The Lucy Show: The Official Fourth Season ... Arrives on April 26th, 2011! (1 Viewer)

[JohnMor]

Originally Posted by Theodore J. Mooney

Also, she NEVER mentions her daughter again, EVER. And in Season 5, she refers to her son Jerry as Jimmy.

In regards to continuity problems, you can't pin that soley on The Lucy Show. There is a whole bunch of sitcoms made during and prior to this one that had lots continuity problems too.

[/QUOTE]


Very true. Continuity was never a huge issue for sitcom writers prior to the 70's and the introduction of reality-based sitcoms (and even then it was never written in stone.) Most of the time they knew people back then didn't care. They knew they were watching a piece of manufactured entertainment meant to be enjoyed for 30 minutes and take their mind off their cares and (hopefully) bring a smile to their face. Now, with growing up seeing all the eps back to back in syndication and owning them at home, people expect more adherance to continuity. But it wasn't an issue for most people back in the day. Even a more realistic comedy show from the 60's, The Dick Van Dyke Show had terrible continuity from time to time. (Admittedly, they never called Ritchie "Robert" or anything, but that was more a case of no one having the cojones to stand up to Lucy and tell her the script was right and her memory was wrong.)

As far as not mentioning Chris, they did the same with Craig on Here's Lucy except for the one ep he comes back in. Eldest son Mike Douglas was never heard from or referred to again after he got married on My Three Sons (an otherwise fairly "realistic" sitcom on the era). Same with eldest son Chuck Cunningham on Happy Days, although I believe they finally mentioned him in the series finale, ten years later. And infamously, both kids and her father were erased from Doris Martin's life on The Doris Day Show.

 

[JohnMor]

Originally Posted by Joe Lugoff /forum/thread/306855/alert-the-lucy...on-arrives-on-april-26th-2011/90#post_3780823

 

[Theodore J. Mooney]

Originally Posted by Joe Lugoff

I'm always mystified when people differentiate between I Love Lucy and the so-called Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour (which were originally specials called The Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show).


The hour shows were a continuation of I Love Lucy, and were never intended to be anything else. What's different about them? How can someone like I Love Lucy but not the hour shows, when it's the same series? I don't get it.

Well, here is my deal .... growing up on Nick-at-Nite and TV Land, The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour was a presented to me as its own unique series and was seperate from I Love Lucy. Each series had its own rerun cycles and didn't at all alternate with each other. They would always promote each episode of the 1957-1960 series as The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour. They even did a tidbit that said that these shows were filmed after I Love Lucy. Back in the mid 90s I remember a promo they did for their Saturday night 2-hour Lucy block that had the television screen divided into three parts with each part focusing on clips of an individual Lucy series - I believe I Love Lucy was on the left, The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour was in the middle, and The Lucy Show was on the right. Unfortunately, they dropped the block AND The Lucy Show in 1996 and kind of brought it back in 1999 only this time with a second episode of I Love Lucy taking the place of The Lucy Show. This time they promoted it as a "Whole Lotta Lucy". Again, each series had their own rerun cycles and didn't interfere with each others. Months earlier before TV Land added I Love Lucy to its line-up, they included only clips from the parent series in their promotions. In their week-long introduction marathon which started on the show's 50th anniversary (Monday, October 15th, 2001 at 9pm) they only aired episodes from I Love Lucy. They shortly added The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour to their line-up the following January. Same pattern once again - each series had its own rerun cycles and no alternations took place. About two years later, TV Land dropped the 1957-1960 series and continued airing the 1951-1957 series. I asked why they dropped one and not the other and I was told by their representative that each series had a seperate contract to the network and thus they chose to not renew the 1957-1960 series as it was underperforming at the time. So nonetheless it has been my experience that this has been the case with most networks when it comes to these two series. I don't believe in the 80s that TBS treated them as one either and The Hallmark Channel has yet to air TLDCH.


There are differences between the two series:

1. One is 30 minutes and the other is 60 minutes

2. The primary setting in I Love Lucy is set in the New York Apartment, the primary setting in The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour is set in the Connecticut house.

3. Every show for The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour revolved around a guest star ... that was supposedly the highlight. That wasn't the case for I Love Lucy. Having a guest star in ILL was used on an occasional basis.

