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Lucy Show DVD Box Sets? (1 Viewer)

Joe Lugoff

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Desi Arnaz threw away his very successful career, business, wife, home and family for drinking, gambling and women. Late in her life, Lucy told Barbara Walters that Desi was a "loser."
 

Jeff#

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Those things didn't hurt Desi's career. It was his Cuban accent. Seriously....

If Arnaz had gone to any Spanish-speaking country he could have made a fortune acting in soap operas. Hey, it worked for Erik Estrada!
 
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I meant talent-wise. But her being that old and the way her voice sounded in The Lucy Show also had something to do with why I didn't like it.
 

Jeff#

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Well, to be fair Lucy wasn't using her real voice as Lucy Ricardo. Listen to an Mp3 of her late 1940s / early 1950s radio series My Favorite Husband. As Liz Cooper, Ball uses her actual voice and it's deeper than you think.
 
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So? I still like it. If she could've carried on the ability to make her Lucy Ricardo voice as she got older I'm sure she would've. Anything would've been better than raspy.
 

Jeff#

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Well, we really can't fault Ms. Ball for getting old and her voice deepening -- it's human nature. :)

What's important is that she was still able to do physical comedy in all of her series. It's what she loved to do, and that was Lucy's trademark.
 

Joe Lugoff

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Some of the stuff written about her suggests that her voice deepened and got hoarse due to things that were preventable:

Not projecting it correctly.

Too much screaming.

Too much whiskey.

And -- ABOVE ALL -- too much smoking. So we can fault her (to some extent) for all of that; many actresses aged without their voices deteriorating as much as hers did. For instance, Angela Lansbury, who's now several years older than Lucy lived to be, is opening on Broadway in a new play this week.
 

Jeff#

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A lot of people in Lucy's time smoked though. (Come to think of it, the same can be said of modern times unfortunately). I don't know if Angela Lansbury still smokes, but George Burns started smoking cigars when he was 15 years old and he lived to be 100 with no complications brought on by his nicotine intake. As I recall from the news story at the time, it was a fall in his bathtub 11 years ago that ended his life.
 

Gary OS

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I'm actually glad this thread got revived because I had failed to pick up that Shout Factory "Here's Lucy" set and now I've ordered it for only $10, thanks to the link provided earlier in this thread. Can't go wrong for that amount.

Having said all that, I'd really like to see the first couple of seasons of "The Lucy Show" released. It's been 30 years since I can remember seeing most of the episodes.

Gary "I think Paramount will continue the run and we'll here something before the summer's up about 'THE LUCY SHOW' being released by or before Christmas time" O.
 

Joe Lugoff

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But I'm Joe "I think there's slim chance of 'THE LUCY SHOW' getting released on DVD, and even if it does, it probably won't make it to a Second Season, any more than 'HAZEL' did, or 'LEAVE IT TO BEAVER' made it to a Third" Lugoff.
 

Gary OS

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And are you happy about that dire prediction, Joe? :rolleyes

Gary "hoping for better things as it concerns classic tv on dvd" O.
 

Ron Lee Green

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If Paramount can follow up "The Andy Griffith Show" with "Gomer Pyle," then I think they will follow up "I Love Lucy" with "The Lucy Show".
 

Joe Lugoff

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No, I'm not happy about it. I'm even more disgusted than you are that there isn't more "classic TV" on DVD.

Joe "Faces grim reality and has pretty much given up hope" Lugoff
 

Ethan Riley

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ILL will always be the classic in the Lucy trio. It had far more warmth and romance--that partly explains its long survival and dominance over the other two. The other thing that explains its longevity is that it's still funny, unlike its sequels.

As Lucy aged, her appeal devolved along with her voice. A lot of people didn't like "The Lucy Show." A lot of people made wisecracks that she and Viv came across as lesbians. A lot of people thought it was too sad that Lucy was a widow--the show sometimes came across as if Ricky Ricardo were dead and that Lucy had to go and live with Ethel. I think the show ruined a lot of people's memories of its predecessor and that they kind of resented it. The Lucy Show was always competing with the intensely fond memories that people had of I Love Lucy.

