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"Lucy Show" (and public domain) questions (1 Viewer)

Jeff#

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Lucy's deeper voice didn't bother me, as sometimes a person's voice will change just from aging alone. I had no problem understanding what she was saying even in the later years.

The Lucy Show was my favorite of her various series. Lucy as a single woman had much more to work with than being tied down to a husband.

In addition to that Desi's accent just got on my nerves and I Love Lucy was too primitive, in terms of 1950s fashions, the lame background music, and I never cared much for Bill Frawley (who long after quitting My Three Sons, eventually had a cameo in a different role in an episode of The Lucy Show).

That doesn't mean I didn't like Desi Arnaz. I thought he did very well in 1976, hosting Saturday Night Live -- not only in the expected Lucy sketch (with Gilda Radner as Lucy) but also in the parody of The Untouchables. As a musician, Desi was in his element. During the Bicentennial he got to perform "Babaloo" again!
 

Joe Lugoff

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I'm tempted to get sarcastic here and say "learn how to read," but I won't.

What you quoted to me states that Vivian Vance, the real life actress, lived in Connecticut and commuted to California, which is correct.

It goes on to state that the fictional characters lived in Danfield, NEW YORK, which is also correct.

But I'm not basing it on possibly incorrect websites -- I'm basing it on the fact that they stated on the show that Danfield was in New York, not Connecticut. The episode with Arthur Godfrey, where they put on a show about the founding of Danfield, clearly states that they're in New York, not Connecticut.



If you think the last three years of "The Lucy Show" in any way, shape or form are even as good as, much less better, than even the worst episode of "I Love Lucy," then I have nothing more to say on this subject. When you refer to "primitive" 50s fashions (what did you want them to wear, clothes from the 1960s?) and the "lame" background music (that's a new one!), all I can say to you now is good bye and good luck.:rolleyes
 

AnnaMaria

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Now, now, nothing to argue about here that's very important. They lived in Danfield USA and some people prefer one show over the other.

So Carol Brady was not the first divorcee on tv. Interesting.

I have a question:

There are some people who seem to be knowledgeable about what happened behind the scenes (which is very interesting), but how do you know that's what happened?
 

JasonPW

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Jul 19, 2003
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Books. Lots and lots of books.

"The Lucy Book" is a priceless gem that chronicles every episode of the redhead's series, specials and guest appearances with trivia and inside info for each individual episode. I have found myself spending hours just reading the entries.

"Desilu" is also an excellent book that deals with the Lucy-Desi relationship in its business and personal aspects.

Doc
 

Gregory V

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AnnaMaria,
I always thought both Mike and Carol Brady were widowed. Was she really divorced?
Greg
 

AnnaMaria

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It was never said on the show that she was divorced however it was in the minds of the creators that she was. The show made no mention of her previous husband.
 

StevenH

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May 21, 2004
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Yes they did release some tapes of the Lucy Show. I purchased them but I don't have them with me currently so I'll go off of what I remember of them. They made five volumes with four episodes each. They didn't make any more then that as they were not very popular apparently. They were grouped in specific subjects like they did for the I Love Lucy Volumes, so they jumped through the seasons. I thought they were great and had some good funny episodes contained on them so I was surprised they only made 5 volumes. And now that I'm thinking about it I remember I was actually put on back order for a couple of the volumes as they were not able to supply the demand. So how it jumped from that to not being popular enough to produce new volumes...I just don't know.

I hope they do release these on dvd, but I would rather see all 13 of the comedy hours get a dvd release first. The first 12 episodes were released individually on VHS but they completely ignored the 13th episode. These were also released by columbia house, but I have no idea if they released all 13 episodes.
 

Joe Lugoff

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Is "The Lucy Show" a Paramount property?

As another thread discusses, Paramount said they're going full-steam ahead with their huge backlog of TV series. If "The Lucy Show" is Paramount, I wonder what the odds are of it finally getting an official, non-public-domain release.
 

DaveK

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Dec 8, 2004
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Any updates about The Lucy Show....and for that matter The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour???
 

Brian W.