4. As a result from having a guest star in TLDCH, the Mertzes were seen less (anyone remember "Lucy's Summer Vacation"?). It even said in one Lucy Book that Bill Frawley's and Vivian Vance's workload for a single show was reduced.

5. The roles of the Ricardos and the Mertzes were switched .... in TLDCH the Ricardos were the landlords and the Mertzes were the tenants. Throughout most of ILL's run the landlords were the Mertzes and Ricardos were the tenants.

6. In TLDCH, we don't see the Mertzes managing their apartments or complaining about their tenants and what not.

7. The recurring characters from ILL didn't appear and no mention were made of them in TLDCH. The only exceptions to this that comes to my mind at the moment is Mrs. McGillacuddy, Lucy's mother (episode #12 - an appearance) and Betty Ramsey (episode #2 - a mention)

8. There is no heart on satin in the opening or closing credits of TLDCH. All seasons (1 through 6) of I Love Lucy had that heart on satin.

9. The primary focus in one was Lucy getting into Ricky's act and in the other had Lucy or the gang of four involved with that special guest star.

10. The background music for each series is different.

11. One had recurring characters, the other did not. We were introduced to Mrs. Trumbull, the Applebys, Marion Strong, Freddie Filmore, Mrs. McGillacuddy, the Ramseys, Jerry the Agent, ect. in I Love Lucy. We weren't introduced to any minor characters in TLDCH that appeared more than once.


Differences & Other worthwhile points:

1. As pointed up above, they are seen as two individual series by most if not all networks.

2. They are not included in the same syndication package.

3. I Love Lucy performs reasonable well while The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour underperforms or isn't near as a success in attracting viewers.

4. One is regarded/viewed as "a classic" while the other as "being pale and tired" in universal opinion.

5. Most remember the original and the subsequent series not so much.

6. One is long-running and the other is short-lived.

7. This one can be discarded, I guess, but Lucy's hairstyle. Even that is different. She had her classic trademark "hairbun" style throughout I Love Lucy and was seen only in "The Celebrity Next Door" episode of TLDCH and wasn't seen ever again thereafter. I guess we can say ... "new show, new look".
8. I believe Lucille Ball used her own hair in the original series and began using wigs in The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour.


To me personally, all of these differences add up enough to make them two different, distinct series. I have debated this issue with other Lucy fans before ... some agreed and others disagreed. But I stand by the experience in my years of watching them. They may have the same characters but each series feels different to me.

Originally Posted by Joe Lugoff Now let's have the big fight over whether Danfield is in New York or Connecticut.

Someone else can debate this one --- I won't. I have heard various reports on this issue and, of course, they were conflicting. Plus, I do think in some episodes that both states were mentioned as the home state but I can't swear on it. I think this issue may have been a writer screw-up, however, I don't know that as a fact. I simply don't have enough evidence to support either side of the argument.

 

[Rob_Ray]

Originally Posted by Joe Lugoff

I'm always mystified when people differentiate between I Love Lucy and the so-called Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour (which were originally specials called The Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show).


The hour shows were a continuation of I Love Lucy, and were never intended to be anything else. What's different about them? How can someone like I Love Lucy but not the hour shows, when it's the same series? I don't get it.


If you can't see that Lucy Carmichael behaves differently -- has a different personality -- isn't the fast-thinking schemer -- isn't as quick witted and funny -- in the California years as in the Danfield years -- then I don't know what to say.


Now let's have the big fight over whether Danfield is in New York or Connecticut.

I'm done with arguing about The Lucy Show, since I'm largely in agreement with Joe Lugoff with the sole exception that I still find the series as whole mostly watchable and often entertaining even if they are major comedown from I Love Lucy.


Being a Gemini, I have to say that both Joe and Mike (Mooney) are right about the Lucy-Desi's. And they are both wrong. (That's what makes this such a great thread!) The Lucy-Desi's ARE a continuation of I Love Lucy as a series of specials. They are to I Love Lucy what the Honeymooners Specials, the Perry Mason movies and the Father Knows Best Reunions are to their original shows, the only difference being that they were filmed immediately after the original series ceased production, as opposed to decades later. They are not ILL and were always sold as a separate and distinct package.


