Tag: Lucille Ball

The 28th Wretched Pun of Destiny segment aired March 14, 2015 as part of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.

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28.
Shortly after the end of “I Love Lucy,” Lucille Ball chose to appear in a Broadway musical.

Late in rehearsals, however, she found she was suffering from terrible stage fright and was worried she couldn’t go through with the show. So she visits her doctor and begs for a tranquilizer.

“I’ve got something even better,” the doctor says. “Take two of these every morning, and you’ll be all set. There may be some side effects, but nothing harmful.”

So Lucy thanks him and the next morning, she starts taking the pills. She feels fine, and rehearsal goes great, so she follows the doctor’s regimen. Everything’s perfect until one morning, she takes the pills and finds herself talking in Spanish. It wears off quickly, and rehearsal isn’t affected, but she feels worried.

The next morning, Lucy takes her pills, and during rehearsal, she can barely tear herself away from the orchestra pit, where all she wants to do is play the conga drums. The morning after that, she takes the pills, and the whole day, all she can think about is flying to Cuba.

Finally, the next morning, Lucy hurries back to her physician. “Doc,” she says, “you gotta change these crazy pills!”

“What’s wrong?” he says. “Didn’t they cure your stage fright?”

“Yes,” Lucy says, “but they made me talk Spanish, play conga drums, and obsess about Cuba. You’d think I was my ex-husband!”

“That’s understandable,” says the doctor. “It says right here in the bottle: `May Cause Desiness.’”