I bought the complete set of 13 shows plus extras on iOffer.com and must say I liked the show it wasn't as bad as everyone made it out to be. Maybe because Lucy is gone now. They even included the cast wrap party which was interesting to see.

I bought the complete set of 13 shows plus extras on iOffer.com and must say I liked the show it wasn't as bad as everyone made it out to be. Maybe because Lucy is gone now. They even included the cast wrap party which was interesting to see.
I'm hoping that after they finish releasing all the seasons of "The Lucy Show" and "Here's Lucy" there will be an official release of this series.

I'm hoping that after they finish releasing all the seasons of "The Lucy Show" and "Here's Lucy" there will be an official release of this series.
I would think M.P.I. would release it, since they've done the Lucy Specials and the Home Movie. It would be just about the only "Lucy" entity left. They would absolutely HAVE to release it.

We can't get ahead of ourselves though, were still supposed to be crossing our fingers and everything else for The Lucy Show to be completed!

I watched it when it originally aired and I liked it. Critics said that her style of comedy was out of date but I think it was because it aired on Saturdays at 8 and ABC had been struggling in that timeslot for years.

CBS/Paramount owns the rights (since they own the Spelling Television library)--don't see them licensing this out to MPI.....IF they release all of The Lucy Show, they MAY consider it.

I'll be crossing my fingers until then, the copy I have will hold me over.

She was doing the same old stale routines that she had done 25 years earlier on I Love Lucy. Also, seeing a woman in her mid-70s doing physical humor and pratfalls came off as terrifying, not funny. The studio audience was more afraid she would kill herself as opposed to laughing. Aaron Spelling talked about it in his autobiography.

CBS/Paramount owns the rights (since they own the Spelling Television library)--don't see them licensing this out to MPI.....IF they release all of The Lucy Show, they MAY consider it.
Well, I just hope one or the other happens. As long as it get released! (After TLS and HL are finished, though.)

Actually CBS Paramount doesn't own it, nor Aaron Spelling Productions. Aaron Spelling gave the series to Lucie Arnaz for the Lucy Desi Museum. So anything is possible since Lucie arranges and owns Lucille Ball Productions (i believe she does).


I love Life with Lucy!!! Anyone with me on this???

I just got my hands on the whole series and have been enjoying it for the first time ever. I expected a really bad show from all the research I have done on the series. To my surprise, I caught myself loving this show.

I even think it is better than stale Here's Lucy. I love 80's shows and am a big fan of the era. Here's Lucy (which was a top hit), is said to be a better show. Then why am I struggling to get through a season at a time because the set is awful, styles are hideous, writing very bland, and guest stars are just themselves. To me the Unique Employment Agency doesn't even look like a business.

Life With Lucy has alot of great funny moments. The kids are excellent actors, and Lucy and Gale are tremendous. The mom (as many see as a bad actress) really isn't, that's just how her character's persona is. The dad however does exajerate his lines many times.

I have read many reviews of how Lucy shouldn't have re-arranged the hardware shop in alphabetical order because a 70 year old knows better than that.

But what the critics forget was, it is something Lucy would do. If you took Lucy Ricardo, and put her in an 80's sitcom (with a few minor twists) you get Lucy Barker in Life with Lucy.

I loved the part where Lucy rearranges the hardware shop, whips out her sax in the episode Lucy is a Sax Symbol, the messy extinguisher, the lounge chair she thought was fixed, vacuuming off a nasty womans skirt, shaking her butt while dancing to a modern rock group.

Lucille Ball was excellent and this series is way better than Here's Lucy in my opinon.

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The critics can be wrong, and also as a fan of Facts of Life, that show was lucky the critics didn't kill them like 'Life With Lucy'. Facts of Life was known as the poison pen letter to NBC and predicted by critics to make NBC go away completely. WOW!!!!!! Facts of Life ratings got better because of the bad reviews of Life With Lucy, if you research, it was the top show in the timeslot against it's competition, but was the worst rated show on NBC Saturday Nights, hurting The Golden Girls ratings and shows that followed it; which is why it ended up getting cancelled in 1988. Very ironic huh..... :)

Life With Lucy wasn't a bad show, i think lucille ball did a great job. If the critics would have praised the show from the get go---- I know it would have not been cancelled.

