The Lucy Show: The Official Third Season ... comes out November 30th, 2010! (1 Viewer)

[Joe Lugoff]

Originally Posted by JohnMor

To each his own, but in my view this series NEVER had any serious continuity, so it doesn't matter to me a hoot what order I watch the episodes. It's hardly an example of great writing and treating any character with depth or reality or consistency, particularly after Josefsberg took over. Do what makes you happy.


Hunted and pecked my way through various episodes last night. Agan, the picture quality is outstanding.


I watched "Lucy and the Monsters" last night and was reminded what hideous writing and directing is all about. One of the WORST half hours in TV history, in my opinion, and I'm not exaggerating at all. An embarrassment for everyone involved. You even see a cameraman in the frame as they fade to commercial at one point. Everyone was asleep at the wheel that week. Shocked that Garry Marshall and Jerry Belson perpetrated that script. Can't say I blame Vivian Vance for wanting more input into the scripts if she was going to remain. Then they have "My Fair Lucy" a short time later, and it's pretty good. It's going to be a hard slog through the remaining seasons (if they get released.)

I grew up with Lucy, and even 45+ years later, I'm still saddened and puzzled over the decline in her shows starting in the third season of "The Lucy Show."


Obviously, it's due to her old writers leaving the show, but even so -- some of the episodes are so stupid, it's unbelievable, and these were writers who did good work on other series.


However, I've seen that people who are younger than I am, and who first saw Lucille Ball in the later "Lucy Show" and "Here's Lucy" actually like those series and find them funny. I've even heard some people say they prefer them to "I Love Lucy," as astounding as that sounds.


Therefore, when I sit down to watch Lucille Ball in the second half of her TV career, I try to play a trick on myself and pretend that "I Love Lucy" never happened. The shows still aren't great by any means, but they don't seem so bad that way. I compare them to contemporaneous shows like "Green Acres" -- late Lucy can get just about as surreal as "Green Acres" -- and by those lower standards, even a Josefsberg script isn't so bad.


You gotta do what you gotta do, but let's face it -- NO ONE jumped the shark the way Lucy did! Vivian Vance knew what she was doing when she bailed out.

 

[Joe Lugoff]

Originally Posted by Theodore J. Mooney
Hunted and pecked my way through various episodes last night. Agan, the picture quality is outstanding.


I watched "Lucy and the Monsters" last night and was reminded what hideous writing and directing is all about. One of the WORST half hours in TV history, in my opinion, and I'm not exaggerating at all. An embarrassment for everyone involved. You even see a cameraman in the frame as they fade to commercial at one point. Everyone was asleep at the wheel that week. Shocked that Garry Marshall and Jerry Belson perpetrated that script. Can't say I blame Vivian Vance for wanting more input into the scripts if she was going to remain. Then they have "My Fair Lucy" a short time later, and it's pretty good. It's going to be a hard slog through the remaining seasons (if they get released.)

I really enjoyed the "Lucy and the Monsters" episode. I find it to be quite unique compared to other episodes of the series. I don't see anything wrong with it at all ... I wouldn't change a thing about it at all except the camera man showing up for those few seconds. What was wrong with the writing?

[/QUOTE]

Mr. Mooney, I know what you mean -- taken in the right attitude, there are laughs in that episode. It's just that "I Love Lucy" was character and story driven, whereas an episode like "Lucy and the Monsters" is just a bunch of jokes. But accepting it for what it is, instead of wanting it to be something it isn't, there's really nothing wrong with the writing. It's just more like a sketch from a variety show than an episode of a situation comedy that has a story to it.

 

[Robert13]

Funny how one person's perspective can be so different from another one's. "Lucy and the Monsters" is actually one of my favorites. Definitely not the worst half-hour in television history. Maybe I'm biased but I just adore anything with Lucy in it. She brings joy to anything even the worst script, imo.

Looking forward to Season 4 for my favorite episode of that season "Lucy and Joan".

 

[Theodore J. Mooney]

Originally Posted by Robert13 Maybe I'm biased but I just adore anything with Lucy in it. She brings joy to anything even the worst script, imo.

Looking forward to Season 4 for my favorite episode of that season "Lucy and Joan".

Yeah, it is funny. I find it kind of odd that The Lucy Show got compared to Green Acres. I don't see how they are alike except in the aspect that Lucy and Lisa got dumb towards the end and that Mr. Mooney and Oliver could be hotheads at times. But even with that, I enjoy both shows regardless ... it was all in fun.


Oh, "Lucy and Joan" is one of my favorite season 4 episodes too! They had such great chemistry with each other onscreen it's just too bad Joan left only after two episodes.

 

[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.

 

[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!

 

[JohnMor]

Originally Posted by Theodore J. Mooney
Hunted and pecked my way through various episodes last night. Agan, the picture quality is outstanding.


