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This article is about the television series. For the 1980s rock band of the same name, see The Lucy Show (band).

The Lucy Show
Title card for The Lucy Show 1962-63 season.
Format	Sitcom
Created by	Desilu
Starring	Lucille Ball Vivian Vance Gale Gordon Mary Jane Croft
Country of origin	United States
No. of episodes	156
Production
Running time	30 minutes per episode
Broadcast
Original channel	CBS
Original run	October 1, 1962 – March 11, 1968

The Lucy Show was Lucille Ball's follow up show to I Love Lucy. It began in 1962 and ran until 1968. The premise and the cast changed frequently, with only Gale Gordon lasting most of the run of the show (he joined the cast during the second season). From time to time, Vivian Vance, Lucie Arnaz and Desi Arnaz, Jr. appeared. The earliest scripts were entitled The Lucille Ball Show, but all episodes aired with the title The Lucy Show.

Contents 1 Premise 2 Notable guest stars 3 Opening credits 4 Nielsen Ratings 5 Availability on video and DVD 6 Miscellaneous facts 7 External links

The show began with Lucille Ball as Lucy Carmichael, a widow with two children, Chris (Candy Moore), and Jerry (Jimmy Garrett), living in Danfield, New York (a number of sources have, through the years, incorrectly stated the setting as Danfield, Connecticut), sharing her home with divorced friend Vivian Bagley (Vance) and her son, Sherman (Ralph Hart). Lucy had been left with a substantial trust fund by her late husband, which was managed during the first season by local banker Mr. Barnsdahl (Charles Lane ). At the beginning of the 1963-64 season, the character was replaced by Theodore J. Mooney (Gordon, who would remain with the series for the remainder of its run, despite numerous format changes). Gordon was to have joined the series at its premiere in 1962, but he was still contractually obligated to his role as Mr. Wilson on Dennis the Menace. Mrs. Carmichael spent so much of her time and effort trying to get Mr. Mooney to allow her to invade the principal of the trust fund for various ideas and projects that it finally seemed more reasonable for her just to spend her time working for Mooney directly as his secretary, which she eventually did. Beginning in the 1965 season, Vance left the series. (It was explained that her character had gotten married.) Lucy and Jerry Carmichael and Mr. Mooney moved to California, where both Lucy and Mooney remained in the banking business together (now at a different bank), and Vivian Bagley visited once or twice per season. Lucy's daughter Chris went away to college and was mentioned only once or twice.

Shortly afterward, Jerry was shipped off to a military academy, and his character was very rarely referred to in future episodes. Lucy gained a new best friend in Mary Jane Lewis (Mary Jane Croft), and at this point the premise changed primarily to one where famous guest stars made appearances (usually playing themselves in storylines involving their encountering Lucy while conducting bank business), including Dean Martin, Jack Benny, George Burns, Joan Crawford, Carol Burnett, Ethel Merman, Danny Thomas, Robert Goulet, Phil Silvers, and Milton Berle.

During the 1967-68 season, Lucille Ball sold Desilu Productions (which owned and produced "The Lucy Show") to Gulf and Western Industries, which meant that she no longer owned the series. Rather than continue to star in a show she no longer owned, Ball opted to create a new series, Here's Lucy, which employed herself, Gordon and Croft (and Vance in occasional guest appearances), playing "new" characters (though they were all similar to the their characters on former series). Here's Lucy ran on CBS for an additional six seasons.

Though CBS would broadcast "The Lucy Show" in black and white until the beginning of the 1965-66 season, episodes were actually filmed in color starting with the 1963-64 season, as Ball realized that the episodes would eventually be widely shown in syndication, and that color episodes would command more money when sold to syndication.

The credits list the show's basis as the novel Life Without George, by Irene Kampen.

From the 1965-66 season onward, with the change in format, a number of famous celebrites guest starred on The Lucy Show, usually playing themselves (under the premise that the Lucy Carmichael character, now living in Hollywood, crossed paths with them, either in her day-to-day life, or through her job at the bank). Famous guest stars included Jack Benny, Carol Burnett, George Burns, Joan Crawford, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Dean Martin, Wayne Newton, and John Wayne.

The episode featuring Crawford, "Lucy and the Lost Star" caused much celebrity fodder given Ball and Crawford's very public feud during the filming. According to Ball, Crawford was often drunk on the set and could not memorize her lines. 1 2 Ball was said to have requested several times to replace Crawford with Gloria Swanson, who was supposed to have filled the role originally but bowed out due to health reasons.

The 1966 episode featuring Dean Martin (in which Lucy Carmichael accepted a blind date with Dean Martin's lookalike stunt double, but when he could not make it, sent the real Dean Martin on the date with Lucy in his place) was described by Ball as her favorite episode of the series.

Throughout the series, four openings were used.

• During the first season (1962-63), animated stick figures of Ball and Vance were used (similar to the ones used in later seasons of I Love Lucy and The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour).

• During seasons two and three, footage and stills from previous episodes were used.

• During the final three seasons, a "kaleidoscope" opening was used, in which footage was used of Ball, in a kaleidoscope-like pattern. This is perhaps the best known opening to younger viewers (e.g. those too young to have watched the show when it originally aired on CBS), as the package that was sold into syndication (and later was shown on Nick at Night) used this opening for nearly all the episodes.

• An additional opening was created at the beginning of the 1966 season, that featured Lucille Ball as an animated "jack-in-the-box". Ball reportedly hated it, and it was only used in a handful of episodes at the start of the season, before being replaced.

The music was composed by Wilbur Hatch, who was also responsible for the I Love Lucy theme music.

• 1962-63: #8
• 1963-64: #6
• 1964-65: #7
• 1965-66: #6
• 1966-67: #8
• 1967-68: #2

There is speculation among fans that an official DVD release may come once Paramount is finished releasing all I Love Lucy product including the hour-long episodes. As of now, there are about thirty public domain releases with episodes mainly from the California era of the show. It does seem likely as Paramount has the rights to the show, there will be DVD releases in the near future. Numerous public domain episodes have been also been available on VHS for a number of years, though no comprehensive, season-by-season compilations have been released to date.

Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

• While filming a 1963 episode in which Lucy and Vivian attempt to install a shower (but become trapped inside, unable to shut the water off) Ball nearly drowned while performing in the tank of water. Unable to bring herself back to the surface, it was Vance who realized there was a problem and pulled her co-star to safety; she went on to ad lib until Ball could catch her breath to resume speaking her lines (all the while, cameras continued to film). Neither the film crew nor the live studio audience realized there was a problem.

• Though a number of TV historians have through the years cited One Day at a Time’s Ann Romano (Bonnie Franklin) as television's first regular running character who was a divorcée, that accomplishmment actually belongs to The Lucy Show’s Vivian Bagley.

• Ironically, it was decided early on that the Lucy Carmichael character should be a widow, not a divorcée, since viewers might incorrectly assume that Ball's previous character, Lucy Ricardo, had divorced Ricky, even though Ball and Arnaz were, in fact, divorced in real life.

• Lucille Ball won two Emmy Awards as Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series, for the years 1966-67 and 1967-68 respectively.

• The Lucy Lounge
• The Gale Gordon Archive
• Classic free to download clips from the show in Windows and Real Media formats