But they do continue the saga of the Ricardos and the Mertzes. The fact that they are now in Connecticut, the landlord/tenant roles have switched, that Lucy has a new hairdo, that the Mertzes are wasted in favor of guest stars don't have any bearing on whether it's a different series or not. If hairdos and living arrangements make a new series, then The Lucy Show became a new series at season four and both McHale's Navy and Hazel became new serieses in their last shark-jumping seasons. Besides, most of the changes Mike notes were made mid-way through season six of the original series.


The Lucy-Desi's are what they are: Reunion Specials. People differentiate them from ILL because they are formatted entirely different from ILL and have major creative differences behind the camera. Bill Asher is gone and Bert Granet and Jerry Thorpe joined Desi in taking the creative reins. That in and of itself doesn't make it a new series of course. But it's the fact that it's not a weekly continuing series but a gathering together of specials made over a period of three years that sets it apart from ILL.


That and one important thing that bears noting: Since it's NOT a weekly series, the creative team on both sides of the camera have a completely different creative energy. There's the overwhelming sense that the artistic creation that is I Love Lucy is over and that this is a sequel. An inferior sequel as many sequels are. Laurels are being rested upon. Everyone's going through their paces, doing it all by rote, giving the fans what they want, while collecting a paycheck and going off to Del Mar for a few weeks until the next one. The feeling seems as if they could replace creativity with money. Make them specials, with budgets many times more than what ILL had, film them on location with guest stars and dazzle the audiences with star-filled travelogues rather than inspired comedy.


The episodes that come closest to ILL are the few that are set in Connecticut and are filmed in front of a studio audience. These have a sense of the original show since the format is closer to ILL. But for the rest, it's like watching The Facts of Life in Australia. Four camera shows can't become one-camera shows without changing their essence. Can you imagine Archie and Edith going to Disneyland?


It's easy to like ILL and not care much for the Lucy-Desi's. The creative spark has dimmed a bit. Their entertaining and I do like them. But I like them on a level closer to The Lucy Show, even if Lucille Ball is still playing Lucy Ricardo and the format is close to ILL. They are the continuing adventures of the I Love Lucy characters but it isn't I Love Lucy.

 

[Joe Lugoff]

Mr. Mooney: All the points you pointed out were ... well ... listen ...


The hour shows picked up right where I LOVE LUCY left off, so of course they'd be in Connecticut with the Mertzes living in the Ricardos' guest house.


The hour shows were a continuation of I LOVE LUCY, and it isn't even debatable. Unlike you, I was around at the time and I remember.


As for there being guest stars, that's no different from many Hollywood episodes or Charles Boyer appearing in a Europe episode or Bob Hope and Orson Welles appearing in Season 6.


I think the only hour show that doesn't utilize the Mertzes well is the one you named, "Lucy's Summer Vacation."


There is no debate as to whether Danfield is in New York or Connecticut. It's in New York. They said so on more than one occasion. I don't think they ever said it was in Connecticut. People assumed it was because that's where the Ricardos were living when last seen in 1960.

 

[Joe Lugoff]

"An inferior sequel as many sequels are ... "


Well, I'm still mystified. As I said, I'm old enough to remember I LOVE LUCY when it was new and when these hour specials first came on. We kids were very excited about them. We didn't find them to be different from I LOVE LUCY at all. They were just hour long episodes, which was like heaven to us.


Any changes from the half hour episodes were just the natural progression that might very well have occurred if I LOVE LUCY had gone into 7th, 8th or 9th seasons.


I feel the scripts for "The Celebrity Next Door" (especially the first half) and "Lucy Makes Room for Danny" (the whole hour) were the best scripts Lucille Ball ever had on television. (Of course, these were set in Connecticut and done before a live audience, which helped.)


I also love the uranium episode -- the first half of the racehorse episode -- the first half of the Mexico episode -- I think it's all classic Lucy and as good as it gets.


I'll just go on being mystified.

 

[John Morgan]

I always thought the uranium episode was one of the best hour shows. Sort of a forerunner to IT'S A MAD MAD MAD MAD WORLD.


I do have a question on the hour shows, however. On the DVD set, all the episodes seem to have little "added" video fade-outs and fade-ins that I figure were put there for the additional commercial interruptions allowed for syndication. They often interrupt the flow of the sequence as I seem to remember them sometimes coming in the middle of a music cue. Are these presentations unedited, as far as story content is concerned? I assume new opening and credits were created for syndication and that is what we now have.