I watched "Lucy and the Monsters" last night and was reminded what hideous writing and directing is all about. One of the WORST half hours in TV history, in my opinion, and I'm not exaggerating at all. An embarrassment for everyone involved. You even see a cameraman in the frame as they fade to commercial at one point. Everyone was asleep at the wheel that week. Shocked that Garry Marshall and Jerry Belson perpetrated that script. Can't say I blame Vivian Vance for wanting more input into the scripts if she was going to remain. Then they have "My Fair Lucy" a short time later, and it's pretty good. It's going to be a hard slog through the remaining seasons (if they get released.)

I really enjoyed the "Lucy and the Monsters" episode. I find it to be quite unique compared to other episodes of the series. I don't see anything wrong with it at all ... I wouldn't change a thing about it at all except the camera man showing up for those few seconds. What was wrong with the writing?

[/QUOTE]


Oh, where to start...


First, there wasn't one single laugh, humorous bit or original idea in the entire episode. It was a super-stale, bad vaudeville sketch already in 1965. Secondly, the character of Lucy Carmichael is nothing even remotely like she appeared before or after the ep. She literally moans and wrings her hands and exhibits such exaggerated, irrational fear and goes so far as to literally walk over Vivian on the staircase without so much as a backward glance and a "Sorry, Viv." It would be one thing to sleep with the lights on, but the garlic necklace, wooden stake and pushing the chest in front of the door are too ludicrous to be believed from an intelligent adult, which up until that ep, Lucy Carmichael still was.


Thirdly, the groan inducingly bad dialogue: "Table for two." "Please Mummy, I'd rather do it myself!" "I run a blood bank." "I'm the Head of the house." It's bad enough to not have a shred of wit in sight, but to compound it with painfully bad jokes that weren't funny in Abbott and Costello's day makes it even worse. Fourth, characters behave like no human beings ever do, just for the sake of a "joke." Like when the man comes in at the end dressed as Dracula. When the front door is opened he strides right into the living room of a stranger without being invited in, talking in his Transylvanian accent. No one does that. He's written to do that so that the girls will scream and react, but that's not a valid enough reason.


Fifth, a gorilla in an apron. Sixth, the melee rule: when you have no idea how to end something, have all the characters scream and chase each other around the stage.


It's great to have a change of pace episode and/or a dream episode, and was done brilliantly on The Dick Van Dyke Show ("It May Look Like A Walnut") and on I Love Lucy ("Lucy Goes To Scotland"), but this was just a misfire on all counts. It plays like a Junior High talent show sketch. It may even be worse than the Here's Lucy episode, "Lucy In The Jungle." It certainly is not any better.


Even I Love Lucy had bad episodes, such as "Lucy Is Envious." But even then they adhered to the basic premise of the reality of the characters.


As far as the show trying to keep up with the then ubiquitous supernatural sitcoms, that has nothing to do with the quality of the episode. The premise is fine. It's the execution that's beneath the talents of all involved.

 

[JohnMor]

Thinking about it now, I think one thing that would have helped avoid the inexcusable idiocy of the first part, was if they each had a dream after seeing the movie, and Viv's dream was about how scared Lucy was. Then at least there would be an excuse for Lucy knocking Viv down on the stairs and walking over her back and wearing a necklace of garlic, etc., as the character wouldn't have really been doing those out-of-character things in real life.

 

[Skeezix]

I think the point of "Monsters," and believe me I am NOT trying to defend it -- was to do it as a spoof... Pull out all the hoary old gags and do them once again in a send-up...


Admittedly, this kind of thing works a lot better in a sketch-comedy/variety show format. It really has no place in a filmed "situation comedy." But doing a spoof was what they were trying to do...

 

[JohnMor]

Yeah, I get that it's a spoof, but as you said, that was not the venue for it. Sadly, Lucy's series became the venues for more and more of that as the years went by. It's just the change in direction when she hired Milt Josefsberg. What worked for Jack Benny on a sketch show didn't work for Lucy in a situation comedy. Sadly, Lucy too often let her personal feelings get in the way of business decisions, and it's a shame. Luckily, there's still some reasonably good eps sprinkled in every year here and there.

 

[Skeezix]

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!

 

[Skeezix]

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...

 

[JohnMor]

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.

 

[Joe Lugoff]

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.

 

[JohnMor]

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.

 

[Theodore J. Mooney]

Originally Posted by Joe Lugoff

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.

WHY do these threads about The Lucy Show always have to come down to this?


If The Lucy Show is such a failure, then why was it in the top ten for all of its original run? If it is such a failure, then why in the world did its star get not only one but TWO emmy awards during the original run of the show? If it is such a failure, then why is it still being syndicated? If it is such a failure, then why are seasons one through three on DVD? If it is such a failure, then why does it have fans?

You know something ... no show can be another I Love Lucy. So why must The Lucy Show and Here's Lucy be constantly criticized?

 

[Joe Lugoff]

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:





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.)

 

[JoeDoakes]

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.

 

[JohnMor]

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.

 

[Kasey]

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.