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The Lucy Show Lucy

The Lucy Show is a television series which ran from 1962 until 1968. It was Lucille Ball's follow-up to I Love Lucy. The premise and the cast changed frequently, with only Gale Gordon lasting most of the run of the show (he joined the cast during the second season). For the first three seasons, Vivian Vance was the costar. From time to time, Lucie Arnaz and Desi Arnaz, Jr. appeared. The earliest scripts were entitled The Lucille Ball Show, but all episodes aired with the title The Lucy Show.

The show began with Lucille Ball as Lucy Carmichael, a widow with two children, Chris (Candy Moore), and Jerry (Jimmy Garrett), living in Danfield, Connecticut, sharing her home with divorced friend Vivian Bagley (Vance) and her son, Sherman (Ralph Hart). Lucy had been left with a substantial trust fund by her late husband, which was managed during the first season by local banker Mr. Barnsdahl (Charles Lane). At the beginning of the 1963-64 season, the character was replaced by Theodore J. Mooney (Gordon, who would remain with the series for the remainder of its run, despite numerous format changes). Gordon was to have joined the series at its premiere in 1962, but he was still contractually obligated to his role as Mr. Wilson on Dennis the Menace. Mrs. Carmichael spent so much of her time and effort trying to get Mr. Mooney to allow her to invade the principal of the trust fund for various ideas and projects that it finally seemed more reasonable for her just to spend her time working for Mooney directly as his secretary, which she eventually did. Beginning in the 1965 season, Vance left the series. (It was explained that her character had gotten married.) Lucy and Jerry Carmichael and Mr. Mooney moved to California, where both Lucy and Mooney remained in the banking business together (now at a different bank), and Vivian Bagley visited once or twice per season. Lucy's daughter Chris went away to college and was mentioned only once or twice. At various times, Lucille Ball's friend Ann Sothern made appearances as the "Countess Framboise" (nee Rosie Harrigan), visiting her old school friend, Lucy. The Countess, who had been widowed by the death of her husband, "who left her his noble title and all of his noble debts", was always trying to get some money to pay off said debts. So she also did battle with Mr. Mooney, whom she called "Mr. Money". Knowing that Vivian would be leaving the series, Ann Sothern was proposed to be the new co-star, but it did not come to be.

Shortly afterward, Jerry was shipped off to a military academy, and his character was very rarely referred to in future episodes, although he did make a couple of appearances. Lucy gained a new best friend in Mary Jane Lewis (Mary Jane Croft), and at this point the premise changed primarily to one where famous guest stars made appearances (usually playing themselves in storylines involving their encountering Lucy while conducting bank business), including Dean Martin, Jack Benny, George Burns, Joan Crawford, Carol Burnett, Ethel Merman, Danny Thomas, Robert Goulet, Phil Silvers, John Wayne, and Milton Berle.

During the 1967-68 season, Lucille Ball sold Desilu Productions (which owned and produced The Lucy Show) to Gulf and Western Industries, which meant that she no longer owned the series. Rather than continue to star in a show she no longer owned, Ball opted to create a new series, Here's Lucy, which employed herself, Gordon and Croft (and Vance in occasional guest appearances), playing "new" characters (though they were all similar to their characters on former series). Here's Lucy ran on CBS for an additional six seasons.

Though CBS would broadcast The Lucy Show in black and white until the beginning of the 1965-66 season, episodes were actually filmed in color starting with the 1963-64 season, as Ball realized that the episodes would eventually be widely shown in syndication, and that color episodes would command more money when sold to syndication.


The credits list the show's basis as the novel Life Without George, by Irene Kampen. This non-fiction book was a collection of humorous pieces about two divorced women and their children living together. A next door airline pilot neighbor, Harry Connors, became a character in the series played by Dick Martin. The character of Chris, Lucy's daughter in the series, had the same name in the book. In a later volume of essays, Nobody Calls At This Hour Just To Say Hello, Kampen wrote a piece entitled "How Not to Meet Lucille Ball," which detailed her efforts to meet Lucy when she visited Los Angeles (she never got to meet her).

