''Here's Lucy'' is an American
sitcom
A sitcom (short for situation comedy or situational comedy) is a genre of comedy produced for radio and television, that centers on a recurring cast of character (arts), characters as they navigate humorous situations within a consistent settin ...
starring
Lucille Ball
Lucille Désirée Ball (August 6, 1911 – April 26, 1989) was an American actress, comedian, producer, and studio executive. She was recognized by ''Time (magazine), Time'' in 2020 as one of the most influential women of the 20th century for h ...
. The series co-starred her long-time comedy partner
Gale Gordon and her real-life children
Lucie Arnaz and
Desi Arnaz Jr. It was broadcast on
CBS from 1968 to 1974. It was Ball's third network sitcom, following ''
I Love Lucy
''I Love Lucy'' is an American sitcom that originally aired on CBS from October 15, 1951, to May 6, 1957, with a total of 180 half-hour episodes spanning six seasons. The series starred Lucille Ball and her husband Desi Arnaz, along with Vivian ...
'' (1951–57) and ''
The Lucy Show'' (1962–68).
Background
During the sixth season of ''
The Lucy Show'', Ball sold
Desilu Productions to
Gulf & Western. Although it finished as the second-most watched program of the 1967–68 season, Ball opted to end the series. Not only did she feel there were enough episodes for syndicated reruns, but she no longer wished to star in a series she no longer owned. She decided to develop a new series on the condition that her two children co-star with her and Gordon.
[Interview with Lucie Arnaz.](_blank)
''The Archive of American Television'' (December 9, 2011). In April 1968, Ball and CBS announced that a new series starring Ball and the Arnaz children was in development under ''Lucy Show'' producer
Milt Josefsberg
Milt Josefsberg (June 29, 1911 – December 14, 1987) was an American screenwriter.
Career
Milt Josefsberg's first big break came in 1938, when he was hired as writer on Bob Hope's radio program.Josefsberg, Milt: ''The Jack Benny Show'' (Arlin ...
.
Doris Singleton, who played Carolyn Appleby on ''I Love Lucy'', has said she was originally going to be a series regular on the show as Harry Carter's secretary, but the idea was dropped when Lucy brought her children on board with the show. ''Here's Lucy'' was produced by Ball's newly created production company, Lucille Ball Productions. Desilu's successor
Paramount Television
The first incarnation of Paramount Television was operated as the television production division of the American film studio Paramount Pictures, until it changed its name to CBS Paramount Television on January 17, 2006.
History
Desilu Pro ...
co-produced the first season, but sold its stake in the show to Ball afterwards.
Unlike most sitcoms of the era, ''Here's Lucy'' was filmed before a live audience; standard practice at the time was to film an episode on a closed set and add a
laugh track during post-production. However, a laugh track was still used to fill any gaps in audience reactions or missed punchlines. The live format was requested by Ball herself, as she believed that she performed better in the presence of an audience.
The title sequence animation was by
Jim Danforth.
Premise

The program's premise changed from ''
The Lucy Show''. Unlike Ball's character on the previous program — Lucy Carmichael, who originally lived in New York and later moved to California — in her third sitcom, Ball's character of Lucy Hinkley Carter was already living in Los Angeles, and once again bore a name containing "ar" in tribute to her ex-husband
Desi Arnaz
Desiderio Alberto Arnaz y de Acha III (March 2, 1917 – December 2, 1986), known as Desi Arnaz, was a Cuban-American actor, musician, producer, and bandleader. He played Ricky Ricardo on the American television sitcom ''I Love Lucy'', in whi ...
.
In this new incarnation, Lucy was a widow with two children named Kim and Craig, played by her real life children,
Lucie Arnaz and
Desi Arnaz Jr. (who, in real life, was part of the teen pop band
Dino, Desi & Billy). She was employed at "Carter's Unique Employment Agency" by her bachelor 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 been a regular featured player on the last three seasons of ''The Lucy Show'', also became a semi-regular on the new series. Character actress Vanda Barra, who had played small parts on ''The Lucy Show'', was also added to this sitcom and gradually was upgraded. Towards the end of the run of ''Here's Lucy'', Barra became part of the ensemble cast. Ball's longtime costar
Vivian Vance
Vivian Vance (born Vivian Roberta Jones; July 26, 1909 – August 17, 1979) was an American actress best known for playing landlady Ethel Mertz on the sitcom ''I Love Lucy'' (1951–1957), for which she won the 1953 Primetime Emmy Award for Outs ...
also made six guest appearances as Vivian Jones through the series' run.