But I think there's more to it than that. There's something too comfortable about Lucy's acting in TLS. She was a big, big, big star at the time--she didn't have to try too hard. She had nothing to prove. Her lack of hunger, I think, hurt the series. She didn't seem to be doing it out of passion; she was doing it like anyone who does the same job for 15 years does it--adequately, but mechanically. It always looked like she was just trying to get through the show so she could go home and enjoy her mansion. The hunger was long gone and so the comedy fell flat.

I always would watch TLS as a kid and turn the channel after a couple minutes--I was one of those who was hooked on ILL and couldn't suffer the red-headed stepchild. It all seemed so wrong. But I would wish that ILL had gone on for another season or two in half-hours. Just think of some of the TLS scripts had they been prepared for ILL. How about the TLS where they were building that boat--it was cute on TLS, but had it happened to Lucy Ricardo and Ethel Mertz it would have been an hysterical classic. I also feel that TLS tried too hard to fit into the times. ILL was certainly dated in terms of fashion, but there was something very quirky about an all-American girl and her Cuban husband, the bickering neighbors and downscale apartment. There was never anything perfect about that bunch. They were totally dysfunctional (in a sweet way) and that made them endearing. The TLS pair were a couple of unappealing 50-something women cranking it up in a very nice home. Not the same thing at all...
 

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The Ricardos' apartment wasn't that downscale by sitcom standards. And by the final season they moved out of that New York apartment to a large surburban home in Connecticut, which continued into the hour-long specials. The fact that the original series was about a married couple didn't add warmth given that (1) it wasn't designed as a family situation comedy, since thankfully I Love Lucy wasn't trying to be an "Ozzie & Harriet" or "Father Knows Best" and Little Ricky was most often treated like a minor character), (2) Lucy & Desi's marriage was already on the rocks during production of the original series which makes watching it even more disturbing knowing that they're headed for divorce court, and (3) when it comes to acting, Desi Arnaz with his broken accent was certainly not leading man material by American TV standards. Further proof of that was when Desi hosted Saturday Night Live in 1976. The writing was quite good at the time....but he brought the show down. Let's not forget that if it wasn't for his more famous wife co-owning Desilu studios from the start, Desi wouldn't have even gotten the role of Ricky Ricardo. If CBS had their way, Richard Denning and Lucy as George and Liz Cooper of My Favorite Husband would have continued on TV. ;)

I liked William Frawley though. He was an ideal curmudgeon as Fred Mertz on the original Lucy series, although he had a more toned-down role on My Three Sons.
 

PaulP

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I think Desi did a great job in ILL and was very fuuny. They all were. WHich is why it's a classic.
 

Rob_Ray

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I completely agree.

Watch the episode in which they build a shower stall on The Lucy Show.[/QUOTE said:
Season one of "The Lucy Show" is often as funny as "I Love Lucy" and the the shower stall episode is a classic example.

The most "mechanical" shows were the ones in which Lucy and the gang put on a musical or talent show. Those were the worst stories in all of her series from I Love Lucy to Here's Lucy said:
While this may be true for the later shows, I love the musical shows on "I Love Lucy." Ricky was in show business and headlined in a New York nightclub so it was perfectly natural to have musical shows.


The fact that the original series was about a married couple didn't add warmth given that (1) it wasn't designed as a family situation comedy said:
Here's where I vehemently disagree. With all the accolades heaped on Lucy's immeasurable talent, Desi is often overlooked for his own huge talent as a comedic straightman and his own comic gifts. Some of my favorite episodes are the ones where Desi gets more of the comedic limelight, such as "Ricky Gets a New Agent," the Hollywood episode where Lucy gets him fired from MGM. The scene where he takes his anger out on the bric-a-brac is classic Desi. I love the way he heaves and bulges his eyes. I've never seen Ricky more angry.

