The Lucy Show
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- This article is about the television series. For the 1980's rock band of the same name, see The Lucy Show (band).
| The Lucy Show | |
|---|---|
 Title card for The Lucy Show 1962-63 season. </small> | |
| Genre | Sitcom |
| Running time | 30 minutes per episode |
| Creator(s) | Desilu |
| Starring | Lucille Ball Vivian Vance Gale Gordon Mary Jane Croft |
| Country of origin | Image:Flag of the United States.svg United States |
| Original channel | CBS |
| Original run | October 1, 1962–March 11, 1968 |
| No. of episodes | 156 |
The Lucy Show was Lucille Ball's follow up show to I Love Lucy. It began in 1962 and ran until 1968. 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). From time to time, Vivian Vance, 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, New York, 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.
Shortly afterward, Jerry was shipped off to a military academy, and his character was very rarely referred to in future episodes. 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, 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 the 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.
[edit] Miscellaneous facts
- While filming a 1963 episode 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. Unable to bring herself back to the surface, it was Vance who realized there was a problem and pulled her costar to safety; she 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.
- The credits list the show's basis as the novel Life Without George, by Irene Kampen.
- The show was followed up by Here's Lucy in 1968.
- When the series was seen on Nick at Nite in the 1990s, almost all episodes of the entire run had the same opening -- pictures of Lucy and several scenes presented in a kaleidoscope fashion. That opening was originally used during the last couple of seasons of the run. The reason why all the openings on Nick at Nite were the same was that they used the same copies of the shows used for CBS's daytime run of the show (which was from 1968 to 1972), which switched the original openings with one single opening and slight variations of the theme music. Some early fifth season episodes from this package still have the original fifth season theme music, but set to the kaleidoscope opening (Lucy hated the original opening designed for the fifth season, so it was removed after a few episodes; This opening is known to fans as the "Jack in the box"). When Viacom (who owns Nick at Nite) syndicated the show to local stations in the 1970s, it had the original openings.
- In the 1970s and early-1980s, Viacom distributed the entire run of The Lucy Show, including the 1968 episodes, which, by then, became a Paramount production. Ironically, Paramount would become part of Viacom in 1995. The Lucy Show would become part of the CBS Paramount Television library in 2006, after the CBS-Viacom split, in which Paramount-owned shows (including The Lucy Show) would become CBS property.
- Several reference books on television history contain errors regarding the settings of The Lucy Show. The first three seasons take place in fictional Danfield, New York, not Connecticut. When the setting is moved to California, the locale is Los Angeles, not San Francisco. It is believed that these errors first appeared in the 1st edition of The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows: 1946-Present, published in 1978.
- There is speculation among fans that an official DVD release may come once Paramount is finished releasing all I Love Lucy product including the hour long episodes. As of now, there are a handful of public domain releases with episodes mainly from the California era of the show.