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It's been fascinating reading these posts, guys! Though I'm a huge "I Love Lucy" fan, I had never really watched more than one or two episodes of "The Lucy Show," and what I saw, I wasn't impressed. I'm definitely going to have to check out some episodes from the first two seasons now.

Is there ANY semi-acceptable DVD release with episodes from the first two seasons?
 

Michael Alden

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Jun 5, 2005
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NO. But now that I Love Lucy is finished it wouldn't surprise me if Paramount did the 13 hours and then started on The Lucy Show. Be patient.
 

Ron Lee Green

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Brian W., only 2 of the public domain episodes are from the early black and white years: "Lucy and Viv Put in a Shower," and "Lucy's Barbershop Quartet." I see The Lucy Show all the time in all the dollar stores, and for only a buck, I consider that semi-acceptable. They usually come in cardboard sleeves and you get a few episodes on 1 disc for a buck. It doesn't cost a lot, so don't deprive yourself and wait for Paramount to release. The Paramount release will probably be in the $25 range, anyway. Or, even better, I have a dvd set that contains all 30 public domain episodes of The Lucy Show, but like I said, only 2 of the episodes are from the early black and white years, "Lucy and Viv Put in a Shower," and "Lucy's Barbershop Quartet."
The shows look like they were transferred from 16mm prints, so the quality isn't outstanding like an official release, but it is still totally watchable and it does have some funny moments. The quality reminds me of when I first saw this show in reruns in the 1970's before cable and hi-definition.
Here are the Episodes -
Disc 1
Lucy the Starmaker - season 6, episode 4 - 02 Oct. '67
Lucy Meets Robert Goulet - #6.8 - 30 Oct. '67
Lucy Gets a Roommate - #5.7 - 31 Oct. '66
Lucy and Carol in Palm Springs - #07 Nov. '66
Main Street USA - #5.17 - 23 Jan. '66
Lucy Gets Jack Benny's Account - #6.6 - 16 Oct. '67
Lucy's Barbershop Quartet - #1.9 - 04 Feb. '63
Lucy and Viv Put in a Shower - #1.8 - 28 Jan. '63
Lucy and the Substitute Secretary - #5.14 - 02 Jan. '67
Lucy and the French Movie Star - #6.3 - 25 Sep. '67

Disc 2
Lucy Meets John Wayne - #5.10 - 21 Nov. '66
Lucy and the Flight Manager - #5.20 - 20 Feb. '67
Lucy and Paul Winchell - #5.4 - 30 Oct. '66
Lucy Flies to London - #5.6 - 17 Oct. '66
Lucy Meets Sheldon Leonard - #5.22 - 06 Mar. '67
Lucy and the Efficiency Expert - #5.13 - 12 Dec. '67 (also know as Lucy and Phil Silvers)
Mooney the Monkey - #5.12 - 05 Dec. '66 (also known as Lucy and the Monkey)
Lucy and the Ring-A-Ding Ring - #5.6 - 17 Oct. '66
Lucy Meets Tennessee Ernie Ford - #5.21 - 27 Feb. '67
Lucy Gets Caught in the Draft - #5.9 - 14 Feb. '66

Disc 3
Lucy and George Burns - #5.1 - 12 Sep. '66
Lucy Meets the Berles - #6.1 - 11.Sep. '67
Lucy, the Bean Queen - #5.7 - 26 Sep. '66
Lucy Meets the Law - #5.19 - 13 Sep. '67
Lucy Gets Trapped - #6.2 - 18 Sep. '67
Lucy the Babysitter - #5.16 - 16 Jan. '67
Lucy Metts Pat Collins - #5.11 - 28 Nov. '66
Little Old Lady - #6.7 - 23 Oct. '67 (also known as Little Old Lucy)
Viv Visits Lucy - #5.15- 09 Jan. .67
Lucy and the Submarine - #5.2 - 19 Sep. '66

You can get it at Amazon for under $10, but one marketplace seller has it as low as 5 bucks--and that makes it semi-acceptable in my book.
The Lucy Show set at Amazon
 

Bob Hug

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The above set is from the St. Clair Entertainment Group; I've seen it at Suncoast Video for $7.99 and Sam Goody at the same price. I'm guessing that some of the online retailers will have it for even less. I have the two B&W episodes from another budget label (Catcom), and they are better than the color episodes available from various public domain labels. The St. Clair set is the only set that I've seen that includes all of the PD episodes in a single collection.
 

