I love Lucy so much and would hate to think of this about the Queen of comedy, but is it possible that after "Here's Lucy" that she was being left behind for newer comedians and newer levels of comedy like 3s company? Come the 80s she did Life with Lucy, but it only lasted 13 episodes and that was the end of her TV career. Or was she just getting too old and frail to do TV anymore, and decided to hang it up? When I look at today's comedies, and how ridiculous some of them can be, it makes me miss Lucille Ball all the more. I mean I would give anything to see her in a new TV sitcom if it were possible, if only just to remind me of how it once was. R.I.P. Lucy.

I don't think her popularity was dying, she did have health issues. She did Life With Lucy because she didn't want people to think of her last role as a bag lady. I miss her because no other comedians are better than her, she didn't have to be vulgar to get laughs.

I love Lucy so much and would hate to think of this about the Queen of comedy, but is it possible that after "Here's Lucy" that she was being left behind for newer comedians and newer levels of comedy like 3s company? Come the 80s she did Life with Lucy, but it only lasted 13 episodes and that was the end of her TV career. Or was she just getting too old and frail to do TV anymore, and decided to hang it up? When I look at today's comedies, and how ridiculous some of them can be, it makes me miss Lucille Ball all the more. I mean I would give anything to see her in a new TV sitcom if it were possible, if only just to remind me of how it once was. R.I.P. Lucy.

When Life with Lucy was airing, I Love Lucy was still in widespread syndication. It was an iconic show and remains so. In fact, the"I Love Lucy" Christmas Special that CBS aired last year was the highest rated special of the Christmas season. So CBS is bringing I Love Lucy back next month. The success or failure of a show has to do with more than just its star; there are other elements that matter as well: the writing, the cast. And yes, the actor's age may matter as well if they're performing a certain type of comedy (note that Stone Pillow a year earlier had been a ratings success). Mary Tyler Moore made several attempts at series after The Mary Tyler Moore Show, all of which all failed. But to this day, she is revered. Andy Griffith did a sitcom after The Andy Griffith Show that bombed. That doesn't mean people suddenly didn't like him. He later succeeded with Matlock. Dick van Dyke did sitcom in 1988 that was pulled off the air as quickly as Life with Lucy. But several years later, he hit with Diagnosis: Murder. You mention Three's Company, but two years earlier when it became Three's a Crowd, it failed. But John Ritter came back years later with Three Simple Rules.

I think people make too big a deal of the significance of the ratings failure of Life with Lucy. If you've seen the show, no it's not great. It's not horrible, either, but it's great. Life with Lucy aired Saturday nights at 8:00 on ABC. A few years ago, I went back and looked at the ratings history of that time slot and found that Life with Lucy performed exactly as every other show that appeared in that time slot over the course of 20 years. http://www.sitcomsonline.com/boards/showthread.php?t=281783&highlight=Life+Lucy

Conclusion: Lucille Ball was ultimately competing against Lucille Ball. People go out on Saturday nights. They need an extra special reason to stay home and watch TV. The only way Life with Lucy could have succeeded in that time slot was if it were at least as good as Lucille Ball's old shows that were on every other day of the week in reruns, which it wasn't.

Thanks Little Ricky for setting things straight. What you said makes allot of sense. ;)

From what I've seen of Here's Lucy, I just didn't find it funny. I mean it seemed like every show she had a guest star. That could get old real fast. Again, if you find it funny, thats ok. It just seemed like something was off with the show and I can't explain it.

From what I've seen of Here's Lucy, I just didn't find it funny. I mean it seemed like every show she had a guest star. That could get old real fast. Again, if you find it funny, thats ok. It just seemed like something was off with the show and I can't explain it.

I don't think her popularity was dying, she did have health issues. She did Life With Lucy because she didn't want people to think of her last role as a bag lady. I miss her because no other comedians are better than her, she didn't have to be vulgar to get laughs.