The series was created by Milt Josefsberg and Bob O'Brien in 1968. They wanted to comically present the "generation gap" struggle between a working mother and her two increasingly independent teenagers. They wanted change this time around and to escape the shows for which Lucy had previously been so well known. They touched upon current events (civil rights, rock music, the sexual revolution and changing gender/sexual mores).
The writers interviewed Lucie and Desi Jr. to allow a more realistic approach to how teenagers acted. In addition, they were given free rein to choose the names for their respective characters.
Cast
Episodes
Guest stars and notable episodes
Richard Burton
Richard Burton (; born Richard Walter Jenkins Jr.; 10 November 1925 – 5 August 1984) was a Welsh actor.
Noted for his mellifluous baritone voice, Burton established himself as a formidable Shakespearean actor in the 1950s and gave a memor ...
and
Elizabeth Taylor
Dame Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor (February 27, 1932 – March 23, 2011) was an English and American actress. She began her career as a child actress in the early 1940s and was one of the most popular stars of classical Hollywood cinema in the 19 ...
guest-starred in the 1970 third season opener, 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; he subsequently wrote about her in extremely unflattering terms in his memoir. (The episode reunited Ball with longtime cowriters
Madelyn Pugh Davis and
Bob Carroll Jr. for the first time since both writers had left ''The Lucy Show'' in 1964.) Another noteworthy episode was "Lucy Visits Jack Benny." In addition to Benny,
Jackie Gleason
Herbert John Gleason (born Herbert Walton Gleason Jr.; February 26, 1916June 24, 1987), known as Jackie Gleason, was an American comedian, actor, writer, and composer also known as "The Great One". He developed a style and characters from growin ...
made a surprise cameo reprising his role of bus driver Ralph Kramden.
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, including
Vivian Vance
Vivian Vance (born Vivian Roberta Jones; July 26, 1909 – August 17, 1979) was an American actress best known for playing landlady Ethel Mertz on the sitcom ''I Love Lucy'' (1951–1957), for which she won the 1953 Primetime Emmy Award for Outs ...
,
Ann-Margret,
Milton Berle,
Carol Burnett,
George Burns,
Ruth Buzzi,
Johnny Carson
John William Carson (October 23, 1925 – January 23, 2005) was an American television host, comedian, and writer best known as the host of NBC's ''The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson'' (1962–1992). Carson is a cultural phenomenon and w ...
,
Liberace,
Petula Clark
Sally "Petula" Clark (born 15 November 1932) is a British singer, actress, and songwriter. She started her professional career as a child actor, child performer and has had the longest career of any British entertainer, spanning more than 85 y ...
,
John Davidson,
Eva Gabor
Eva Gabor ( ; February 11, 1919 – July 4, 1995) was a Hungarian-American actress and socialite. Gabor voiced Duchess and Miss Bianca in the Disney animations ''The Aristocats'' (1970), ''The Rescuers'' (1977), and ''The Rescuers Down Under'' ...
,
Helen Hayes
Helen Hayes MacArthur (; October 10, 1900 – March 17, 1993) was an American actress. Often referred to as the "First Lady of American Theatre", she was the second person and first woman to win EGOT, the EGOT (an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and ...
,
Dean Martin
Dean Martin (born Dino Paul Crocetti; June 7, 1917 – December 25, 1995) was an American singer, actor, and comedian. Nicknamed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, King of Cool", he is regarded as one of the most popular entertainers of ...
,
Eve McVeagh,
Vincent Price,
Tony Randall,
Buddy Rich,
Joan Rivers
Joan Alexandra Molinsky (June 8, 1933 – September 4, 2014), known professionally as Joan Rivers, was an American comedienne, actress, producer, writer and television host. She was noted for her blunt, often controversial comedic persona that w ...
,
Ginger Rogers
Ginger Rogers (born Virginia Katherine McMath; July 16, 1911 – April 25, 1995) was an American actress, dancer and singer during the Classical Hollywood cinema, Golden Age of Hollywood. She won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her starri ...