Lucy's success owes a lot to her own talent and to the creativity of Jess Oppenheimer, Bob Carroll, Madelyn Davis, and the others. But the ensemble cast of Desi Arnaz, Vivian Vance and William Frawley cannot be overestimated. And Desi's contribution to that foursome was HUGE. If Richard Denning had co-starred, I Love Lucy would be as fondly remembered as "Our Miss Brooks," "Private Secretary" or "Love That Bob."

One of the many reasons Desi drank I fear was the fact that his huge talent had to take a back seat to his wife's. The relationship opened doors for him and he proved his abilities time and again in ILL and the other shows he produced but he never escaped being Lucy's husband.

The void he left by not being part of her later shows is incalculable. Having said that, it must be pointed out that her later serieses remained at the top of the ratings from 1962 until the year before she retired. "The Lucy Show" was often the number one show on television and "Here's Lucy" was top-ranked show as well. So somebody liked them.
 

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And yet Denning was perfect as the fictional Governor Philip Gray on HAWAII FIVE-O for all of its 12 seasons. He had a home with CBS. ;)

I still disagree about Desi as I said earlier.

But the hilarity on The Lucy Show continued well beyond its first season. You really have to see a lot of them again to appreciate what well-done series she had in the 1960s and even Here's Lucy in the late 60s/ early 70s.

As much as I like Vivian Vance, when I first saw The Lucy Show's California years (1965 to 1968) I didn't care for Mary Jane Croft, but since then I've heard Ms. Croft on numerous episodes of her late husband Elliott Lewis' well-written "Sears Radio Theater" from 1979 and in 1980 when it became the first (?) radio drama broadcast in stereo "The Mutual Radio Theater", and I was impressed by Mary Jane as a serious dramatic actress. Of course, she had done radio drama and comedy both going back to the 1940s.
 

Joe Lugoff

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I think one of Lucille Ball's major problems, and it got worse as the years went by, was her nepotism.

She made her cousin Cleo producer of "Here's Lucy," I believe for no other reason than she was her cousin.

She foisted her no-talent teenagers on the world before they had any training in acting. They were supposed to learn "on the job." They were slow learners, if you ask me!

Above all, she took her clueless second husband and made him "executive producer" of "Here's Lucy." I read he was the guy who decided what scripts were to be bought. There's the problem in a nutshell! The guy had some kind of sense of humor (he was supposedly a "comedian," but few people had ever heard of him) -- but he hadn't the slightest idea as to what was best for Lucille Ball. In fact, when they went on their first date in 1960 or 1961, he told her he had never seen "I Love Lucy!" That alone should have disqualified him for being the executive producer of ANY sitcom, much less one starring Lucille Ball.
 

Rob_Ray

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The whole problem with the post ILL shows boils down to the fact that there was no guiding genius behind the scenes with the talent of Jess Oppenheimer and Desi Arnaz. With ILL, Lucy could focus on her performance and leave all the production details to those she could trust. With "The Lucy Show" and "Here's Lucy" there was no producer willing to stand up to her. Perfectionists like Lucy tend to steamroll everybody hoping to find someone who knows what they're doing and will stand up for their opinions. And all she had by then were "yes men" intimidated by her power.

In the sixties, in addition to performing, she was up to her neck with production details, running Desilu and Lucille Ball Productions. And it shows with the reliance on cue cards and the "going through the motions" feel. It wasn't that she couldn't wait to get home to her mansion, as someone said. Far from it. She was a workaholic for whom the job was everything. But she was stretched too thin and rather than getting wise advice was getting fed what everyone thought she wanted to hear. Which meant quality writers and staffers left the show when better offers came along.

Desi Jr. and Lucie weren't talentless. Lucie is VERY talented. But they were given material that even old pros couldn't have made good, and they weren't yet pros.

But the very fact we're talking about Lucy 45 years later means there's an untapped market for these shows on DVD. With proper marketing, these shows do very well.
 

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