Notable guest stars

From the 1965-66 season onward, with the change in format, a number of famous celebrities guest starred on The Lucy Show, usually playing themselves (under the premise that the Lucy Carmichael character, now living in Hollywood, crossed paths with them, either in her day-to-day life, or through her job at the bank). Famous guest stars included Jack Benny, Carol Burnett, George Burns, Joan Crawford, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Dean Martin, Wayne Newton, Mel Tormé, John Vivyan, and John Wayne.

The episode featuring Joan Crawford, "Lucy and the Lost Star", caused much celebrity fodder given Ball and Crawford's very public feud during the filming. According to Ball, Crawford was often drunk on the set and could not remember her lines.  Ball was said to have requested several times to replace Crawford with Gloria Swanson, who was supposed to have filled the role originally but bowed out due to health reasons.

The 1966 episode featuring Dean Martin (in which Lucy Carmichael accepted a blind date with Dean Martin's lookalike stunt double, but when he could not make it, sent the real Dean Martin on the date with Lucy in his place) was described by Ball as her favorite episode of the series.

[edit] Opening credits

Throughout the series, four openings were used.

* During the first season (1962-63), animated stick figures of Ball and Vance were used (similar to the ones used in the original opening sequences of I Love Lucy and of the subsequent 13 hour-long specials later syndicated in reruns as The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour).

* During seasons two and three, footage and stills from previous episodes were used.

* During the final three seasons, a "kaleidoscope" opening was used, in which footage was used of Ball, in a kaleidoscope-like pattern. This is perhaps the best known opening to younger viewers (e.g. those too young to have watched the show when it originally aired on CBS), as the package that was aired on CBS Daytime (and later shown on Nick at Nite) used this opening for nearly all the episodes. The current syndicated package available to stations has the original openings restored.

* An additional opening was created at the beginning of the 1966 season, that featured Lucille Ball as an animated "jack-in-the-box". Ball reportedly hated it, and it was only used in a handful of episodes at the start of the season, before being replaced. However, due to poor editing, the theme music to this opening was left on, while the kaleidoscope opening plays, for several of the early 1966 fall episodes.

The music was composed by Wilbur Hatch, who was also responsible for the I Love Lucy theme music.

 Nielsen Ratings

* 1962-63: #5
* 1963-64: #6
* 1964-65: #8
* 1965-66: #3
* 1966-67: #4
* 1967-68: #2

Much like I Love Lucy, "The Lucy Show" never dropped out of the top 10 for its entire run.

Fans of the series generally rate the first three season featuring Vivian Vance as the best of all six years, and the California-based fourth, fifth, and sixth seasons as substandard. However, the fifth and sixth seasons drew the highest ratings, as well as Emmy awards for the star.

Availability on video and DVD

There is speculation among fans that an official DVD release may come since Paramount (released now under the CBS DVD brand) is finished releasing all I Love Lucy product including the hour-long episodes. As of now, there are about thirty public domain releases with episodes mainly from the California era of the show. It does seem likely as CBS DVD has the rights to the show, there will be DVD releases in the near future. Rumors have been reported that the first season is currently in the works for a release in early 2009. Numerous public domain episodes have been also been available on VHS for a number of years, though no comprehensive, season-by-season compilations have been released to date.

Lucy Show Trivia Facts
 

 * While filming the 1963 episode "Lucy and Viv Put In A Shower", in which Lucy and Vivian attempt to install a shower (but become trapped inside, unable to shut the water off), Ball nearly drowned while performing in the tank of water. She was unable to bring herself back to the surface, and it was Vance who realized there was a problem and pulled her co-star to safety; Vance went on to ad lib until Ball could catch her breath to resume speaking her lines (all the while, cameras continued to film). Neither the film crew nor the live studio audience realized there was a problem.

* Though a number of TV historians have through the years cited One Day at a Time’s Ann Romano (Bonnie Franklin) as television's first regular running character who was a divorcée, that accomplishment actually belongs to The Lucy Show’s Vivian Bagley.

* Ironically, it was decided early on that the Lucy Carmichael character should be a widow, not a divorcée, since viewers might incorrectly assume that Ball's previous character, Lucy Ricardo, had divorced Ricky, even though Ball and Arnaz were, in fact, divorced in real life.

* Vivian Vance made it a condition for doing the series her character's name be Vivian. After doing I Love Lucy, she was still being called Ethel by people on the street

* Lucille Ball won two Emmy Awards as Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series, for the years 1966-67 and 1967-68 respectively.