Yes, the timeslot was a huge mistake up against NBC's Facts of Life, it would have been better on a weeknight. But it's also interesting to know that not only was Facts of Life on, but you had 227 and The Golden Girls. ABC put it in a doomed timeslot and NBC was a powerhouse with Cosby as well. Alf dominated monday nights too.

The world was ready for Life With Lucy, and the critics killed the show with their nasty comments about Lucille Ball coming back to work and how she is old and should be dead. The family sitcom was huge in 1985, and it should have worked.

I disagree with alot of people, and I was prepared to hate the show, my curiosity got the better of me. And find this a classic hidden treasure.

I have that set, also. Yeah, the wrap-up party video is a very unique thing to have. Somebody just had a video camera, and everyone was just very casual. I felt like I was spying on a private party! :lol:

I was on You Tube and looking through Life With Lucy episodes and under the caption it read that MPI Home Video had acquired the video copyright to Life With Lucy. This is a good sign that Life With Lucy will be released on DVD. It would make a great DVD showcase for Lucy. We should have all her TV series work released and Life With Lucy is no exception.:wave:

I was on You Tube and looking through Life With Lucy episodes and under the caption it read that MPI Home Video had acquired the video copyright to Life With Lucy. This is a good sign that Life With Lucy will be released on DVD. It would make a great DVD showcase for Lucy. We should have all her TV series work released and Life With Lucy is no exception.:wave:

Yes, I noticed that, also. I'm glad MPI has the rights to the show. Home they release it soon!

She was doing the same old stale routines that she had done 25 years earlier on I Love Lucy. Also, seeing a woman in her mid-70s doing physical humor and pratfalls came off as terrifying, not funny. The studio audience was more afraid she would kill herself as opposed to laughing. Aaron Spelling talked about it in his autobiography.

The fact is, in order for ABC to get Lucille Ball, they gave her complete creative control over the series, which also meant no pilot. As bencasey points out, she was then 75 years old (Gale Gordon was 80), and still doing the same stuff she did 35 years earlier on "I Love Lucy" and nearly 25 years earlier on "The Lucy Show."

ABC bought Lucy on her previous series' reputation. Lucy herself even admitted when she ended "Here's Lucy" in 1974 that she couldn't understand why she was still "hanging from chandeliers" at age 62...

Would Lucy have been better off co starring in a drama? I didn't see it but I heard she played a homeless lady in a made for tv movie and it was a drama. She got great reviews and she should have made the switch to drama instead. She would have gone off on a high note on that instead of doing Life with Lucy.

Would Lucy have been better off co starring in a drama? I didn't see it but I heard she played a homeless lady in a made for tv movie and it was a drama. She got great reviews and she should have made the switch to drama instead. She would have gone off on a high note on that instead of doing Life with Lucy.

She could have done comedy but Golden Girls style comedy, not pratfalls and slapstick like she had done 35 years earlier. Also, it would have helped to have new writers instead of the same people who wrote I Love Lucy and had been copying themselves ever since. Not to mention the fact that her daughter on the show was young enough to be her granddaughter!

All fair points with the exception of the last one. Ann Dusenberry was born a year after Lucie while Lucille was still pregnant with Desi Jr. and hence was pretty inarguably the "right age".

Would Lucy have been better off co starring in a drama? I didn't see it but I heard she played a homeless lady in a made for tv movie and it was a drama. She got great reviews and she should have made the switch to drama instead. She would have gone off on a high note on that instead of doing Life with Lucy.


In 1985, Lucy played a homeless woman in "Stone Pillow," a role that was as far away from Lucy Ricardo/Carmichael/Carter as you can get and received fabulous reviews. Actually, Lucy was known for one truly dramatic movie, "The Big Street," in 1942. She played a cruel, crippled actress who used people the way some people use Kleenex--and she actually died at the end of the film, in the arms of co-star Henry Fonda.

I guess Lucy wanted to prove there was still life left in the old gal...but it was one thing she shouldn't have done...because she already had three TV series that have lasted for years in reruns and on video.