,
Dinah Shore,
Danny Thomas
Amos Muzyad Yaqoob Kairouz, (born January 6, 1912 – February 6, 1991) known professionally as Danny Thomas, was an American comedian, actor, singer, producer, and philanthropist. He created and starred in ''The Danny Thomas Show''. In additio ...
,
Lawrence Welk
Lawrence Welk (March 11, 1903 – May 17, 1992) was an American accordionist, bandleader, and television impresario, who hosted ''The Lawrence Welk Show'' from 1951 to 1982. The program was known for its light and family-friendly style, and the ...
,
Flip Wilson,
Shelley Winters,
Donny Osmond and
Patty Andrews.
Ball appeared as herself in an episode in which Lucy Carter enters a Lucille Ball look-alike contest. This episode, designed to
cross-promote Ball's then current film ''
Mame
MAME (formerly an acronym of Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) is a free and open-source emulator designed to emulate the hardware of arcade games, video game consoles, old computers and other systems in software on modern personal computers and ...
'', enabled Ball to appear on screen with herself.
Mary Treen was cast as Mary Winters in the series finale, the 1974 episode "Lucy Fights the System".
Proposed spin-off
At the end of the third season, Desi Arnaz, Jr. decided to leave the series to pursue a movie acting career. His character of Craig returned in the fifth-season episode "Lucy and Joe Namath', but after that he never again appeared on the show although Craig was referred to from time to time. With Desi Jr.'s absence, Lucie Arnaz's character of Kim became more a prominent part of the program as well as a strong comedic foil for both Ball and Gordon.
During the fourth season, the producers proposed a
spin-off of the show for Kim, titled ''The Lucie Arnaz Show''. The show would have Kim and her friend Sue (
Susan Tolsky) live in their own apartment in a building run by Lucy's brother, Herb Hinkley (
Alan Oppenheimer
Alan Oppenheimer (born April 23, 1930) is an American actor. He has performed numerous roles on live action television since the 1960s and has had an active career doing voice work since the 1970s.
Early life
Oppenheimer was born in New York ...
), who is very over protective of Kim.
The show was a back-door pilot, airing as the season four finale. The pilot was anticipated to be picked up as a weekly series.
The week before this installment aired,
Vivian Vance
Vivian Vance (born Vivian Roberta Jones; July 26, 1909 – August 17, 1979) was an American actress best known for playing landlady Ethel Mertz on the sitcom ''I Love Lucy'' (1951–1957), for which she won the 1953 Primetime Emmy Award for Outs ...
made her annual (and final) appearance on ''Here's Lucy'' in the episode "With Viv as a Friend, Who Needs an Enemy?" Vance had moved back to California by this time and Ball was so thrilled to work with her again that she asked Vance to rejoin her as her comrade on ''Here's Lucy'' the following season if her daughter's pilot sold to CBS. However, Arnaz's show was not well received and was not included in the 1972–73 fall lineup. In addition, shortly after finishing the episode with Ball, Vance was diagnosed with breast cancer and then suffered a slight stroke. Lucie Arnaz remained with ''Here's Lucy'' until the show ended in the spring of 1974.
The pilot, "Kim Finally Cuts You-Know-Whose Apron Strings", was written by ''Lucy'' veteran writers
Madelyn Davis &
Bob Carroll, Jr.
Cast
*Lucie Arnaz as Kim Carter
*Susan Tolsky as Sue
*Alan Oppenheimer as Herb Hinkley
Lucie Arnaz eventually did star in her own self-named show
The Lucie Arnaz Show in 1985 but that was unrelated to the premise of proposed Here's Lucy spin-off.
Final seasons
In 1972, shortly before filming of the fifth season began, Ball broke her right leg in a skiing accident. As a result, the fifth season saw a season-long storyline where in the character of Lucy Carter also had a broken leg. Both Ball and Lucy Carter spent much of the season in a
wheelchair
A wheelchair is a mobilized form of chair using two or more wheels, a footrest, and an armrest usually cushioned. It is used when walking is difficult or impossible to do due to illnesses, injury, disabilities, or age-related health conditio ...
and full-leg cast. According to Geoffrey Mark Fidelman, author of ''The Lucy Book'', this was the point where the "Lucy" character was "finally allowed to age."
