Bakelite Motorola spotted on I Love Lucy!

[Eric H]

It's fun to spot something new after watching a show for 50 years.

I was watching an episode of I Love Lucy (the one where Lucy and Ethyl get in trouble ) L&E enter a Diner to use the phone and the Clerk and a Cop are watching the big Fight on TV, you don't get to see much, just a glimpse of the front profile, but it's enough to identify the set as either the 8" model 9T1 or the 7" model 7-VT2.

[decojoe67]

Good eye! - and classic Lucy episode. I never noticed what TV was used in that scene. A front shot would have been cool. I had one of those years ago. The 7" model. Great little set.

[kx250rider]

That is EXTREMELY rare to see ANYTHING of any brand name on I Love Lucy. They were very careful never to allow any open back door to a product placement problem, as the paying sponsors could sue for giving "free" time or favoritism whilst charging hefty royalties for the use of the brand name in the show. Even though they didn't show the Motorola logo, it would have been obvious to to anyone in the TV business at the time. All of the other TVs were fakes, except for one episode where the Ricardos' TV was an obvious Westinghouse, but the name was removed, and knobs were replaced in disguise. And I think there was trouble about that one. The episodes where they drove to Hollywood in their new Pontiac convertible, and in which they sold their 1923 Cadillac touring sedan, were sponsored by General Motors, so that was kosher.

Charles

[decojoe67]

Originally Posted by kx250rider

That is EXTREMELY rare to see ANYTHING of any brand name on I Love Lucy. They were very careful never to allow any open back door to a product placement problem, as the paying sponsors could sue for giving "free" time or favoritism whilst charging hefty royalties for the use of the brand name in the show. Even though they didn't show the Motorola logo, it would have been obvious to to anyone in the TV business at the time. All of the other TVs were fakes, except for one episode where the Ricardos' TV was an obvious Westinghouse, but the name was removed, and knobs were replaced in disguise. And I think there was trouble about that one. The episodes where they drove to Hollywood in their new Pontiac convertible, and in which they sold their 1923 Cadillac touring sedan, were sponsored by General Motors, so that was kosher.

Charles

I read that sometimes companies would ask executives to put their product on the set of a popular show with the promise of giving them free products. There's a story of one executive that rented a warehouse to put all these free products/appliances. So much so that he opened a side business selling them! "One hand washes the other"