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The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- "We Love Lucy" redirects here; this article is not to be confused with I Love Lucy.
| The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour | |
|---|---|
 Title card for The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour. |
|
| Format | Situation comedy |
| Created by | Desilu Productions |
| Starring | Lucille Ball Desi Arnaz Vivian Vance William Frawley Richard Keith |
| Country of origin |  United States |
| No. of episodes | 13 (List of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Running time | 60 minutes per episode |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | CBS |
| Original run | November 6, 1957 – April 1, 1960 |
The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour was a 1957-60 CBS television situation comedy. The show was more a collection of occasional specials than a regular series. Its original network title was The Ford Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show for the first season and The Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse Presents The Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show for the following seasons. It was the successor to the classic comedy, I Love Lucy, and featured the same major cast members. The production schedule avoided the grind of a regular weekly series.[1] Desilu produced the show, which was mostly filmed at their Los Angeles studios with occasional on-location shoots at Lake Arrowhead, Las Vegas and Sun Valley, Idaho. CBS reran the show during the summers of 1962-67, after which it went into syndication.
Contents |
During the final season of I Love Lucy the Ricardo family moved to Westport, Connecticut, which reflected the growth of the suburbs throughout America. The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour was also set in the new suburban locale, only at a one-hour length (note: the first episode, "Lucy Takes a Cruise to Havana," originally ran 75 minutes), and with guest stars such as Ann Sothern, Rudy Vallee, Tallulah Bankhead, Fred MacMurray and June Haver, Betty Grable and Harry James, Fernando Lamas, Maurice Chevalier, Danny Thomas and his Make Room for Daddy family, Red Skelton, Paul Douglas, Ida Lupino and Howard Duff, Milton Berle, Robert Cummings, and (in the final episode, called "Lucy Meets the Moustache") Ernie Kovacs and Edie Adams.
The show ended at almost the same time as the marriage of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. In fact, there were many episodes in which constant bickering between Lucy and Desi was noted. In the penultimate episode of the series, titled "The Ricardos Go to Japan", Lucy appeared on screen red-eyed due to her crying during the arguments between herself and Desi. In the making of the last episode, Lucy and Desi did not speak directly to each other except when their characters were required to do so. The series ended April 1, 1960, and their marriage ended May 4, 1960. (Actually, the last episode was filmed March 2, with the divorce proceedings starting the next day.)
Critics have generally regarded the series as a rather pallid continuation of I Love Lucy, with not enough of the original show's brisk pace and memorable sketchwork. Still, many fans enjoy the series due to the cast, which remained intact from the original. The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour was occasionally seen on nostalgia outlets like the TV Land cable network or in thirty-minute installments under the title We Love Lucy, where stations run it directly after the sixth season of I Love Lucy. This allows them to have 26 additional "episodes" that run like a seventh season.
The series was released on DVD on March 13, 2007 as a complete set.
| Actor/Character | |
|---|---|
| Lucille Ball | Lucy Ricardo |
| Desi Arnaz | Ricky Ricardo |
| Vivian Vance | Ethel Mertz |
| William Frawley | Fred Mertz |
| Keith Thibodeaux credited as "Richard Keith" | Little Ricky Ricardo |
- ^ Christopher Anderson. I Love Lucy. The Museum of Broadcast Communications. Retrieved on 2007-10-31.