Ball's injury and recovery severely limited her ability to perform physical comedy during the season. This gave the other members of the cast, such as Lucie Arnaz and featured players Mary Jane Croft and Vanda Barra, a chance to shine. It also gave Gale Gordon's character of Harry a chance to be more sympathetic and affectionate toward Lucy, which had been completely missing since Gordon first joined the cast of ''The Lucy Show'' nine years earlier. A thaw in the relationship between Lucy and Harry accelerated, so that they could interact more as friendly in-laws rather than just as antagonistic co-workers.
Despite Ball's injury, physical comedy was never completely eliminated. During the recovery, there were small gags that Ball could safely perform with little to no general injury or harm to her leg. As her recovery progressed, Ball was able to take on more physical comedy routines. However, the slapstick aspects were still toned down for the remainder of the series in comparison to earlier seasons.
By the spring of 1973, ''Here's Lucy'' had fallen to #15 in the ratings ─ the first time that a series starring Lucille Ball had fallen out of the top ten. Unsure of whether she wanted to continue, Ball and Gale Gordon filmed a season finale without a studio audience present. In that installment, Harry's business was sold and he and Lucy reminisced together (using flashbacks) about their various adventures together. At the end of the episode, they both leave the office. Lucy then leaves a sign that says "closed temporarily", then she looks at the camera and winks. At the last minute, CBS president
Fred Silverman convinced Ball to return for a sixth season.
On February 27, 1974, ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'' reported that Ball had officially told CBS she would not continue the series. Lucie Arnaz chose to leave the series after being cast in the national tour of ''
Seesaw'', while Ball was launching a film comeback with ''
Mame
MAME (formerly an acronym of Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) is a free and open-source emulator designed to emulate the hardware of arcade games, video game consoles, old computers and other systems in software on modern personal computers and ...
''. Without either of her children, and with enough episodes for syndication, Ball made the decision to end the series.
CBS was also in the process of reinventing its image, having already
replaced much of their "old guard" television product with more contemporary fare such as ''
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
''The Mary Tyler Moore Show'' (also known simply as ''Mary Tyler Moore'') is an American television sitcom created by James L. Brooks and Allan Burns and starring actress Mary Tyler Moore. The show originally aired on CBS from September 19, 1970 ...
'', ''
All in the Family
''All in the Family'' is an American sitcoms in the United States, sitcom television series that aired on CBS for nine seasons from January 12, 1971, to April 8, 1979, with a total of 205 episodes. It was later produced as ''Archie Bunker's Pla ...
'', ''
The Bob Newhart Show'', and ''
M*A*S*H''. Except for ''
Gunsmoke
''Gunsmoke'' is an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman Macdonnell and writer John Meston. It centered on Dodge City, Kansas, in the 1870s, during the settlement of the American West. The central charact ...
'', which would remain for one more season, Ball was the last performer from
TV's classic age who still had a weekly series at the beginning of 1974. Between 1974 and 1978, still under contract, Ball would star in seven television specials for CBS.
Syndication and rights issues
''Here's Lucy'' was not initially offered in syndication when the series ended in 1974 because both ''I Love Lucy'', which was being distributed by Viacom at the time, and ''The Lucy Show'', which was being distributed by Paramount, were still popular in reruns and it was felt that introducing another ''Lucy'' series might undermine the success the other two shows were enjoying. This would also have put Ball in the position of competing against her former series and former production company for ratings, since she no longer had control of either ''I Love Lucy'' or ''The Lucy Show'' after selling Desilu Productions to Paramount’s parent company Gulf + Western.
The show was originally offered internationally, first by
Paramount Television
The first incarnation of Paramount Television was operated as the television production division of the American film studio Paramount Pictures, until it changed its name to CBS Paramount Television on January 17, 2006.
History
Desilu Pro ...
, then by John Pearson International, a company formed by ex-Desilu/Paramount employee John Pearson, who controls foreign sales of the series.
