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A familiar TV trope is the plight of the hapless character who, having recently undergone some dental work or suffered a blow to the head, begins to pick up radio broadcasts via his teeth. Many Americans are familiar with this concept as the plot of a classic episode of the sitcom Gilligan's Island, in which Gilligan becomes a walking radio receiver after the Skipper accidentally pushes a crate into his jaw: https://youtu.be/u1XRaNpgQDIWhat would you say if presented with a similar plot that involved a character whose reception of strange radio transmissions through her fillings led to the capture of Japanese spies in California during World War II, with the incident later being incorporated into a Broadway musical? Sounds too wacky even for an episode of Gilligan's Island, maybe? In fact, it's been reported as a true story, once which allegedly happened to one of the biggest stars in TV sitcom history: Lucille Ball. As Lucy told the story, it took place in 1942, when she was filming the movie Du Barry Was a Lady with Red Skelton at MGM, This was during the early days of American involvement in World War II, when residents along the Pacific coast of California lived in dread fear of an imminent attack by the Japanese (especially after a Japanese submarine had appeared off the coast of Santa Barbara in February of that year). Lucy had recently had several temporary lead fillings installed in her teeth, and when she drove home from MGM to the ranch she and Desi owned in the San Fernando Valley late one evening, this is what she claimed took place: When she supposedly recounted the story to actor Buster Keaton at the studio the next day, he laughingly told her that she was picking up radio broadcasts through her fillings, and that the same thing had happened to a friend of his. Nothing more happened for about a week, until the evening Lucy took a different route home from MGM: Here is the comedienne relating this anecdote to talk show host Dick Cavett in 1974: https://vimeo.com/72473069But is this story true? That assessment hinges on two elements: Did Lucille Ball really pick up some type of radio transmission through her dental fillings, and did that event lead to the discovery and capture of Japanese spies operating an underground radio station? As for the first element, whether dental fillings can really serve as radio receivers remains a subject of debate, with many anecdotal reports asserting that the phenomenon has in fact occurred. Objectively determining whether this specifically happened to Lucille Ball in 1942 is not possible, but for expediency's sake we'll note that a letter published in the The American Journal of Psychiatry in 1981 documented a case of a patient who received AM radio signals through metal shrapnel that remained in his skull after he suffered a combat wound: The second element is much more problematic. Although World War II is perhaps the most voluminously documented event in human history, one searches in vain for any confirmation that Japanese spies operating an underground radio station were arrested in southern California in 1942. And although the FBI maintained an extensive file on Lucille Ball that ran some 156 pages (because she was investigated by the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1953 for having registered to vote as a Communist in the 1930s), no mention of the alleged Japanese spy incident appears in that file. What to make of this? One possible explanation is that Ball (or someone else) made the whole thing up for publicity reasons, but that seems a rather unlikely explanation -- Ball's real life was plenty interesting without the need for her to pass off fabrications about it for publicity's sake, much less to continue to do so long after she had achieved stardom. We might focus on some other factors to try to sort this take out. One factor is that according to Lucy in the Afternoon author Jim Brochu, Lucy contemporaneously mentioned her experience to Ethel Merman, and Merman had it worked into the Cole Porter musical she starred in several months later, 1943's Something for the Boys. One of the characters in Something for the Boys was indeed a female defense plant worker who picked up radio signals via the fillings in her teeth, so that information appears to document that this tale is something Ball spoke about at the time she claimed it happened. Additionally, although Ball referenced the FBI in her account, she didn't say that the FBI contacted or interviewed her, and as noted above, no reference to this subject appears in her FBI file -- she spoke of the FBI's involvement in the matter and the supposed arrest of Japanese spies as aspects she only heard about incidentally after the fact. It seems rather unlikely that the FBI would have made use of Ball's information without at least talking to her first to ascertain what she heard and where she heard it. We might surmise that Ball experienced a phenomenon which she perceived (correctly or not) to be the receipt of some form of radio signal or transmission through her fillings, and she reported her experience to MGM security. But perhaps MGM never actually relayed that information to the FBI, or perhaps they did and the latter didn't follow through. Then sometime later, Ball -- or someone else -- heard a rumor (true or not) that Japanese spies operating a secret radio installation had been arrested in the area and assumed that rumor was connected to Ball's experience. Whatever the case may be, the available evidence behind this tale appears to be purely anecdotal and not verifiable at this point.
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