The Lucy Show

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The Lucy Show ranks 521 out of the 23 shows on TV.com.

The 149 users who count themselves as The Lucy Show fans have written a total of 12 reviews.

Status

Premiered

Ended

Genre

Theme

Related Shows

• Life with Lucy
• The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour
• The Andy Griffith Show
• My Three Sons
• I Love Lucy

The Lucy Show was Ms. Ball's follow-up series to her classic I Love Lucy and subsequent Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour... more »

The Lucy Show was Ms. Ball's follow-up series to her classic I Love Lucy and subsequent Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour series of specials. To insure its success, she brought along many crew members from her previous series, including the writing staff.

During the course of its run, the show underwent several format changes. Initially, the series was set in small town Danfield, New York. Lucy Carmichael was a widow with two children, Chris and Jerry, who shared a house with her buddy Vivian Bagley (Vivian Vance) and her son Sherman. In the first handful of shows, neighbor and occasional boyfriend Harry Conners (Dick Martin) was featured. Many of the plots during the show's first few seasons revolved around parenting and Lucy and Viv's involvement in the community. But Lucy was still Lucy, meaning trouble for anyone who became involved in her ingenious schemes. Holding the keys to her trust fund was tightwad banker Mr. Barnsdahl (Charles Lane) who endured Lucy's numerous attempts to get at more of her money.

At the start of the second season, Lucille met her perfect foil in Gale Gordon, who as banker Theodore J. Mooney, was now in charge of Lucy's account. He bellowed ("Mrs. Carmichael!!!"), huffed, puffed and launched into hothead mode at the slightest provocation. Season two also marked the beginning of the series being filmed in color. Oddly, CBS was still transmitting its programming in black and white. It wasn't until later reruns that these episodes were ever seen in color. (Desilu knew that color was inevitable and having shows shot in color would improve their value later in syndication.) Tired of commuting from her home in the east for a supporting role, Vivian Vance left the show as a regular at the end of the third season. (She still made guest appearances every year or so.) This brought about major changes in the format of the series.

In the fourth year, the writers had Lucy's daughter go to college and her son enrolled in a military academy, effectively making Lucy single and childless. (Her kids were basically sent to that same black hole where son Chuck on Happy Days would be sent--the place where characters just disappear, never to be mentioned again.) Lucy moved to an apartment in Los Angeles where, in one of TV's most unbelievable coincidences, Mr. Mooney had also transferred to work at the Westland Bank. He still had control over Lucy's money; he would eventually hire her to work at the bank.

In an effort to fill the void left by Viv's departure, Joan Blondell was hired to play Lucy's neighbor and partner in crime. Unfortunately, the two actresses did not get along and Blondell was released from her contract after just two shows. Soon, I Love Lucy alumnus Mary Jane Croft would take over the sidekick role as Mary Jane Lewis.
As the plots became centered on Lucy and Mr. Mooney at the bank the situations became increasingly more far-fetched. By the end, the series generally featured a weekly appearance by a famous star playing him or herself.

The series was brought to a close by Ms. Ball who had sold Desilu Studios to Paramount. Rather than do a show she didn't own, she canceled The Lucy Show, reformatted and returned in the fall with Here's Lucy.

Note: In the listing for this series, the writer who began the series as "Madelyn Martin" worked under many variations of her name. Here, she's listed on episodes as "Madelyn Pugh Davis", regardless of how it appeared in the episodes' credits.less «

• Episode Wanted

  Does anybody have on dvd an episode from the third season titled Lucy The Good Skate

  Does anybody have on dvd an episode from the third season titled Lucy The Good Skateless «

  Eric5237 Last online Mar 17, 2009
  3 comments, last one May 2, 2009 + Add Comment

• Dvd Release

  I hope to see the first 3 seasons on dvd soon.  They were the best of the six seasons because of Vivian being a great cohor...more »

  I hope to see the first 3 seasons on dvd soon.  They were the best of the six seasons because of Vivian being a great cohort to Lucy.  The show's writing went horribly downhill from season 4 on. Maybe after all of the I Love Lucy stuff is out on dvd, they will start putting complete seasons of "The Lucy Show" out on dvd. less «

  reno30 Last online Dec 13, 2007
  11 comments, last one Mar 11, 2008 + Add Comment

• Where has this show gone?

  I'm not even sure there's a current editor for this show, but I guess, sadly, since there are no posts what's the use of ha...more »

  I'm not even sure there's a current editor for this show, but I guess, sadly, since there are no posts what's the use of having an editor right?  Well if anyone out there is listening, we should try to get this show back on the air or released on some sort of home entertainment medium.  I do remember watching this show for a very brief time on NickAtNite a few years ago.  They didn't show it uncut like they did I Love Lucy, and lots of times the episode was completely unwatchable from an objective point of view, too bad shows like this get murdered in the name of the all might advertising dollar.  And the VHS and DVD's I've found of this show are basically very low quality and always the same handful of episodes, not even the classics and the best from the first couple years of the show. Come on people, 20 million posts for junk like American Idol and nothing here?   Egads! less «

  dramafreezone Last online May 18, 2009
  14 comments, last one Feb 19, 2008 + Add Comment

•  

  10 Perfect

  Lucille Ball`s classic show! hide « show »

  This was a wonderful show in the first 3 seasons. It was ok the next 3 seasons, but it was better with good old Viv. I think that this show is wonderful, and you could see them doing the stunts. They did everthing from installing a shower, to installing a TV antenna. This show was better in black and white than in color. I love this show and I think it is one of the most classic shows of all time. If you ever see it on TV, be sure to watch good Lucille Ball and maybe good Vivian Vance.

