The Lucy Show: The Official Third Season ... comes out November 30th, 2010! - Page 2

Agreed... And you are correct, Lucy and Milt basically "morphed" her sitcom into a sketch-com over the years... Even the great musical shows that at one time would have had 20 minutes of plot development and 3-4 minutes of music changed so that there were 6-8 minutes of flimsy "Let's put on a musical" plot, followed by 20 minutes of the "show within a show."

But I never tire of watching HER work her way through whatever material she is given!

Agreed... And you are correct, Lucy and Milt basically "morphed" her sitcom into a sketch-com over the years... Even the great musical shows that at one time would have had 20 minutes of plot development and 3-4 minutes of music... 

Funny you should mention the musical eps, as I was watching "Lucy and Arthur Godfrey" last night and was thinking they should have just cut the whole scene of trying to woo him, and just had a placard saying something like "Danfield Players Charity Fundraiser, featuring Special Guest Star Arthur Godfrey" and people would have gotten it.  Then you could have the whole ep for the musical, which was fairly enjoyable.  Or possibly one backstage scene before the curtain rose.  Same with the Here's Lucy ep, "Lucy and Flip Go Legit."  Ah well.  They didn't ask for my opinion when they were writing these things. LOL.

And I totally agree about always finding something worthwhile in watching Lucy's work. She is nothing short of remarkable. And always gives 150%, no matter what the script.   

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skeezix 

Have tp jump in here on two counts -- one, the Joan Blondell thing: Joan was never supposed to be a full-time regular on the show to replace Vivian. She was just one of a number of actresses Desilu had under consideration. The plan was always to have Lucy have multiple girlfriends during her first few months in California, just to see which "worked" and which did not... Vivian left primarily because she wanted to pursue other career interests. She considered Vivian Bagley to be an extension of Ethel Mertz, and while all that was fun and wonderful, it did nothing for her creative urges and need to grow as a performer.

 

As to the earlier comments about "Lucy and the Monsters," while I tend to agree that it seems a bit foolish today, we cannot constantly compare these shows to earlier Lucy programs, particularly to "I Love Lucy."  Rather, we need to remember what was happening on TV in 1964-65 -- what were these particular "Lucy" shows competing with?  The big hits of the day were things like "The Munsters," "The Addams Family," "Bewitched," "I Dream of Jeannie," "My Favorite Martian," "Gilligan's Island," "The Beverly Hillbillies," "Petticoat Junction," etc.  Sitcoms featuring "normal" families doing amusing things were starting to fail miserably... within a year or two things like "Donna Reed Show" and "Ozzie and Harriet" would be long gone. The only one of these to survive the "weird sitcom" era was "My Three Sons."

 

Desilu/Lucy tried to stay ahead of the game by changing with the times and staying competitive...

 

PLUS, and this is a biggie -- "The Lucy Show" was in constant competition with "I Love Lucy," which was still being rerun every weekday morning on CBS, and in primetime every summer. The writers were always, in effect, competing with themselves... They knew they had to change things or grow stale...

 

The irony, of course, is that the older Lucys have remained somehow "fresh and current" (because they were based on real-life situations) whereas some of these later ones now seem very dated...  But no one could have predicted that in 1964 -- and, at that time, these Lucys were extremely popular!

 

I'm not so sure about some of this.  There are a lot of books out there about Desilu, Lucille Ball, Lucy's TV career, etc.

Most of them say Vivian Vance had asked if she could do more at Desilu (like maybe direct some episodes), and after meeting with the "suits," Lucy stupidly told Vivian "no," so Vivian quit.

As for Lucy "changing with the times" ... I don't think that was the motivation for the show getting stupider in the mid-1960s, unless CBS demanded it.  I say that because Lucy was NOT one who changed with the times.  The 1970s proves that.  In the era of "All in the Family" and "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," "Here's Lucy" stayed exactly the way it was.  Then, in the 1980s, when "The Golden Girls" was the hottest show on television and Lucy decided to return to TV, she came up with "Life With Lucy" -- the same old stuff, with the same old Gale Gordon.  Of course, it was an horrendous failure.

Actually, the main reason Seasons 3-6 of "The Lucy Show" weren't as good as Seasons 1 and 2 is because Madelyn and the three Bobs quit the show, and Lucy hired a bunch of writers who couldn't (or weren't allowed to) write for her in the same style as before.  Also, making her husband the executive producer and her cousin the producer was nepotism at its stupidest.  They wouldn't have known a good script from the telephone book.