 

[Joe Lugoff]

I've often noticed the similarity between the uranium episode and MAD WORLD, which is one of my favorite movies.


About your question -- the way I understand it is this:


All 13 hours originally were shown as network specials (the final 8 as part of "Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse.") This was between 1957 and 1960.


In the summers of 1962-1967 (except for 1966), all 13 were shown in prime time on CBS as "The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour." That's when the new fade-outs and fade-ins were created to make room for more commercial time (but very little, maybe only a minute or two).


This affected the first five the most, because they ran longer originally than the last eight (but again, not much longer, only a minute or two -- except for the first, "flashback" episode, which was 75 minutes originally.)


The DVDs restored the final eight to their original length, but they couldn't do it to the first five because the cut scenes were in poor condition, so they were added as extras -- however, there is still something missing from the Bankhead episode, because one cut scene in the extras starts in the middle, and leaves out the part where she tells them she's allergic to strawberries.


It's a big mess, and it's a shame everything wasn't kept in its original pristine condition, but they had no way of knowing that there'd be DVDs in the future and people like us talking about these shows more than half a century later.

 

[John Morgan]

Thanks Joe. I guess we will just wait and hope that someday uncut 35mm pristine materials will be uncovered for the hour shows. Wasn't there talk about releasing the I LOVE LUCY on Blu Ray sometime back? If that happens maybe a renewed search for uncut hour shows will prove fruitful.

I like the hour shows very much, although I know they are different in significant ways from the 30 minute episodes. The one negative change was going away from a live audience, which seem to throw off the timing and pauses within the dialogue in places, but it was nice to see the series "open up" for a more theatrical feeling in the stories. My mom really loved the Las Vegas and Mexico episodes. When they came out on video, I viewed them with her and she was delighted. For years, they seemed to be very rarely shown.

Originally Posted by Joe Lugoff

I've often noticed the similarity between the uranium episode and MAD WORLD, which is one of my favorite movies.


About your question -- the way I understand it is this:


All 13 hours originally were shown as network specials (the final 8 as part of "Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse.") This was between 1957 and 1960.


In the summers of 1962-1967 (except for 1966), all 13 were shown in prime time on CBS as "The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour." That's when the new fade-outs and fade-ins were created to make room for more commercial time (but very little, maybe only a minute or two).


This affected the first five the most, because they ran longer originally than the last eight (but again, not much longer, only a minute or two -- except for the first, "flashback" episode, which was 75 minutes originally.)


The DVDs restored the final eight to their original length, but they couldn't do it to the first five because the cut scenes were in poor condition, so they were added as extras -- however, there is still something missing from the Bankhead episode, because one cut scene in the extras starts in the middle, and leaves out the part where she tells them she's allergic to strawberries.


It's a big mess, and it's a shame everything wasn't kept in its original pristine condition, but they had no way of knowing that there'd be DVDs in the future and people like us talking about these shows more than half a century later.

 

[Joe Lugoff]

Actually, "The Celebrity Next Door" and "Lucy Makes Room for Danny" were done in front of a live audience, and they're generally regarded as the two best hour episodes. I'm not sure if that's just a coincidence or not. They're both great scripts.


To me the real clunker in the bunch is "Lucy Goes to Alaska." Other than Lucy's trouble with the hammock, there's not much funny in it. It's also a stupid story, because everyone is rushing to stop Lucy from selling the land to Red Skelton, yet she wouldn't have the authority to do so in the first place, so no court would recognize it.


The original intention was to do five hour shows for the 1959-60 season. This didn't happen because of the Arnaz divorce, of course. I remember reading once who the guest stars for the unmade two shows were planned to be, but I don't remember now.


One more piece of trivia: "The Celebrity Next Door" was supposed to be Bette Davis, but she broke her leg or something. That would have been really interesting. Davis and Ball were classmates in acting class in NYC, and Davis finished at the top of the class and Ball flunked out and went home. Yet they both went to the very top of their profession.

 

[Rob_Ray]

The hour shows are all watchable (and far superior to Lucy's later shows). But I think the two biggest things that make them less satisfying than the original I Love Lucy format is the fact that it's so much harder to sustain and build upon a situation comedy when it's stretched across an hour and It always seems strange when this show is not being played out in front of a studio audience.


