How Lucille Ball won WWII with her radio receiving teeth, or not
Snopes digs into the story that was the basis of a 'Gilligan's Island' episode.
The internet is full of many wild radio stories, and one of the best ever is the story of actor Lucille Ball’s radio signal-receiving teeth during World War II. Ball was America’s first certified television star, and worked in radio too. And her legendary career stretched many years, with all sorts of accomplishments, such as saving “Star Trek.” Anywa, the conspiracy theory-busting Snopes website has a page with the headline, “Did Lucille Ball's Fillings Help Capture Japanese Spies?” about her radio-receiving story. This is, partially, what the Snopes site says:
In 1942, 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:
One night I came into the Valley over Coldwater Canyon, and I heard music. I reached down to turn the radio off, and it wasn't on. The music kept getting louder and louder, and then I realized it was coming from my mouth. I even recognized the tune. My mouth was humming and thumping with the drumbeat, and I thought I was losing my mind. I thought, What the hell is this? Then it started to subside. I got home and went to bed, not sure if I should tell anybody what had happened because they would think I was crazy.
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:
All of a sudden, my mouth started jumping. It wasn't music this time, it was Morse code. It started softly, and then de-de-de-de-de-de. As soon as it started fading, I stopped the car and then started backing up until it was coming in full strength. DE-DE-DE-DE-DE-DE DE-DE-DE-DE! I tell you, I got the hell out of there real quick. The next day I told the MGM Security Office about it, and they called the FBI or something, and sure enough, they found an underground Japanese radio station. It was somebody's gardener, but sure enough, they were spies.
Reportedly, there is a 156 pages of FBI files on Lucille Ball, but no mention of any radio reception. The only theory floating around the internet for why Ball would have manufactured the story says, “So why would Ball have invented such a story? No one has the answer to that, either. At the height of the Communist scare in the '50s, she was briefly investigated by the House Un-American Activities Committee, so some think she might have created the fillings story to seem more patriotic.”
Snopes summarizes the story saying, “Whatever the case may be, the available evidence behind this tale appears to be purely anecdotal and not verifiable at this point.” But, it is absolutely true that Lucille Ball made this claim, most famously in a 1974 television interview with Dick Cavett.
Is it even possible to receive radio signals via teeth? Indiana Public Media claims it would be possible with older fillings that used an “amalgam of mixed metals like tin, copper, and even mercury.” The Straight Dope writes, “We know that (1) radiators, faucets, etc., (but not, it is generally thought, silver tooth fillings) can act as radio receivers under certain conditions; (2) people can be made to “hear” (poorly) through stimulation with electrodes and via bone conduction from the teeth; and (3) test subjects hear buzzing when irradiated with UHF and VHF radio pulses from 100 feet. (Shielding the subject’s teeth didn’t stop the buzzing, but shielding their temples did.) Granted, it’s a long leap from all this to say folks can hear radio broadcasts in their heads. But the American Dental Association says it gets an inquiry on this topic roughly every six weeks.”
Mythbusters, though, says no. They report:
The Myth - It is possible to pick up radio signals through a dental filling.
The Verdict - Busted.
Notes - The gold and amalgam tooth fillings did not act as an antenna or point-contact transistor when placed in a real human skull. A galvanic cell reaction between two teeth fillings and saliva could have resembled Morse code.
This was first claimed by Lucille Ball in an interview on The Dick Cavett Show, with the fillings explanation offered by Buster Keaton.[1]
Whether physically possible or not, the story has certainly transmitted into popular culture. Snopes reports 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.”
Two decades later, a Nov. 25, 1965 episode of “Gilligan’s Island” called “Hi Fi Gilligan” had the titular character receiving radio signals through his teeth after a bonk on the head.
A Jan. 15, 1971 episode of “The Partridge Family” show called “Old Scrapmouth,” followed the same trope. “Laurie has to get braces but fears embarrassment. Adding to the drama, her braces somehow begins picking up radio signals when the group plug into play,” reads the episode description. The image above is from a Youtube video of the episode, with Laurie covering her mouth so the radio signals don’t come out and embarrass her in front of future Luke Skywalker Mark Hamill.
A few years ago I made a “Teeth Radio” episode of the “Turn On The News” radio show, based mostly around the Lucille Ball story. Here is that audio:
"Turn On The News" is the weekly newscast from the fictional Radio Network, with parody radio coverage of the radio and its headlines. Now with computerized news readers, and fewer meddling reporters, plus aggregated reporting, and automated music. Tune in "Turn On The News" each week for the latest news, radio art, and more from our robot reporters, making sure you hear both sides -- good and evil -- every time you "Turn On The News." This week: "Teeth Radio" Everyone is filling in the sounds in their mouths. Songs and works from Husker D ("Turn On The News"), Matmos ("Mental Radio"), Gregory Whitehead ("If A Voice Like Then What"), Del Close and John Brent ("The Loose Wig"), and Jaap Blonk ("Burning Tongues"). Clips and excerpts from Lucille Ball; Dick Cavett; Gilligan; The Skipper; and The Professor.