Has anybody noticed any scenes in the Season 5 episodes that are missing from the public domain episodes? I was surprised to see Lucie Arnaz's cameo in Ring-a-Ding-Ding!

The pubic domain episodes are heavily butchered. As much as 4 - 6 minutes are cut for syndication, and the public domain episodes are all butchered for syndication.

Yeah, they did a real hatchet job on the Jack Benny episode from Season 6. They just lopped off the first 3 minutes or so of the episode and it starts very abruptly. I can't wait for season 6 as it has some of my favorite episodes of the entire run of The Lucy Show.

The public domain episodes I have are full-length for the most part. One DVD lops off the opening and closing credits, but the shows are full-length other than that. The only DVD I saw which had shortened eps was from Diamond. These DVDs are taken from old 16mm syndication prints of varying quality. The shortened Diamond prints are taken from pre-edited syndication masters. The video is OK, but the audio is slightly out-of-sync. For the best quality, do buy the Paramount official versions.

And with season 6 coming out later this year, there is no reason to keep the public domain issues. mine will most likely end up at Goodwill.