Personally, I think at that point in her career it would have been wise for her to continue doing more serious work as opposed to more Lucy. Stone Pillow had a rather weak script, but Lucille Ball's performance was wonderful. She was a great dramatic actress, and with her age and changes in her voice, she could no longer pull of the innocence of Lucy Ricardo -- that ingenue quality -- which was a big part of the essence of her Lucy character. Supposedly she had been offered a role on The Golden Girls. If she had to stick with comedy, that probably would have been more suitable for her at her age, rather than continuing the wide-eyed innocence of her Lucy character. She had an Elaine Stritch/Bea Arthur type quality that makes me think she could have pulled that off very well. But really, I think it would have been great to see her in dramatic roles. She was also offered the title role in Driving Miss Daisy and I think it was a tragedy for her that (supposedly) her husband, Gary Morton, turned it down.

Thanks Little Ricky for setting things straight. What you said makes allot of sense. ;)

I'm glad to hear that. Like I said, for 20 years ABC couldn't score a single hit in the time slot, even with other big hitters like Redd Foxx, Tony Danza, Jeff Foxworthy and George Segal (as well as series that had been big hits on other nights). So it wasn't just about Life with Lucy.

I think "I Love Lucy" was so engrained upon the American consciousness as a whole, that shows afterward "The Lucy Show" and "Here's Lucy" were not as funny to us. We were so used to having Ricky, Fred & Ethel. The Lucy Show had Ethel "Vivian", but she left after 2 or 3 years, and it was just Lucy by herself pretty much. Gale Gordon was a great comic actor and foe for the various Lucy characters, but it just wasn't the same to me, and I'm sure to others too. That being said, I'd much rather watch "The Lucy Show" or "Here's Lucy" than just about anything that current sitcoms have to offer.

The "I Love Lucy Christmas Special" wound up in the Top 20 in the ratings for the week, with even higher numbers than last year (when CBS did a repeat broadcast a couple weeks later because they were so pleased with the numbers), and in spite of going up against the football powerhouse, so that should answer the question. The special had a ratings tie with Modern Family.

http://www.mercurynews.com/tv/ci_27109015/television-ratings

I Love Lucy was so great that anything paled in comparison. The best writers and cast in the history of TV. I've heard Hollywood professionals commenting on Lucy's later shows that instead of Lucy being an integral part of the show, she was just a prop for silly sight gags that happened to her. Here's Lucy was a vanity project where Lucy could work with and promote her children - who weren't very talented compared to their parents - instead of doing a great show, which by then may not have been possible.

Btw, did you like Here's Lucy? From what I've seen and I'll admit I havent seen much, I just didnt like it. It seemed more about having guest stars than it actually being a funny show. I didnt like Gale Gordon in this role. I dont know why I just didnt like him in this role.

Btw, did you like Here's Lucy? From what I've seen and I'll admit I havent seen much, I just didnt like it. It seemed more about having guest stars than it actually being a funny show. I didnt like Gale Gordon in this role. I dont know why I just didnt like him in this role.


I really don't remember much about it which pretty much says it all. I remember that Lucy's children were on the show and she was over the hill. It was similar to hearing all about the great Yankee teams of the past and all I saw was an over the hill Mickey Mantle.

By the time "Here's Lucy" premiered in the fall of 1968, you have to remember the "Lucy" character had starred in 180 episodes of ILL, 13 episodes of Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour & 156 episodes of "The Lucy Show". That is nearly 350 episodes! By any means, a character has exhausted most of the realistic situations he/she can be in. "Here's Lucy" to me was largely recycled "ILL" and "TLS" scripts anyway.

If you are like me and saw the Lucille Ball's sitcoms in reverse chronological order and were also very young, you may have enjoyed watching ILL more.
I remember watching ILL as a kid. It was the first LB sitcom that I saw. I knew nothing of LB's previous work. Also as a kid, LB didn't look to old to be playing the part.
It's similar to when I watched Happy Days growing up, Fonzie didn't look that old to be graduating High School. It wasn't until I was an adult that I realized that Henry Winkler was already 32 when his character graduated.

Lucielle Ball lost steam by 1968...she got discouraged to be in movies once Mame became a flop! Then she was in Life with Lucy and her fame was fading by then.

