Here's Lucy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Here's Lucy | |
|---|---|
 Title card for Here's Lucy. |
|
| Genre | Sitcom |
| Running time | 30 minutes per episode |
| Creator(s) | Lucille Ball Productions |
| Starring | Lucille Ball Gale Gordon Lucie Arnaz Desi Arnaz, Jr. Mary Jane Croft |
| Country of origin |  United States |
| Original channel | CBS |
| Original run | September 23, 1968–March 18, 1974 |
| No. of episodes | 144 |
| IMDb profile | |
Here's Lucy was Lucille Ball's third network television sitcom. It ran on CBS from 1968 to 1974.
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 through the series' run.
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.
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 to 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.
Here's Lucy ceased production at the end of the 1973-74 season, thus ending nearly twenty-three continuous years of Ball appearing weekly 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. [1]
The series was produced by Ball's newly-formed production company, Lucille Ball Productions, which she formed with her second husband and business parter Gary Morton, after the 1967 sale of Desilu to Gulf and Western.
[edit] DVD Releases
- "Here's Lucy: Best Loved Episodes from the Television Series"
