Here's Lucy is
Lucille Ball's third network television sitcom.
It ran on
CBS from 1968 to 1974.
Background
Though
The Lucy Show was
still hugely popular during the previous (1967-68) season,
finishing in the top five of the Nielsen Ratings (at #2), Ball
opted to end that series at the end of that season and create a new
show, as she had just sold
Desilu
Productions (which owned and produced
The Lucy Show),
to
Gulf + Western. Ball did not wish
to continue to star in a show that she no longer owned.
Here's
Lucy was produced by Ball's newly-created production company,
Lucille Ball Productions. Desilu's successor
Paramount Television (PTV) co-produced
the first season, but sold its stake in the show to Ball
afterwards. As a result, it is currently the only show starring
Ball that is not owned by PTV's successor
CBS Television Studios (PTV gained
rights to her final show,
Life with
Lucy, after then-parent
Viacom
acquired co-producer
Spelling
Entertainment).
Premise
The program's premise changed from
The
Lucy Show.
Ball's character lived in Los Angeles,
California
and was named Lucy Carter. In this new
incarnation, she had two children named Kim and Craig, played by
her real life children,
Lucie Arnaz and
Desi Arnaz, Jr. She worked for an
employment agency run by her brother-in-law Harry, played by
Gale Gordon in a role similar to his
Mr. Mooney role from
The Lucy
Show.
Mary Jane Croft, who had
costarred on the last three seasons of
The Lucy Show, also
became a regular on the new series, and Ball's longtime costar
Vivian Vance also made numerous guest
appearances as Vivian Jones through the series' run.
Guest stars and notable episodes
Perhaps the most famous episode was one from 1970 in which
Richard Burton and
Elizabeth Taylor guest star in a storyline
involving their famous diamond, which becomes stuck on Lucy's
finger. Ball and Burton reportedly did not get along, as he found
Ball's rigid perfectionism grating and he subsequently wrote about
her in extremely unflattering terms in his memoir.
During its run,
Here's Lucy featured a number of famous
guest stars, many of whom were Ball's real life friends, often
playing themselves (as had also been the case during the final
three years of
The Lucy Show). Among the stars,
Ann-Margret,
Jack
Benny,
Milton Berle,
George Burns,
Carol
Burnett,
Johnny Carson,
Petula Clark,
Vincent
Price,
Tony Randall,
Buddy Rich,
Dinah
Shore,
O.J. Simpson,
Danny
Thomas,
Lawrence Welk,
Flip Wilson,
Herbie
Faye, and
Shelley Winters all
appeared during the run of the show. In addition, Lucille Ball
appeared as
herself (in an episode in which Lucy Carter
enters a Lucille Ball look-alike contest; the episode featured then
fairly new technology, enabling Ball to appear on screen with
herself).
In 1972, Ball suffered a leg fracture in a skiing accident and as a
result, spent much of the 1972-73 season in a full-leg cast. (This
was written into the show, with the Lucy Carter character also
breaking her leg.) The "slapstick" was toned down for the remainder
of the series, given Ball's decreased ability to perform physical
comedy as a result of her injury.
Final episode
Here's Lucy ceased production at the end of the 1973-74
season, thus ending nearly twenty-three years of Ball appearing
regularly on television. Though it was widely reported at the time
that it was Ball's decision not to continue (as she wanted to
pursue other projects), a number of sources through the years have
stated that it was CBS that chose not to renew the series for the
following season: the ratings had fallen during the final season,
though
Here's Lucy did still finish in the top thirty at
the end of the 1974 season.
[60211]
(The network was also in the process of reinventing its image,
having already
replaced much of their
old guard television product with more contemporary
fare like
The Mary Tyler
Moore Show,
All in the
Family,
The Bob
Newhart Show, and
M*A*S*H;
Ball was the last performer from
TV's classic age who still had a
weekly series at the beginning of 1974.)
Nielsen Ratings
- 1968-69: #9
- 1969-70: #6
- 1970-71: #3
- 1971-72: #11
- 1972-73: #15
- 1973-74: #29
Syndication
Not initially offered in syndication when the series ended in 1974,
CBS Daytime reran the series from May 2 to November 4, 1977. By
1982,
Here's Lucy was finally put into broadcast
syndication first by
Telepictures, and
in turn the rights were later transferred to
Warner Bros. Television Distribution
(which acquired Telepictures' holdings). Warner Bros. TV remains
the distribution rights holder for all media except home video
(
Shout! Factory formerly held the rights, but they
currently belong to MPI Home Video).
DVD releases
Here's Lucy: Best Loved Episodes from the Hit Television
Series was released
August 17,
2004 by
Shout!
Factory. The release is hard to find
at most retailers.
On August 25, 2009,
MPI Home Video
released
The Complete First Season of
Here's Lucy
on DVD in Region 1, with
The Complete Second Season
following on November 3, 2009. MPI stated that it intends on
releasing all 6 seasons/144 episodes on DVD in individual season
sets.
| DVD Name |
Ep # |
Release date |
| Season One |
24 |
August 25, 2009 |
| Season Two |
24 |
November 3, 2009 |
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