I've been thinking and wondering. What do you think it would have been like if "The Lucy Show" was actually a spin off of "I Love Lucy"?

I know the "The Lucy/Desi Comedy Hour" specials is sort of a spin off but, I actually don't think of it as a spin off. I think of "TLDCH" as just a continuation of "I Love Lucy" just in a hour long format.

What they could've done with "The Lucy Show" if it where a spin off of "ILL" they could have just killed of Ricky and made Lucy Ricardo a widow. Then Ethel would have finally devorced Fred after married to him for so long. Then Ethel and Lucy sold their Conneticut home and they could've moved to Danvil with Little Ricky not long after buring Ricky Sr. Ethel would've moved in with Lucy and adopted a son named Shirmon and Lucy could have adopted a daughter name Chris.

Shirmon would've been Shirmon Mertz and Chris would have been Christ Ricardo. Then they could've of done a special episode where they tell what happened to Ricky Sr when he died and it would tell about Fred and Ethel's devorce. What do you think this would have been like? Do you think that the ratings would have been as good as they where? Then of course Lucy Ricardo would up and move again when they came to the California era. Then Ethel would visit Lucy in one episode where the remence about past times even from moments in the I Love Lucy show.

I've noticed in Season 1 of The Lucy Show there where some stuff that sort of reminded you of I Love Lucy. Like when Lucy and Viv did that popcorn thing that sort of reminded me of the "A Millian Doller Idea" episode from I Love Lucy. Please let me know your ideas. Thanks.

...but actually, the series was based on Irene Kampen's 1961 autobiography, "Life Without George", and was credited as such at the end of each episode. Ms. Kampen, who died in 1998, wrote about keeping her family (and her life) together after her divorce from her husband. Desi Arnaz, who was still in charge of Desilu at the time, bought the rights to the book with the intention of turning it into Lucy's next TV series in 1962, which he did. However, for purposes of the TV show and Lucy's on-screen character, Desi and the show's writers ["Three Bobs and a Babe", who also wrote "I LOVE LUCY" and the hour-long specials] reworked the premise, making "Lucy Carmichael" a widow, with "Vivian Bagley" [Viv] as the divorcee who shares the same house with herfamily in order to make ends meet for both {nobody in the world was going to accept "Lucy" as a divorced woman on TV; Vivian, yes}. Eventually, the show became a disguised variation of "I LOVE LUCY", without the husbands. Gale Gordon joined the cast in the second season as a kind of surrogate "Ricky" and "Fred" ["No, Mrs. Carmichael, you can't have the money.."/"But, Mr. Mooney, you said if I needed money for a rainy day, I could have it any time I wanted!"/{holding his palm out} "It's a perfectly beautiful day..."/"Not where I'm standing!"/"Use an umbrella. Now, GET OUT!!"].

And you're right about "THE LUCY-DESI COMEDY HOUR" [originally shown as "THE LUCILLE BALL-DESI ARNAZ SHOW", because the rights to the original "LUCY" title was acquired by CBS along with the original half-hours in 1957] being a "sequel" to the half-hour series; Desi wanted to do a monthly series as early as 1955, but CBS signed a two-year extension for "I LOVE LUCY" instead. By 1957, Desi insisted he and Lucy would appear in "monthly" specials only (it was usually about two months- or more- between new episodes during the 1957-'60 period), and they ended when he and Lucy decided to end their marriage as well.

I don't know, however, if viewers really wanted to see a divorced "Lucy" and "Ethel", or were ready to accept the fact that "Ricky" might have died, "off-camera". The idea in those days was to present happy families together in sitcoms- not divorced, separated or deceased. "Reality", in that sense, didn't happen until the late '60s and early '70s...and by that time, Lucy didn't want to change her format, either. "HERE'S LUCY" was her way of "stretching the soup", because she sold the rights to "THE LUCY SHOW", along with Desilu, to Paramount in 1968, and had to "start over again". But "HERE'S LUCY" was really just another variation of her "Lucy" character, in a slightly different setting...

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The whole Life Without George thing is kind of a farce though. It's pretty obvious that Lucy Carmichael is Lucy Ricardo with a different name in a different situation. I Love Lucy creator Jess Oppenheimer was prepared to go to court with Lucille Ball to prove that. He had evidence that the writers had been instructed to make Lucy Carmichael as much as possible just like Lucy Ricardo, so the whole notion of basing the new series on a book was really just a dodge.

I've noticed in Season 1 of The Lucy Show there where some stuff that sort of reminded you of I Love Lucy. Like when Lucy and Viv did that popcorn thing that sort of reminded me of the "A Millian Doller Idea" episode from I Love Lucy. Please let me know your ideas. Thanks.

It was similiar to ILL in the way of that banker being in charge of Lucy's trust fund, he read it to her when she wanted more money. It stated not to give her more even if she gets mad or cries, which reminded me of Ricky doing something like that. And again when Viv complains about how much of a tight wad her ex is, like Fred. They could've done the spin off with Lucy and Ricky divorced and made Ethel a widow, adopting Sherman before Fred died. I wouldn't include Chris. The situations they got themselves into were like in ILL.

I replied in another forum it needs to be merged into this one.

...when Lucy's 1948-'51 radio series, "MY FAVORITE HUSBAND", was officially adapted from Isabel Scott Rorick's 1941 novel, "Mr. and Mrs. Cugat" [which had previously been adapted into a 1942 Paramount feature, "Are Husbands Necessary?", starring Ray Milland]. Jess Oppenheimer, Bob Carroll Jr. and Madelyn Davis soon converted it into more of a "domestic" sitcom[the "Cugats" became the "Coopers" by the fall of '48]- and elements of that (along with several scripts) were adapted into "I LOVE LUCY" as well. Jess knew Lucy's "character", whether she was "Liz Cooper", "Lucy Ricardo" or "Lucy Carmichael", backwards and forwards...

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