- The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour
:"We Love Lucy" redirects here; this article is not to be confused with
I Love Lucy ."Infobox Television
show_name = The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour
caption = Title card for "The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour".
format =Situation comedy
runtime = 60 minutes per episode
creator =Desilu Productions
starring =Lucille Ball Desi Arnaz Vivian Vance William Frawley
Richard Keith
country = USA
network =CBS
distributor =Paramount Television
first_aired =November 6 ,1957
last_aired =April 1 ,1960
num_episodes = 13 (List of episodes)"The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour" is a
1957 -60CBS 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. [cite web|url=http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/I/htmlI/ilovelucy/ilovelucy.htm|title=I Love Lucy|publisher=The Museum of Broadcast Communications|author=Christopher Anderson|accessdate=2007-10-31]Desilu produced the show, which was mostly filmed at theirLos Angeles studios with occasional on-location shoots atLake Arrowhead , Las Vegas andSun Valley, Idaho . CBS reran the show during the summers of1962 -67, after which it went into syndication.Description and evaluation
During the final season of "I Love Lucy", the Ricardos and Mertzes moved to
Westport, Connecticut , which reflected the growth of thesuburbs 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 asAnn Sothern ,Rudy Vallee ,Tallulah Bankhead ,Fred MacMurray andJune Haver ,Betty Grable andHarry James ,Fernando Lamas ,Maurice Chevalier ,Danny Thomas and his "Make Room for Daddy " family,Red Skelton ,Paul Douglas ,Ida Lupino andHoward Duff ,Milton Berle ,Robert Cummings , and (in the final episode, called "Lucy Meets the Moustache")Ernie Kovacs andEdie Adams .The show ended at almost the same time as the marriage of
Lucille Ball andDesi Arnaz . In fact, there were many episodes in which constant bickering between Lucy and Desi was noted. In thepenultimate 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 endedApril 1 ,1960 , and their marriage endedMay 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 [http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/shownews.cfm?ShowID=2138 released on DVD] on
March 13 ,2007 as a complete set.The show is memorialized in the
Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Center inJamestown, New York .(See also [http://www.savelucydesicenter.org SaveLucyDesiCenter.org] .)Regular cast
Episodes
*
List of The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour Episodes Notes
External links
*imdb title|id=0050033|title=The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour
*Tv.com show|id=2764|title=The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour
* [http://www.geocities.com/TelevisionCity/6066/epguhour.html Episode guide and descriptions for "The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour"]
* [http://tvland.classictvhits.com/LucyDesiComedyHour/ "The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour" at TVLand.com]
* [http://socal.southwestmovies.com/TheLucy-DesiComedyHour/ Production details for "The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour"]
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