Lucielle Ball lost steam by 1968...she got discouraged to be in movies once Mame became a flop! Then she was in Life with Lucy and her fame was fading by then.


I don't think Lucy's 'fame' ever faded. I think her star power faded. There's a difference. During her lifetime, I Love Lucy was still the most popular show ever in syndication and she was treated as a living legend. But people weren't interested in seeing her try to recreate her formula with inferior material and casts. In fact, it was sad. It was like watching an aged great athlete fumble around on the field at old-timer's day.

Of course, she didn't start playing the "Lucy" character until she was 40. Had she started playing the character when she was 25 - 30 years old, it would have been more believable I think. By the time she started doing "The Lucy Show" she just looked to "mature" for the role.

By today's standards, it would be like a 55-year-old actress trying to play a 30 - 35 year old part of a "young wife" with a newborn.

I think "I Love Lucy" was so engrained upon the American consciousness as a whole, that shows afterward "The Lucy Show" and "Here's Lucy" were not as funny to us. We were so used to having Ricky, Fred & Ethel. The Lucy Show had Ethel "Vivian", but she left after 2 or 3 years, and it was just Lucy by herself pretty much. Gale Gordon was a great comic actor and foe for the various Lucy characters, but it just wasn't the same to me, and I'm sure to others too. That being said, I'd much rather watch "The Lucy Show" or "Here's Lucy" than just about anything that current sitcoms have to offer.

With that being said, I wonder if I Love Lucy wouldn't at all work or have any real relevance today (yes it may still be popular as it is because Lucille Ball was very funny) because in no sense in the world would a TV show depicting a wife who behaves like a child and an overbearing husband who treats her like a child be successful?

I dont see where Ricky was overbearing. I mean Lucy did act like a child sometimes. What would want Ricky to do? Walk all over him? I mean take these examples:

When Lucy was never ready on time
When Lucy switched kept switching tables
When Lucy went over her expense account
When Lucy tried to finagle her way into Ricky's shows


In these incidents, Ricky had to put his foot down. What would you want him to do?

Lucielle Ball lost steam by 1968...she got discouraged to be in movies once Mame became a flop! Then she was in Life with Lucy and her fame was fading by then.

Yours, Mine, and Ours (released in 1968) was one of the highest grossing films of that year.

Here's Lucy was top 10 and top 15 for five of it's six seasons (It ranked Top 3 in it's third season). Lucy was going to end HL in season five, but then CBS president, Fred Silverman, convinced Lucy to continue the series for one more season (Basically, the network still needed her).

After HL, she did specials, which, for the most part, were ratings successes.

I think she had opportunities, she just didn't take them. Many blame her 2nd husband, Gary Morton, and he did discourage her from projects, that in hindsight, she should have taken. However, in hindsight, everything is foreseeable. lol

Yours, Mine and Ours was a very good and funny movie. I do think that maybe back then, people assoicated Lucy with Fred, Ethel and Ricky and maybe people were not used to seeing her on her own? I mean I wasnt around back then but maybe thats why some people see her as a flop as time went on.

I will say that from what I've watched Here's Lucy wasnt that great. Was there a guest star in every episode? Plus, to me, it just wasnt that funny.

I was around back then, (though only 3 in 1968) but have seen the movie Yours, Mine and Ours on tv a couple of times and not only is it a very good movie, but Miss Ball does a great job of acting in it. She also did a great job in 1985s Stone Pillow. Just a total professional all the way around. I don't think her popularity was dying out. I believe she voluntarily retired/ended the Here's Lucy show in 1974 because she was tired of the daily grind of series TV. Let's face it, she had effectively worked in tv most years since 1951, when I Love Lucy premiered.

Yours, Mine and Ours was a very good and funny movie. I do think that maybe back then, people assoicated Lucy with Fred, Ethel and Ricky and maybe people were not used to seeing her on her own? I mean I wasnt around back then but maybe thats why some people see her as a flop as time went on.

I will say that from what I've watched Here's Lucy wasnt that great. Was there a guest star in every episode? Plus, to me, it just wasnt that funny.