CBS retained the rights to run the show in daytime. CBS Daytime reran the series weekday mornings from May 2 to November 4, 1977, in the same time-slot that they had previously rerun ''The Lucy Show'' from 1968 to 1972, and before that (1959–67) had at various times rerun ''I Love Lucy''. Finally, in the fall of 1981, ''Here's Lucy'' was put into broadcast syndication first by
Telepictures
Telepictures (also known as Telepictures Productions; formerly known as Telepictures Distribution and Telepictures Corporation) is an American television show and filmmaking company, currently operating as a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Entertainmen ...
, who had acquired the rights to the series in 1980, and in turn the rights were later transferred to
Warner Bros. Television Distribution (which acquired Telepictures' successor,
Lorimar-Telepictures
Lorimar-Telepictures Corporation, Inc. was an entertainment company established on February 19, 1986 with the merger of Lorimar Productions, Inc. and Telepictures Corporation. Headquartered at the former Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios (now Sony Pi ...
). ''Here's Lucy'' was not successful in syndication and was withdrawn in 1985.
Largely forgotten in the late 1980s and early 1990s and rarely carried by the cable networks, reruns of the series were returned to air by
Pax TV
Ion Television (referred to on-air as simply Ion) is an American terrestrial television, broadcast television network and Free ad-supported streaming television, FAST television channel owned by the Scripps Networks subsidiary of the E. W. Scri ...
in 1998.
Cozi TV began airing the show on August 11, 2014. The show's current distributor is
Paul Brownstein Productions.
The program was shown in Britain by the
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
fairly soon after it was made, in the Saturday tea-time (mid-afternoon) slot, but it has not been shown often since.
It was seen in Australia on the
GO! channel from 31 May 2010 until November 2010. For many years prior to that on Australian television, the show was distributed by Pacific Telecasters Pty. Ltd before being later transferred to Warner Bros. Television. It was a perennial favourite seen on the
Nine Network
Nine Network (stylised 9Network, and commonly known as Channel Nine or simply Nine) is an Australian commercial free-to-air television network. It is owned by parent company Nine Entertainment and is one of the five main free-to-air television ...
from 1968 to 1988 and in 1992 on
ABC Television. Prior to GO!, the show screened on
Ovation.
As of 2018, the show is available on
Amazon Prime Video
Amazon Prime Video, known simply as Prime Video, is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming television service owned by Amazon. The service primarily distributes films and television series produced or co-produced by ...
in Canada and the USA. As of 2019, it is also available on Pluto in the United States, and Tubi.
Home media
On August 17, 2004,
Shout! Factory and
Sony Music Entertainment
Sony Music Entertainment (SME), commonly known as Sony Music, is an American multinational music company owned by Japanese conglomerate Sony Group Corporation. It is the recording division of Sony Music Group, with the other half being the ...
released ''Here's Lucy: Best Loved Episodes from the Hit Television Series''. The four-disc set features 24 original episodes from the series presented uncut and digitally remastered from original color negatives for superior quality, as well as several bonus features.
On March 25, 2014,
MPI Home Video—under license from the copyright holders, "Desilu, Too", and Lucille Ball Productions, Inc.—released ''Here's Lucy: The Complete Series'' on DVD in Region 1.
In Region 4,
Madman Entertainment has released all six seasons on DVD in Australia.
Other releases
In September 2018,
Time-Life
Time Life, Inc. (also habitually represented with a hyphen as Time-Life, Inc., even by the company itself) was an American multi-media conglomerate company formerly known as a prolific production/publishing company and Direct marketing, direct ...
released a DVD, ''Lucy: The Ultimate Collection'', that contains 14 episodes of ''Here's Lucy'', and which also collected 32 episodes of ''
I Love Lucy
''I Love Lucy'' is an American sitcom that originally aired on CBS from October 15, 1951, to May 6, 1957, with a total of 180 half-hour episodes spanning six seasons. The series starred Lucille Ball and her husband Desi Arnaz, along with Vivian ...
'', as well as 24 episodes of ''
The Lucy Show'', and 4 episodes of the short-lived ABC-TV series ''
Life with Lucy'' (which had at the time never before been released to home media), plus a wide variety of bonus features.
Notes
References
External links
*
TVShowsonDVD.com – ''Here's Lucy'' DVD news articles
{{I Love Lucy
1960s American sitcoms
1970s American sitcoms
Television series about widowhood
Television shows set in Los Angeles
1968 American television series debuts
1974 American television series endings
CBS sitcoms