The Celebrity Next Door and Lucy Makes Room for Danny work best because they are set in Connecticut, with the characters in their familiar environs and they are shot ILL-style. And the comedy does manage to build across the hour with no lulls. For the rest, as Joe pointed out, the first half of the that racehorse episode or the first half of the Mexico episode may be classic Lucy but it often grows tiresome before the final fadeout.


I too am old enough to remember these shows in their CBS network airings, although my memory is mainly in the Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour format as a summer replacement for Jackie Gleason. When I was a youngster, they seemed even more special than I Love Lucy because they aired at night at a time when ILL was shown on CBS daytime as part of the morning rerun strip of shows. I was wowed by the larger budgets and all the guest stars and the fact that they seemed to have a newer and fresher look since the hairstyles, clothes and cars all seemed closer to the early '60s, as opposed to the old-fashioned styles seen on ILL. But when they resurfaced twenty years later, at which time ILL had become ingrained in the culture, they somehow seemed over-produced and not as fresh. Then there was the fact that by then we knew the backstory of Lucy and Desi's marriage and could see that the spark had dimmed and everyone was just doing all the old routines for the umpteenth time without the old spark. Ethel and Fred were wasted (with the sole exception of The Celebrity Next Door, which is probably my favorite) and all the hard-living was starting to show in Desi's face.


But there's still lots of fun to be had in the Lucy-Desi's. I just wish that instead of roaming the world and running into the likes of Fernando Lamas, I wish they had stayed more often in Connecticut and had more adventures with the Mertzes and the Ramseys, with Little Ricky going to school and Lucy having run-ins with the Westport snobs and the local PTA. But plots such as those would not have been deemed "special," which is what these shows were. They were forced by the format to turn themselves into lavishly mounted deluxe outings. But Jess Oppenheimer's creative genius was nowhere to be found by this point.

 

[DoreSchary]

Thought you guys might like to see the new promo for the upcoming release. Enjoy!


http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=999986237437&oid=349202819498

 

[Theodore J. Mooney]

Originally Posted by DoreSchary

Thought you guys might like to see the new promo for the upcoming release. Enjoy!


http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=999986237437&oid=349202819498

Love the promo! I am blown away by the picture quality of the show. It looks so clear, crisp, and fresh despite the age of the show. I am really looking forward in getting my hands on this release - it seems to be wonderfully done like the first three seasons. Hopefully the same will hold true for the remaining two seasons. However, I do wish the promo included a clip from the Dean Martin episode as that was Lucy's favorite. And it would have been nice if they included a clip of the cameo appearance of Bill Frawley (aka Fred Mertz).

 

[Professor Echo]

Two minor corrections to items mentioned in this thread that I just got around to spotting:


1. The name of the actor who played the banker in the first season of TLS was CHARLES Lane, not Howard.


2. The character of Mike Douglas was indeed mentioned again in MY THREE SONS during the initial season following his departure from the series. He even appeared in the opening wedding scene of the first episode for that season.

 

[MatthewA]

All the talk about Jess Oppenheimer threatening a lawsuit made me wonder about something: Apparently he later produced The Debbie Reynolds Show in 1969, where Debbie played a wacky wife who went to all sorts of absurd lengths to break into her husband's profession (sports writing). This is hardly a coincidence, and I wonder why he would reuse his most famous idea so blatantly (IMDb is sparse on credits).


That show is also notable because Debbie gave up the opportunity for a guaranteed second season because it would have meant being sponsored by a cigarette company, and because the theme song is heard in the "Attila the Hun" sketch on Monty Python's Flying Circus.

 

[Joe Lugoff]

If that's true about Debbie's refusal of the second season, I say good ... but it's probably not true. Most things aren't.


Jess Oppenheimer also produced the 1960-61 comedy Angel, which also had its resemblances to I Love Lucy. In this case, the wife spoke with an accent and the husband was amused by some mispronunciations.


It's interesting that as long as his ex-cohorts Pugh-Martin, Carroll, Schiller and Weiskopf were writing The Lucy Show, he let things go .... but when they all quit Lucy in a huff, and she brought in all new writers, he decided Lucy didn't have the right to continue playing the traditional Lucy character. This created a problem for all the rest of Lucy's TV career, because she was playing "Lucy" but then again she wasn't.