I think now it's a shock to see her as "Lucy" in an arena without Fred, Ethel, and Ricky, but she was something of an institution by the time "Here's Lucy" began it's run. You could literally see her on TV morning ("I Love Lucy"), noon ("The Lucy Show"), and night.

Pretty amazing considering there were only three channels at the time. :lol:

"Here's Lucy" was a top 10 series for most of it's six season run. "The Lucy Show" was a top 10 series for it's entire six season run (In fact, it finished it's last season as the #2 show on television), so the public never tired of her.

I Love Lucy was probably the best sitcom ever. The Lucy Show wasn't in the same league, but it wasn't bad, mostly because you still had Vivian ( for awhile) and some of the ILL writers. But then she got in the habit of hiring REALLY weak supporting characters. Here's Lucy was the worst. No one strong enough to play off of, untalented kids and the endless parade of guest stars.

Yours, Mine and Ours was a very good and funny movie. I do think that maybe back then, people assoicated Lucy with Fred, Ethel and Ricky and maybe people were not used to seeing her on her own?

That's certainly not true. When Here's Lucy came on the air in 1968, Lucille Ball had just finished six years of The Lucy Show (won Emmys the last two seasons). That show had no Ricky or Fred. And Vivian Vance was only on the show the first three seasons. The Lucy Show show was one of CBS's top shows. So viewers were quite used to seeing Lucy without Ricky, Fred and Ethel, and had accepted her that way.

I will say that from what I've watched Here's Lucy wasnt that great. Was there a guest star in every episode? Plus, to me, it just wasnt that funny.

No, there wasn't a guest star in every episode. It was actually only about half of the episodes that had a guest star. That's still a lot, but it's in people's imagination that every episode had a guest star.

The show is hit or miss. Several episodes each season were laugh-out-loud funny, but most are just so-so. In retrospect, Lucille Ball should have ended her weekly TV run with The Lucy Show. She had kept that show going allegedly so that she could have a hit show to use as leverage to sell CBS other Desilu series. (There was a yearly routine where Lucy would threaten to quit The Lucy Show if CBS didn't put a new Desilu show on the schedule.)

In 1967, Lucille Ball sold Desilu, so there was no longer a compelling reason for her to continue in series television other than her compulsion to be working all the time. But as an artist, she had earned so much clout in the industry: back-to-back Emmy Awards in '67 and '68 for The Lucy Show, on top of her earlier Emmys for I Love Lucy; her show was at the top of the ratings in 1968; and as has been noted, Yours, Mine and Ours was one of the biggest hits of 1968. It's true that there are not a ton of good scripts for older actresses, but Lucille Ball had so much clout and power, and such a huge fan base, she could have found projects that suited her.

I Love Lucy was the biggest TV show of the '50s, and The Lucy Show was one of the top shows of the '60s. She should have quit while she was ahead and focused on an occasional good movie role and TV specials. Doing Here's Lucy, in spite of its popularity at the time, did nothing to enhance her legacy.

Yours, Mine and Ours was a very good and funny movie. I do think that maybe back then, people assoicated Lucy with Fred, Ethel and Ricky and maybe people were not used to seeing her on her own? I mean I wasnt around back then but maybe thats why some people see her as a flop as time went on.

I will say that from what I've watched Here's Lucy wasnt that great. Was there a guest star in every episode? Plus, to me, it just wasnt that funny.


I liked Desi Jr but Lucie was just annoying and unlikable. I liked Gale Gordon in The Lucy Show but not Here's Lucy. I. too, watched the series recently on some cable channel. After Desi Jr left it just became less and less interesting. The writing was "off" and they just seemed to be stretching for plausible "Lucy" ideas. I think the fact that Lucy and Gale were clearly aging, some of the physical bits just didn't have the same punch as if someone 30 years younger was doing them. And Mary Jane needed to be a regular. They missed the boat on using her only semi-regularly.

Here's Lucy was Lucille Ball's best show. Her and her children Lucy And Desi Arnaz Jr. are great in this show. And you can not forget Gale Gordon who was the best character of the show! I Love Lucy used to be my favorite Lucille Ball show but over time, I have grown to dislike it somewhat. it seems there's a lot of physical comedy in I Love Lucy. In Here's Lucy there's less physical comedy and more one-liners , which I enjoy

Here's Lucy was Lucille Ball's best show.