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  ToadstoolFan01 Added Jul 23, 2007 All my reviews
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  10 Perfect

  Classic Lucille Ball in one of the funniest episodes since i love lucy. Im wondering where you can get this show. Im sure its very rare but the public would like to see this memorable show, even me. hide « show »

  "The Lucy Show" is the follow up to the I Love Lucy show. And its as funny as I Love Lucy. Sometimes when im watching I Love Lucy I wonder where I could get the Lucy Show. And sometimes people watching wish they could be in the 50s, 60s and 70s watching Lucille Ball at her best yet. It was a hilarious show. And the person that made it funnier was Vivian Vance. She was pure talent from the moment she set foot on stage and remembered her lines. She was one of my favorites on "I Love Lucy", "The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour", "The Lucy Show", and "Here's Lucy. Theres something about Lucy and Viv I liked. It was their pure talent.

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  paul_mccartney Added May 2, 2007 All my reviews
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  10 Perfect

  Have a ball with Lucille Ball starring in The Lucy Show. hide « show »

  The Lucy Show starring Lucille Ball was a very funny tv series of the 60's which ran between 1962 and 1968. The series ran for 6 seasons. It is a tv show which helped revolutionised comedy and tv viewing as we now know it. The show is about a bank secretary, Lucy Carmichael. Lucy has a mean boss called Theodore J. Mooney who is very unappreciative of Lucy's efforts. Lucy tries to do right by Mr. Mooney but her general work attitude is, "Arrive at work late, take long coffee breaks and lunch breaks and get on Mr. Mooney's nerves", at least from Mr. Mooney's point of view. Lucy has two best friends of many years. There is Mary Jane Lewis and there is also Vivian Bagley. When Lucy and her 2 best friends get together, boy, do they like to gossip. They just can't wait to catch up on each other's news and everybody else's news while they're at it. Lucy loves her friends and cares for them dearly. She loves to shop and to go shopping and on coffee breaks and lunch beaks from work with them. She is always causing foul-ups and bringing misfortune to her boss Mr. Mooney and his well-to-do clients. Mr. Mooney, however, always seems to feel sorry for her and even if he fires her, he always finds it in his heart to take her back. It is as I mentioned a great show and a personal favourite of mine for lots of laughs.

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  stargate_sg1 Added May 2, 2007 All my reviews
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  10 Perfect

  Please VOTE for Lucy!! hide « show »

  Now that we have the complete "I Love Lucy" series on DVD and have the upcoming complete release of "The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour", we still need full season set releases of:
  
  The Lucy Show
  Here's Lucy
  and
  Life with Lucy.
  
  Please go vote for these dvd releases at www.tvshowsondvd.com!!
  It's easy to register and vote. It's completely free and I am sure it makes an impact on DVD releases. I've listed monthly updates on voting stats on www.imdb.com under each of Lucy's shows. Please remember to vote for ALL of Lucy's shows. A TRUE lucy fan needs ALL of her series in their DVD collection. Thanks for the support!

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  sigmapi30 Added Feb 4, 2007 All my reviews
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  9.6 Superb

  Very good in the first three seasons hide « show »

  I Love this show! It's a show featuring Lucille Ball as Lucy Carmichael, Vivian Vance as Vivian Bagley, and Gale Gordon as Mr. Mooney, Lucy's boss at the bank. Lucy and Viv are widows, who live together in Danfield, NY, raising their children. They often get into crazy situations. One is where Lucy and Viv start their own business by giving kiddie parties, and Lucy, who is the clown, floats away with a bundle of helium balloons. Another is where Lucy hypnotizes a nervous symphony conductor, and can't wake him up, so she has to take his place. And another is where Lucy and Viv decide to enroll in a chemistry class and Lucy tries to make a youth serum. After it blows up in the professor's face, he and Viv make Lucy drink the potion, and with makeup, a putty nose, fake eyebrows and a wig, they make Lucy look "younger." In 1965, Vivian Vance left the show, and the storyline had Lucy move to California, where most of the episodes had her working in the bank, and coincidentally, Mr. Mooney came, too. Viv supposedly stayed in NY and got married, so she was now Vivian Bunsen. (She made a few guest appearances in the last two seasons) And Lucy's son Jerry was enrolled in military school. The last three seasons, 1965-1968 had a lot of guest stars. I wish the episodes in public domain were from 1962-1965. I basically have the whole 1966-1967 season on DVD (sans one or two episodes)--but not digitally remastered season sets, they're public domain, bad sound, low picture quality, EDITED, DVDs. (From what I heard, a whole chunk of "Lucy and George Burns" was cut off at the beginning.)

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  day-O Added Nov 18, 2006 All my reviews