Sean.S

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Yeah, I would like to see a full release of "The Lucy Show" too. I have most of the public domain releases (some of the first DVDs I ever bought, so I didn't really know then what I know now) and it's funny that the picture quality in local syndication (Local WB affiliate would show I Love Lucy then, edited Lucy-Desi Comedy Hours under the "We Love Lucy" and the first season of The Lucy Show) was better than on these DVDs. I like the show alot--even the later years.
 

Joe Lugoff

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I'm in a nitpicky and technical mood, so I'll add this to the discussion:

I have read (and I'm hoping it's true) that after the 6th and final season of "I Love Lucy" comes out on DVD later this year, the next set will be the 13 hour specials they did from 1957-1960.

The nitpick is that everyone calls them "The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour" -- but that wasn't their name until CBS started showing them as summer replacements in 1962. (And every summer through 1967, except for 1966.) The shows were also slightly cut at that time.

The opening and closing credits we're used to were only designed for the reruns. In fact, the style of the writing is the same as the first season of "The Lucy Show" from the same year of 1962.

They were originally called "The Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show." The final two years, they were part of the hour anthology series "Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse."

My point is: Will they be restored to their original format? It's especially important for the first one, the one that's a flashback to how Lucy and Ricky met in Cuba. It was originally 75 minutes, not an hour. It premiered on Wednesday, November 6, 1957, and was on CBS from 9 to 10:15 PM EST, resulting in the "U.S. Steel Hour" being cut back to 45 minutes that night.

It just shows the power that Lucy and Desi had at CBS in those days that they were able to talk the network into giving them an unprecedented 75 minute time slot. However, the show hasn't been seen in its entirety since, and it would be fantastic if someone's enough on the "ball" to restore it to its original length for the DVD release.
 

Garysb

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Quote"My point is: Will they be restored to their original format? It's especially important for the first one, the one that's a flashback to how Lucy and Ricky met in Cuba. It was originally 75 minutes, not an hour. It premiered on Wednesday, November 6, 1957, and was on CBS from 9 to 10:15 PM EST, resulting in the "U.S. Steel Hour" being cut back to 45 minutes that night."


The full version of this show does exist as it was shown at the Museum of Radio and Television in New York and Los Angeles . I assume, but don't know for a fact, that it is now part of the museum's collection and can be viewed by anyone when they are in NY or LA. Hopefully it will be released on DVD.

I hope they will also include the Westinghouse commercials that Lucy, Ricky, Fred and Ethel did. These were often funnier then some of the one hour Lucy Desi shows . Fred and Ethel often did not have much to do in the hour shows . On the commercials it was just the four of them and more like I Love Lucy .
 

Eric_Bee

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Perhaps an odd question - are the episodes in the above set complete, as originally aired? I bought a 4 episode Lucy Show PD DVD for $1 at Walgreens. While I was expecting (and thus could tolerate) the subpar picture quality, I was disappointed that the episodes ran for only 21-22 minutes each, and they seemed cut (scenes beginning with the punchlines to jokes which were not broadcast.). Even with cheap PD episodes, full versions would be nice.
 

Ethan Riley

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Who knows where they got those cheapo PD prints? They could have taped them off the tv for all we know--and so they're old icky syndicated prints that have 3 or 4 minutes cut out. Ugh! I hate PD dvds. Cheap Cheap Cheap. At this point, anybody interested in classic tv wants the best, so I think if the Lucy Show ever has a legitimate release, that it will put a lot of PD hit-and-run kamakaze maverick dvd producers out of business. Hah!
 

Chris Wall

Agent
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Mar 30, 2005
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Are you sure 1964 is the cut off point for public domain shows since most of the Lucy Show ones are post 1964. I thought it was 1971 as the so called Mickey Mouse Act was passed in 1998 or 1999. Also if The Andy Griffith and Dick Van Dyke Shows can put out official season sets with PD episodes the Lucy Show should too.
 

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