Umm . . . no.

Why did Lucy always scream her lines in her post I Love Lucy shows? Did she think the mikes weren't too good or something? The show where she had the teenage daughter and young son and Vivian Vance had a son and they lived together was not bad. But apparently she was jealous of the attention Candy Moore was getting and wrote her out of the show and eventually shipped her tv son to military school and went solo until bringing in her own two kids in a later series.

Why did Lucy always scream her lines in her post I Love Lucy shows? Did she think the mikes weren't too good or something? The show where she had the teenage daughter and young son and Vivian Vance had a son and they lived together was not bad. But apparently she was jealous of the attention Candy Moore was getting and wrote her out of the show and eventually shipped her tv son to military school and went solo until bringing in her own two kids in a later series.
I doubt she was was jealous of the attention Candy was getting. I don't think the kids had that many episodes centered around them after the first season.

The show where she had the teenage daughter and young son and Vivian Vance had a son and they lived together was not bad. But apparently she was jealous of the attention Candy Moore was getting and wrote her out of the show and eventually shipped her tv son to military school and went solo until bringing in her own two kids in a later series.

Making up stuff? Elaborate on "the attention Candy Moore was getting." From the beginning, Candy Moore and the other kids on the show played minor characters. This show was created for Lucille Ball and Vivian Vance. The rest of the cast -- with the exception of Gale Gordon, who came later -- were props. Candy Moore was written out of the show for the same reason the two young male actors were written out of the show. (You think she was jealous of Ralph Hart and Jimmy Garrett, too?) Vivian Vance decided to quit the show at the end of the third season, in 1965. Consequently, Lucille Ball was considering ending the series. She was going to continue on with a brand-new series with Gale Gordon. A pilot had been filmed a year earlier, with Bob Hope as a guest star. But Desilu felt she should continue The Lucy Show in order to get at least get 100 episodes in the can (they only had 84 by the end of the '64-'65 season). One hundred is considered a magic number for the number of episodes needed for weekday syndicated reruns. Also, CBS did not want to her end The Lucy Show. They wanted her to somehow continue the series. Then Maury Thompson and Tommy Thompson came up with a concept where Lucy Carmichael moves to Los Angeles and has encounters with celebrities. Ms. Ball liked their idea and that pretty much settled it. Candy Moore, Ralph Hart and Jimmy Garrett only had a small role on the show in the beginning. By the third season, their roles had been greatly diminished and no longer appeared in most episodes. And with the new format, they would be needed even less. So they were written out.

This is likely going to be a rather controversial opinion but here it goes...Lucille Ball really didn't know how to evolve. Without Desi Arnez, there was no one really helping her choose material. She had gag writers on Here's Lucy. Her other shows had various combinations of her old writers who wrote basically old fashioned stuff she liked. Ball was not really funny herself and her persona wasn't that much different from the character she played in Stage Door.

She was a wonderful performer, but was not a guiding force creatively as Desi and Jess Oppenheimer had been on I Love Lucy. It's not coincidence that the first season of The Lucy Show is the best: Desi was still around for part of it to guide the show and coax the writers to do rewrites on their lesser efforts. Lucy should have gotten Jess back to produce the Lucy Show after Desi left.

Making up stuff? Elaborate on "the attention Candy Moore was getting." From the beginning, Candy Moore and the other kids on the show played minor characters. This show was created for Lucille Ball and Vivian Vance. The rest of the cast -- with the exception of Gale Gordon, who came later -- were props. Candy Moore was written out of the show for the same reason the two young male actors were written out of the show. (You think she was jealous of Ralph Hart and Jimmy Garrett, too?) Vivian Vance decided to quit the show at the end of the third season, in 1965. Consequently, Lucille Ball was considering ending the series. She was going to continue on with a brand-new series with Gale Gordon. A pilot had been filmed a year earlier, with Bob Hope as a guest star. But Desilu felt she should continue The Lucy Show in order to get at least get 100 episodes in the can (they only had 84 by the end of the '64-'65 season). One hundred is considered a magic number for the number of episodes needed for weekday syndicated reruns. Also, CBS did not want to her end The Lucy Show. They wanted her to somehow continue the series. Then Maury Thompson and Tommy Thompson came up with a concept where Lucy Carmichael moves to Los Angeles and has encounters with celebrities. Ms. Ball liked their idea and that pretty much settled it. Candy Moore, Ralph Hart and Jimmy Garrett only had a small role on the show in the beginning. By the third season, their roles had been greatly diminished and no longer appeared in most episodes. And with the new format, they would be needed even less. So they were written out.


