"Lucy Hunts Uranium" & It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963)

Don't have time to sit through the hilarious three hour "comedy to end all comedies" called It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963)? Then take a gander at a shorter, yet strikingly similar story - "Lucy Hunts Uranium" an episode of The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour originally aired on January 3, 1958 for CBS.

Ricky and Lucy Ricardo (Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball) are in Las Vegas for Ricky's musical show.

With their neighbors Fred and Ethel Mertz (William Frawley and Vivian Vance) and guest star Fred MacMurray as himself, the quintet stumbles upon uranium in the Nevada desert. There's a rush to the claim's office for cash.

In the feature-length, all-star movie Mad World (Originally titled "So Many Thieves," then "Something a Little Less Serious"), a dying gangster tells passers-by where he hid stolen money. The group of strangers (including Milton Berle, Ethel Merman, Sid Caesar, Mickey Rooney and Jonathan Winters) must decide what to do next.

In each story there is

The preliminary discussion of percentage shares of the potential cash.

A car chase through the desert

A convertible getting stuck.

A meetup at a gas station.

 

No one ends up in the vehicle in which he/she started.

And general slapstick malarkey

"I Love Lucy" veteran writers Bob Carroll, Jr., Madelyn Martin, Bob Schiller and Bob Weiskopf penned the "Uranium" script.

Writer William Rose and his wife/co-writer Tania Price Rose wrote the Mad World script. Rose, known for writing screenplays in both the U.S. and the U.K., originally set the script in Scotland. The Mad World comedy chase might have been inspired by a story for which he is credited in Genevieve (1953), a plot which involves two people racing against each other.

Both scripts take human motivations -like greed- and dial it up to wacky proportions.  They are each an hilarious tribute to comedy on film.

Further Resources

• More information at Terry-Thomas World
• Urban Cinefile's Mad World page 
• Phil Silver's Mad World Page
• You can watch "Lucy Hunts Uranium"
• "Lucy Hunts Uranium" is available for purchase on VHS.
• It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World is available for purchase on DVD.