Lucille Ball – An appreciation on her 100th birthday

This weekend — August 6th to be exact — marks what would have been Lucille Ball‘s 100th birthday. I have been a Lucy fan since I was a child, but oddly enough I remember seeing The Lucy Show on TV in the mornings (CBS often reran Lucy’s first two sitcoms in the morning hours) before I ever knew about I Love Lucy. Once I was introduced to that show, which I remember played on a local D.C. channel on Saturday night (eons before Fox came into existence), I was hooked on all things Lucy.

It’s amazing the foresight Lucy and her husband Desi Arnaz had at the time, when most TV shows were either live or captured live on kinescopes (performances filmed off of a TV monitor then distributed to broadcasters), to produce I Love Lucy on film using three cameras (which became the industry standard for those shows “filmed before a live studio audience”). CBS, of course, wasn’t thrilled with the idea because of the cost but Lucy and Desi formed their own company, Desilu, and footed the bill. Needless to say, because of this innovation, we are able to enjoy I Love Lucy today in the same pristine condition as when it first began airing in 1951.

Over the course of six full seasons (followed by 13 one-hour episodes that aired over the course of the next three years), America fell in love with Lucy and Ricky Ricardo, their son Little Ricky and best friends (and landlords) Fred and Ethel Mertz. During that time, 179 half-hour episodes were produced and gave us so many memorable moments that it’s too difficult to pick just one: Lucy and Ethel get a job in a candy factory, Lucy gets tipsy doing a TV commercial, Lucy and Ethel dress as martians, Lucy tries to raise chickens and does the tango with Ricky with a couple of dozen eggs in her blouse (which led to the longest recorded audience laughter in the show’s history), the Ricardos and Mertzes head to Hollywood and encounter major movie stars (friends of the Arnazes who would normally never do television), the trip to Europe, the move to Connecticut … the list goes on and on. The show was number one in its time slot for its entire run, but personal lives got in the way as Lucy and Desi, who started the show to save their marriage, found it difficult to maintain their public and personal lives and ended the show voluntarily.

After The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour had ended in 1960, Lucy continued to act but the immediacy of television lured her back in 1962 when she became the first woman to head her own production company, Lucille Ball Productions, and got back together with her former co-star Vivian Vance for another sitcom, The Lucy Show (1962 – 1968). The show was a hit and viewers loved seeing Lucy and Vivian together again (despite the fact that some critics thought their schtick was unbecoming for women of their age). When I first saw The Lucy Show, it was in color and there was no Viv (Lucy’s best friend then was Mary Jane Croft), so I never knew about those earlier seasons until TV Land ran them several years ago (syndicators rarely picked up black and white episodes of long running series because they felt no one would watch them, i.e. the first season of I Dream of Jeannie and the first three seasons of Bewitched, which rarely saw the light of day until TV Land came along). There were many memorable Lucy and Viv episodes, but my favorite episode was when Lucy met Jack Benny, who was looking for a new bank for his money. He brought her to his home to show her his own elaborate, Rube Goldberg-esque vault and it was one of the funniest things I had ever seen (I think I got my love for Jack Benny from this episode and discovered his show via late night TV back in the early 80s – another comedy gem that’s rarely seen today).

The Lucy Show also brought Lucy together with her great comedy foil, Gale Gordon (who was the original choice to play Fred Mertz), and when the show ended it didn’t take long for Lucy to return to CBS for her third series, Here’s Lucy (1968 – 1974), with Gordon and her real-life children, Lucie Arnaz and Desi Arnaz, Jr. I was glued to my TV on Monday night (Lucy’s home on CBS pretty much since 1951) and can recall such classic episodes as Lucy meeting Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton and getting Taylor’s diamond ring stuck on her finger, and Lucy having to go into decontamination after coming in contact with astronauts right after a splashdown. Even Lucy’s real life skiing accident was incorporated into the show after Lucy broke her leg and did several episodes from a hospital bed!  What a trooper. Lucy was also able to get her Hollywood friends to appear on the show, everyone from Carol Burnett to Wayne Newton, from Lawrence Welk to Ginger Rogers (even Joan Crawford made an appearance on The Lucy Show!).

After Here’s Lucy ended, Lucy did some specials, made some movies, did guest appearances on variety and game shows (she loved the game show Body Language, and even endorsed the home game version) and made one last stab at a sitcom in 1986 with Life with Lucy, which aired on ABC and was produced by Aaron Spelling and co-starred Gale Gordon. Unfortunately, the show was a bit too old-fashioned for TV viewers and it’s not been remembered kindly by many, but having seen a few episodes recently it really wasn’t that bad. The family dynamic didn’t work at all, but whenever Lucy and Gale were together in the hardware store setting, you could see the comedy gold. Only 13 episodes were produced and I believe 6 of those have never aired. Die-hard Lucy fans like myself are hoping for a DVD release sometime in the near future.

So, in honor of Lucille Ball’s 100th birthday, I just want to say I love Lucy and thank you for giving us the gift of laughter … a gift that will last forever.

Did you know Lucy started her career as a Goldwyn Girl at MGM and had a long career in the movies before making television her home? Join us over at CliqueClack Flicks for more on Lucy’s film career. And if you’re ever in upstate New York, swing by Jamestown, Lucy’s home town, and visit the Lucy-Desi Museum.

Clacked by Chuck Duncan
on Aug 05, 2011 @ 14:00 EST5EDT