Interesting.
I have watched the different "Lucy" shows that existed throughout the 1960s into the early 1970s and I was very young but I noticed that the "The Lucy Show" had different "background characters" from "I Love Lucy" or "Here's Lucy." The ones with Desi Arnaz I knew must have been made before I was born and were always in reruns. I remember the show which featured Lucy and Vivian as characters with young kids, and I recall one episode in which Lucy was chosen to be the umpire at one of her son's baseball games and she interfered with the game by holding one kid from the other team by the legs as he tried to catch the ball or run to a base. I am not sure what Lucy's character's last name in this series , or Vivian's.
I don't have recollections about how those child characters were phased out or written out of the show before the show ended. I am surprised that in one of the Lucy shows before "Here's Lucy" Lucy was depicted as having a young daughter. Or that is what I best understand of what it says in your post. I don't recall ever seeing episodes in any of the shows in which she had a daughter other than "Kim" in the very final Lucy series.

Can anyone tell me how to find some general information about the different Lucy shows and what regular characters were in each?
Also anyone know about the names of each episode in each, at least the episodes in the Lucy shows that came after "The Lucy and Desi Comedy Hour"?
I would like to know about that episode in which Lucy was umpire at her young son's baseball game, if anyone else recalls that one.

I don't recall ever seeing episodes in any of the shows in which she had a daughter other than "Kim" in the very final Lucy series.


Are you aware that Lucille Ball had a short-lived sitcom in 1986 called Life With Lucy?

Are you aware that Lucille Ball had a short-lived sitcom in 1986 called Life With Lucy?

I recall the sitcom name "Life With Lucy" but I don't recall it was in the mid 1980s. Lucielle Ball died in 1989. How did she have enough energy only 3 years before her passing to do one more sitcom?

I recall the sitcom name "Life With Lucy" but I don't recall it was in the mid 1980s. Lucielle Ball died in 1989. How did she have enough energy only 3 years before her passing to do one more sitcom?

I don't know, but it happened. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090473/

Why did Lucy always scream her lines in her post I Love Lucy shows? Did she think the mikes weren't too good or something?

I watched an interview with someone (can't recall who exactly) who guest starred one of the post ILL shoes and he said that she yelled at him for not saying his lines loud enough. She felt that the actors needed to speak loud enough for the studio audience to hear them so they would get the laughs. This is probably why she sounds like she's screaming most of the time. I wonder what the sound engineers felt about that. I guess they knew better than to critisize her.:confused:

I doubt she was was jealous of the attention Candy was getting. I don't think the kids had that many episodes centered around them after the first season.

True, but what's surprising is that, in spite of using them less and less as the series went on, all three performers professed being shocked when Lucy decided to dump their characters after three years. I have to wonder why Ralph Hart (Sherman Begley) in particular would have thought he'd have been able to stay on with Viv being used less and less due to Miss Vance openly chomping on the bit and trying to have more input. Did he truly believe there'd have been any reason for Lucy Carmichael to have had anything to do with Sherman Begley if Viv was no longer going to be a regular? I can only think of maybe two or three times in which Lucy and Sherman had direct dialogue with each other in those three seasons as opposed to him interacting with Viv or Jerry and Lucy getting into it with the other. I get that the three younger performers got along great with each other and maybe considered the crew their family but considering how Lucy was barely using them in the last year or so even before Viv's permanent departure as a co-star, I don't see how they could have been surprised that they were let go.