The reason "I Love Lucy" is still funny and the later "Lucy Show" and "Here's Lucy" aren't is simply because "I Love Lucy" WAS funny and the later Lucy series weren't.  There's no reason to overanalyze it.

Well, and as Claude pointed out, the popularity of the series in the 60's and early 70's, as well as Lucy's Emmy wins in '67 & '68 must have convinced her she was on the right track. And from what I've heard from people who knew them both, Gary continuously told her she was right and to trust her decisions, whereas Desi would stand up to her and even side with the director if he felt Lucy was wrong and the director was right. Sadly, that ceased as well. Sigh.

Over the years, I've lost count of the number of people I've known who loved "I Love Lucy," knew every episode and could even quote many lines from it by heart.

When I asked them, "Did you like 'The Lucy Show' and 'Here's Lucy,' too?" almost invariably the answer I'd get was, "God, no."

It seems the only people who like the later series are younger people who grew up watching them before they ever saw an episode of "I Love Lucy."

As for the shows' popularity in the ratings:  Yes, it was very popular, peaking at #2 for the 1967-68 season -- but ratings have never been synonymous with quality, or even that people liked what they were watching.  I used to watch the show every week, and I usually hated it.  For mysterious reasons, I always came back for more.

As for Lucy winning the Emmy twice:  Against whom?  Those were bad years for TV comedy.  I believe her only competition was Elizabeth Montgomery in "Bewitched" and Marlo Thomas in "That Girl."

Defenders of "The Lucy Show" and "Here's Lucy" have to face the fact that whenever lists are made of the best sitcoms in TV history, "I Love Lucy" is always at or very near the top -- and "The Lucy Show" and "Here's Lucy" are nowhere to be seen, even if the list is 100 shows long.

If you watch Lucy on the Merv Griffin show, with Madelyn and Bob as guests, here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLKeq15C4DU

they show clips of classic Lucy moments.  The clip from "The Lucy Show" is the stilt-walking scene from Season 1, in the classic Lucy tradition.

When Madelyn and Bob introduce a clip from "Here's Lucy" -- when Lucy and Mannix were tied to the chair, in Season 4 -- Lucy looks at them with a very puzzled and wondering expression, and asks, "Is that that great?"  Even she didn't expect anything much from "Here's Lucy."  (That's in Part 5 of the YouTube clips.)

The first Lucy that I saw were the first three years of the Lucy Show in reruns.  I think that when I originally saw it, the tv station only showed the first three seasons and all of those seasons were in black and white. I still like it, and has been noted, the Lucy character during those years was basically the same as the I Love Lucy character.  Later on, I also watched the color Lucy show episodes and Here's Lucy.  I liked a few of the color Lucy Show episodes (especially Lucy Gets Jack Benny's Account), but many of the episodes were not great.  None of the other characters on the show ever had the chemistry with Lucy that Vivian Vance had.  I watched some of Here's Lucy in syndication, but grew bored with it, and I have no memory of it now.  BTW: I my opinion, the late 1950s to the late 1960s were the best years in TV comedy ever.

Have to say that I watched an ep I hadn't seen in years: "Lucy Gets The Bird," and was so pleasantly surprised by how accurate most of the writing was concerning the cockatiel, since I have 2 of them.  The voice not so much (sounded more like a bigger parrot than a cockatiel), but for the time the writing was pretty accurate about them.  Refreshing because usually back then most shows just made up stuff about birds.  And, laugh at me if you must, but I've played Mr. Mooney's farewell scene with Greenback several times myself when I have to leave my boys for any extended period of time. 

The fun thing about DVDs is being able to rediscover new things about these episodes. I watched "Lucy Goes to Vegas" last night after only having seen it once before in 1995 on Nick@Nite and not thinking much of it.

It was one of the best episodes this season, with witty humour and funny dialogue. It refreshingly shyed away from the typical Lucy physical comedy schtick and the scene where Lucy and Viv enter wearing those over-the-top gowns was priceless!

Also, is it just me or did it seem like Viv was channeling Ann Sothern's Countess Framboise character during the scene at the bar?

Anyway, I was surprised how much I loved this one on second viewing and it was great to see Lucy Carmichael acting more like Lucy Ricardo--cunning and resourceful, instead of childish and dumb. I wish they had done more scripts like this one instead of "Lucy and the Monsters", "Lucy and the Great Bank Robbery," "Lucy the Camp Cook", etc.

I agree about the Las Vegas episode.

I was 15 when it was first on, and I had already noticed that season that the show was deteriorating.

After seeing the Las Vegas episode, I thought, "Whew, they're back on track again!  That was a good one."