 

[MatthewA]

Originally Posted by Joe Lugoff

If that's true about Debbie's refusal of the second season, I say good ... but it's probably not true. Most things aren't.

Apparently, Debbie said this in her autobiography and called it "the stupidest mistake of [her] life," according to her Wikipedia page (it's cited, but one should still get a second opinion):


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debbie_Reynolds


If Oppenheimer wanted credit, why did he wait until 1965? I suppose this is when the show was at its most profitable.

 

[Joe Lugoff]

Originally Posted by MatthewA




If Oppenheimer wanted credit, why did he wait until 1965? I suppose this is when the show was at its most profitable.

I have my theory, but it's only based on all those books I've read about Lucy and Desilu.


Oppenheimer quit I Love Lucy somewhat angry with Desi Arnaz. Lucy and her "suits" got rid of Desi Arnaz from Desilu early in the run of The Lucy Show. Madelyn and the three Bobs quit as writers at the end of the second season, Pugh-Martin-Davis and Carroll angry at Lucy for taking an irrational dislike to a certain script. The other two Bobs wrote a couple more scripts used in Season 3 then left for good.


Then, not long after, Vivian Vance announced she was quitting -- the official reason being the long commute she was taking -- but most of the books say she was badly treated by Lucy.


Oppenheimer was certainly aware of everything that was going on and probably just flat-out didn't like Lucille Ball very much so he decided he wouldn't let her get away with playing a character he created, without him getting paid or even a screen credit for it.


It's the oddest thing about Lucille Ball: She was a great comic actress, but all of her "genius" seemed to stop right there. She made mistake after mistake. But as long as her ratings held up, she figured she was doing ok, so why not make her cousin the producer? She probably worked cheap, too.

 

[Theodore J. Mooney]

Originally Posted by Joe Lugoff

If that's true about Debbie's refusal of the second season, I say good ... but it's probably not true. Most things aren't.


Jess Oppenheimer also produced the 1960-61 comedy Angel, which also had its resemblances to I Love Lucy. In this case, the wife spoke with an accent and the husband was amused by some mispronunciations.


It's interesting that as long as his ex-cohorts Pugh-Martin, Carroll, Schiller and Weiskopf were writing The Lucy Show, he let things go .... but when they all quit Lucy in a huff, and she brought in all new writers, he decided Lucy didn't have the right to continue playing the traditional Lucy character. This created a problem for all the rest of Lucy's TV career, because she was playing "Lucy" but then again she wasn't.

Um ... how did it create a problem? Lucille Ball played the Lucy character throughout The Lucy Show. Granted, the new writers didn't write the exact same way her original writers did of Lucy Carmichael but that doesn't take away from the fact that she was still Lucy Carmichael. They may have not been the best or worst new writers - we don't know - but they were the ones that Lucille Ball wanted. Obviously, the decision she made to hire them was a good one nonetheless as viewers kept tuning into The Lucy Show as they must have found the plots entertaining and worthwhile to watch. In fact, the show ranked higher in those later seasons with it going out on top as the number #2 show. If the new writers were really that bad in finding plots that kept viewers entertained, then their audience would have stopped watching thus causing the series to plummett in the ratings. But that didn't happen ... the show was still a success, Lucille Ball was still a success, and her new writers were a success. End. of. story.

 

[Joe Lugoff]

If popularity always equalled quality, you'd have a point. But it doesn't.


Mr. Mooney, we must live in two different Universes. If you see the Lucy Carmichael of Seasons 4 thru 6 as being the same Lucy Carmichael as Seasons 1 thru 3, then maybe you're not paying close enough attention.


To me, the biggest difference is that LC1 was a quick-witted schemer. As her schemes fell apart, she was always ready with a quick answer or Plan B.


LC2 didn't do that. Things happened to her and she responded, usually in a dumb way.


There are a few exceptions, but generally, she was playing a different character. This is fairly well documented in all the books about her, so I'm not sure why you continue to argue this point.


However, I do understand you have fond childhood memories of The Lucy Show and Here's Lucy, and I know how powerful childhood nostalgia is. I don't want to take your fun away. As I've said many times, I envy your ability to derive as much enjoyment from Late Lucy as you do from Early Lucy. But you really are in a minority on that.