Here's Lucy - Season One

For those eager to see the forthcoming Season One release of Here's Lucy, I don't think you'll be disappointed.  I got a copy yesterday and perused it last night. Generally, it's on a par with the release Shout! Factory did a few years back with beautiful transfers of the episodes themselves and introductions to each episode by Lucie or Desi, Jr., this time on camera!

Plus, there are lots of fun bonus features, much of which is culled from the Desilu II archives of Lucy's personal material.  There's beautiful color silent home movie footage taken from the 1957-58 season of the Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show, showing location work in Las Vegas and Sun Valley along with the Maurice Chavalier episode from 1958 featuring Little Ricky on drums.  (During the Sun Valley footage, try and read Fernando Lamas' lips as he talks into the camera!)

There's also home movie footage from the episode filmed at LAX and raw blue-screen work from that same episode.  (Once again, read Gale Gordon's lips during one part of the silent  blue-screen material!).  There's also a delightful little 16mm "story" film by Gary Morton and Lucille Ball during a vacation in Monte Carlo probably done for the kids.

Also on the DVD are the raw footage of the making of the opening credits (shots with the Lucy puppet) and a long take of Lucy looking regally into the camera, smiling and winking for use during the credits.

Lucy's secretary, Wanda Clark, reads the production publicity material written in 1968 to publicize the new show.

There's promotional material from the network run and syndication promos for, if I'm not mistaken, each and every episode of season one as part of the bonus materials.

A fun addition is a complete 15 minute episode from the "Let's Talk to Lucy" radio series, which aired around 1964.  Let's hope there are lots more of these coming as the on-camera visuals that play against the audio-only material indicate that Lucy talked with the likes of Vivian Vance, Bea Benaderet, Bob Hope and Eve Arden over the course of the series.  Here she interviews Gale Gordon.

Also included is a cute vintage plug for The Mothers-in-Law, featuring Eve Arden and Kaye Ballard giving us the premise of that show.  It's a nice ad for that forthcoming release on DVD.

There's more, but I haven't gotten to it all yet.  Looking at the credits, I see a few of the same names that worked on the recently released Lucy Show and I can safely say this is as much a labor of love as that release was.

I'd say it's a must for Lucy fans and a nostalgic treat for everyone old enough to remember those fabulous Monday nights on CBS.