It didn't last long. 

Just picked up Season 3 yesterday -- I had a Best Buy gift card and happened to stumble on Seasons 2 and 3, and chose 3. (So far this is the only set I've picked up.)

A few random thoughts off the top of my head, after watching one episode and some of the extras...

Question -- at what point did The Lucy Show start airing in color (originally, during its prime time network run)? Seeing the show opening brought back a memory of watching the show when I was a young kid -- by that time, it was syndicated and I was seeing it on a local TV station in reruns. I do remember the show opening, though I hadn't seen it in decades; I remember watching it in the 1970s and some time after that, they changed the intros on these episodes to one from a later season (by that time they were probably airing on Nick At Nite). Anyway -- this seemed weirder to me last night than it did 30 years ago, although I do remember noticing it (even if I didn't think much about it at the time) -- the clips in the show opening are a mix of color and B&W clips, and then when the writer credits appear at the top of the show proper, it's over a B&W clip as well. Again, I certainly remember seeing this in color in 1970s syndication -- but in the original network run, was this season originally seen in B&W? If that was the case, then it may make more sense as it all would have been B&W anyway and no one would have noticed. (As far as the reruns go, I don't remember seeing the earlier B&W episodes on our local station in Chicago until the late 1970s, 1978-79 or so -- that doesn't necessarily mean they weren't shown before then, but that's the first time I remember seeing them. They had the animated opening with Lucy and Viv caricatures. In the last five years or so, I saw an episode from the first season on a local station with the later "kalaidescope" intro, but in B&W.)

I have fond memories of watching The Lucy Show and enjoyed it as a kid. But as another member pointed out earlier in this thread, I saw The Lucy Show (and Here's Lucy) before I ever watched I Love Lucy, and there may be something to the idea of liking the show better and enjoying it more when the comparison to the earlier classic series is not part of the equation. (Also, first seeing it as a kid probably helped too.) When I saw The Lucy Show in local syndicated daytime reruns, it was airing alongside shows like The Beverly Hillbillies, Petticoat Junction, Green Acres, That Girl and Mayberry R.F.D. The context might make all the difference.

Not having seen many of the episodes in a few decades, what stands out in my memory are certain moments -- one on an airplane when they hand out gum to the passengers, Lucy starts chewing it, and then overhears someone say "it's for your ears." So she takes it out of her mouth and sticks it in her ears. The stewardess then continues, "we find that chewing the gum helps prevent your ears from popping..." (That's in one of the later public-domain episodes.) I also remembered a moment where Lucy had a valuable old coin (a vintage penny) and accidentally dropped it down a sewer. She was sitting on the curb crying, then a police officer comes by and asks what's wrong. "I lost my penny," she whines. Funny stuff when I was 9 or 10 years old. I'm not as well-versed in Lucy as some other folks here -- I scanned the contents of this set and sure enough, I found that episode. It was cool to see it again (though I found it less funny than I remembered) and they did a really nice job on this set -- color and sound are great, I love how they added original network intros and commercial billboards as extras, etc. (Lucy DVDs in general tend to have really cool extras.) But you know, I'm not sure this show would do anything for me if I didn't remember watching it as a young kid.

Watching some of those vintage network openings and closings also reminded me of seeing the reruns in the 1970s -- they would be 16mm film prints, and a lot of times, the audio would be muted out towards the very end of the show opening, and other times you'd get a little piece of an announcer's voice-over starting to say "brought to you by..." Nice to see the rest of these and find out who they were "brought to you by." They seem to have done their homework, too -- I notice some specifically are identified as being from repeat showings (the specific sponsors probably differed sometimes).

Anyway, just a few random observations -- I thought maybe that might be of interest regarding the question of how some could enjoy The Lucy Show when others view it as so vastly inferior to I Love Lucy.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mark Y 

Question -- at what point did The Lucy Show start airing in color (originally, during its prime time network run)? Seeing the show opening brought back a memory of watching the show when I was a young kid -- by that time, it was syndicated and I was seeing it on a local TV station in reruns. I do remember the show opening, though I hadn't seen it in decades; I remember watching it in the 1970s and some time after that, they changed the intros on these episodes to one from a later season (by that time they were probably airing on Nick At Nite). Anyway -- this seemed weirder to me last night than it did 30 years ago, although I do remember noticing it (even if I didn't think much about it at the time) -- the clips in the show opening are a mix of color and B&W clips, and then when the writer credits appear at the top of the show proper, it's over a B&W clip as well. Again, I certainly remember seeing this in color in 1970s syndication -- but in the original network run, was this season originally seen in B&W? If that was the case, then it may make more sense as it all would have been B&W anyway and no one would have noticed. (As far as the reruns go, I don't remember seeing the earlier B&W episodes on our local station in Chicago until the late 1970s, 1978-79 or so -- that doesn't necessarily mean they weren't shown before then, but that's the first time I remember seeing them. They had the animated opening with Lucy and Viv caricatures. In the last five years or so, I saw an episode from the first season on a local station with the later "kalaidescope" intro, but in B&W.) 

