-kilometer-long concrete wall. Tipped off by his golfing buddy Herman Goering, Rommel evades them by going through Belgium.
Lucy Films a Commercial Desperate to break into show business at the '36 Olympics, Lucy garrotes an actress hired to tout Adolph’s plans for the superior master race and replaces her. With the whole world watching her husband’s showcase event, Lucy delivers the pitch for VitaMeataAryanSemen. Hilarity ensues.
Lucy Undercover at Auschwitz Lucy goes undercover at Auschwitz, working as a Incenerator Conveyor Belt line worker. She saves the people being conveyed to the ovens by pulling them off the line and hiding them in the laundry baskets. Much hilarity ensues when Fritz the Operator speeds up the Conveyor Belt To Death, leaving Lucy to deal with the consequences.
After invading Paris, Hitler decides to go on a hunger strike until Nazi whore Coco Chanel designs him a real French military uniform. Lucy diguises herself as Chanel and outfits Hitler and Goebbels in Pierrot suits, complete with neck ruffs and fake teardrops. Hitler then has Fred Mertz executed.
Tennessee Ernie Visits
The corn starts popping when Adolph’s Country Cousin Tennessee Ernie Hitler comes to visit. He’s an earnest young Hitler youth from Bent Fork, Germany, who knows nothing of big-city ways and is inadvertently infuriating. He’s got to go but he’s so sweet that they can’t just throw him out. What to do? Hitler has him executed.
The Murder Mystery
After reading too many party-approved racially pure murder mystery novels and having a spooky fortune-telling seance with Ethyl, Lucy gets her most harebrained notion yet–she thinks Hitler is trying to murder her! Hijinks ensue, until Lucy is reassured that Hitler would of course never do such a thing. By way of concilliation Hitler takes Lucy away on a weekend shopping spree to Bertechsgaden and has Fred Mertz executed.
Job Switching
Hitler and Himmler are convinced that housework is far easier than being Fuhrer and Reichsfurer SS. Lucy and Mrs. Himmler feel the opposite, so they agree to switch jobs. While the boys don the aprons, the girls organize the pogroms and schedule the Wannsee conference! Both parties finally capitulate after Hitler burns the roast and Lucy is forced to execute the ever faithful Fred Mertz in the Bloodpurge.
After Lucy botches the launch of the V4 rocket, dooming the Reich militarily, Hitler is forced to flee to South America, masquerading as a bandleader. Ethel Mertz is captured by the allies, tried for crimes against humanity, and sentanced to death…but cheats the hangman by taking an overdose of Vitameatavegamin she had smuggled into Spandau. Fred Mertz surrenders, is gathered up by Project Paperclip, and emmigrates to the United States, eventually becoming a driving force America’s NASA (National Anti Shennanigans Agency).
Lucy disappeared for decades, but resurfaces in 1978, when she was killed in a mysterious confrontation with Nazi hunter Ezra Lieberman in the rural Ohio home of 15 year old “Little Hitlie” Wheelock.
Oh, wasn’t that one of those hourlong ones that took place in Connecticut? No one watched those, even when Ernie Kovacs and Edie Adams guest-starred as Joseph and Magda Goebbels.
My favorite episode was the one guest starring Glenn Miller and Benito Mussolini. That was the episode where Lucy was supposed to send the RAF information about Mussolini’s flight plans and set up a meeting between Miller and the Italian underground. But Lucy gets the two secret messages confused and hilarity ensues when she sends both men off to their deaths.
Yeah, you all think this is funny. I guess nobody YOU know was subjected to horrendous human Vitameatavegamin experiments and forced grape-stomping in the camps, eh?
“How long have you been married?”
“Fifteen years!”
“And they call ME an Übermensch!”
