COSBY: THE TWO HILTON LUCASES (TV)
Summary
One in this comedy series about Hilton Lucas, who finds himself retired after his job at the airport is eliminated.
Hilton and Griffin get jobs as telemarketers, although Hilton keeps this a secret from Ruth due to her distaste for such people; he claims that he got a job as Danny Aiello’s chauffeur. Hilton soon proves to be remarkably proficient at the job, outselling everyone else by a wide margin. Griffin, however, experiences very little success and he asks Hilton for advice. Hilton tells Griffin to create a “persona” over the phone in order to relentlessly badger customers into purchasing magazines. Griffin takes this advice and chooses the most “annoying” and “in-your-face” person he can think of to embody over the phone, which happens to be Hilton himself. Pauline is called upon to give a speech at her old high school, but is nervous that she will be long-winded and boring. She tries out her speech for Hilton and he tries to give her advice about being concise. Griffin’s impersonation of Hilton over the phone proves to be successful, although he conceals this technique from Hilton. Hilton continues to prosper and wins a weekend at the Plaza Hotel for himself and Ruth.
Griffin manages to arrange a date between himself and one of his customers. She calls him via the Lucas house number, as she believes that Griffin is Hilton. Ruth accidentally overhears their phone conversation and comes to believe that Hilton is either cheating on her or may have called a phone sex hotline. Ruth confronts Hilton about it the next morning, although he is rather confused by her comments. She says she knows about his “telephone business,” and he assumes she means that she found out about his telemarketing job. They get into a discussion about it, although Ruth takes Hilton’s comments about the job out of context, assuming that he was working for a phone sex hotline. She asks him to quit and he agrees.
Griffin prepares for his date and Hilton prepares to surprise Ruth with the weekend at the Plaza. He sends Griffin across the street on an errand, and Griffin’s date Tanya arrives, not realizing that Hilton is not who she believes him to be. Tanya misinterprets Hilton’s comments, believing that he is taking her to the Plaza. As Hilton goes upstairs, Ruth arrives and comes to the belief that Tanya and Hilton met on a phone sex hotline. Pauline arrives and tells Ruth the truth about what has transpired. Griffin returns and meets Tanya, trying to convince her that Hilton has memory problems due to his age. Ruth decides not to reveal what she has learned just yet, pretending that she has caught Hilton trying to run off with Tanya. Hilton is rather confused; Griffin claims to Tanya that Ruth is his nurse. Ruth manages to cajole Griffin into revealing that he lied about his identity. Suddenly Danny Aiello arrives and roughs up Griffin for a misunderstanding involving Hilton. Hilton leaves with Ruth for the Plaza. Commercials deleted.
Details
- NETWORK: CBS
- DATE: December 15, 1997 8:00 PM
- RUNNING TIME: 0:22:43
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: B:82167
- GENRE: Comedy
- SUBJECT HEADING: African-American Collection - Comedy; TV - Comedy
- SERIES RUN: CBS - TV series, 1996-2000
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- Marcy Casey … Executive Producer
- Tom Werner … Executive Producer
- Caryn Mandabach … Executive Producer
- Peter Tortorici … Executive Producer
- David Landsberg … Executive Producer
- Norman Steinberg … Executive Producer
- Joseph Staretski … Co-Executive Producer
- Adam Belanoff … Supervising Producer
- Joanne Curley Kerner … Producer
- Vanessa Middleton … Producer
- Robert Kurtz … Producer
- Eric Brand … Producer
- Pat Nugent … Associate Producer
- John Whitesell … Consulting Producer, Director
- Dennis Klein … Developed by
- Chris Downey … Writer
- David Renwick … Based on the BBC Series “One Foot in the Grave” created by
- William H. Cosby Jr. … Music by, Theme Music by
- Benny Golson … Theme Music by
- Bill Cosby … Cast, Hilton Lucas
- Phylicia Rashad … Cast, Ruth Lucas
- Doug E. Doug … Cast, Griffin Vesey
- T'Keyah Crystal Keymah … Cast, Erica Lucas
- Madeline Kahn … Cast, Pauline Fox
- Paula Jai Parker … Cast, Tanya
- Bo Kaprall … Cast, Manager
- Danny Aiello … Cast, Himself