 

 

 

The first season was filmed (and obviously then aired) in black & white.  The second and third seasons were both filmed in color, but aired in black & white.  Desilu filmed them in color as it was believed that would help in the sale to syndication, even though CBS was airing them initially in black & white.  Starting with season four, the series was aired in color.  The black and white clips in the S3 opening are all from season one, hence there were no color shots of those moments to be used in the opening credits.  Although, ironically, the seaon two credits used some color stills from season one episodes. 

Thanks! Of course, after I posted my question I then pulled out the first disc and watched the short explanation about color on there -- I'll have to pick up the other sets at some point. Your description of the second season intro sounds vaguely familiar too, I'll probably remember it once I see it. I wonder if that one oddball "lost" opening (that was only on a few episodes in their network run) will be there when they get to those...
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by JohnMor 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mark Y 

Question -- at what point did The Lucy Show start airing in color (originally, during its prime time network run)? Seeing the show opening brought back a memory of watching the show when I was a young kid -- by that time, it was syndicated and I was seeing it on a local TV station in reruns. I do remember the show opening, though I hadn't seen it in decades; I remember watching it in the 1970s and some time after that, they changed the intros on these episodes to one from a later season (by that time they were probably airing on Nick At Nite). Anyway -- this seemed weirder to me last night than it did 30 years ago, although I do remember noticing it (even if I didn't think much about it at the time) -- the clips in the show opening are a mix of color and B&W clips, and then when the writer credits appear at the top of the show proper, it's over a B&W clip as well. Again, I certainly remember seeing this in color in 1970s syndication -- but in the original network run, was this season originally seen in B&W? If that was the case, then it may make more sense as it all would have been B&W anyway and no one would have noticed. (As far as the reruns go, I don't remember seeing the earlier B&W episodes on our local station in Chicago until the late 1970s, 1978-79 or so -- that doesn't necessarily mean they weren't shown before then, but that's the first time I remember seeing them. They had the animated opening with Lucy and Viv caricatures. In the last five years or so, I saw an episode from the first season on a local station with the later "kalaidescope" intro, but in B&W.) 

 

 

 

The first season was filmed (and obviously then aired) in black & white.  The second and third seasons were both filmed in color, but aired in black & white.  Desilu filmed them in color as it was believed that would help in the sale to syndication, even though CBS was airing them initially in black & white.  Starting with season four, the series was aired in color.  The black and white clips in the S3 opening are all from season one, hence there were no color shots of those moments to be used in the opening credits.  Although, ironically, the seaon two credits used some color stills from season one episodes. 

Here's a link to trhe Season 2 opening, although not as pristine and beautiful as it appears on the dvds.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oo57KIRsIgM&feature=related

Quote:

Originally Posted by Joe Lugoff 

"The Lucy Show" and "Here's Lucy" were similar to "Green Acres" in that they could get very surrealistic.  If you're not sure what that means, look it up.  If you don't think Lucy's shows got surrealistic, then we must live in two different Universes.  (Just think of the episode where she gets super strength; or she gets drafted into the Marines.  It's stupid enough that they force a woman to be drafted with the men, but she never once says she's way too OLD!  That would have got her out immediately.)

 

According to the books, Joan Blondell was going to replace Vivian Vance as Lucy's new chubby, blonde, wise-cracking sidekick.  The problem was she couldn't stand working with Lucille Ball and quit after two episodes -- she stormed off the set at the conclusion of the second episode and never came back.

 

Then it was to be Ann Sothern, but Lucy wouldn't let her have equal star billing.

 

Vivian had quit for many reasons, including that Lucy wouldn't give her a raise.

 

Lucille Ball was very talented, but she wasn't easy to get along with in real life.

I agree that the one where she gets super strength is a little over the top. However I loved the one where Lucy gets drafted.
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by JohnMor 

Here's a link to trhe Season 2 opening, although not as pristine and beautiful as it appears on the dvds.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oo57KIRsIgM&feature=related

I remember that, thanks!