Has the I Love Lucy show ever been shown in color? I know that alot of shows like, I Dream of Jeannie, Andy Griffith started out in black and white then changed into color the later years. Jeannie was in the 2nd season, Andy G was the last season. I was curious if the last season of I Love Lucy was in color.

I Love Lucy was always in black and white although they TALKED about going to color many times, i think they pioneered color at NBC, so the show being on CBS might have had something to do with it. They did colorize the Christmas show though, i have that in color from when they aired it that way! It was so unreal to see them all in color, although the cast always spoke in a colorful way in real life!

I'm kind of glad Lucy stayed in black and white except for that one episode. That one episode, you can stand back and just be awed by the fact that you can see the gang in color. Most of the shows that I like sometimes went into the crapper when it went to color. By the way, Andy was in black and white during the first 5 years. He went into color during the last 3 years.

ILL in color?? NO WAY!;)

It's probably just because we're so used to seeing it in monochrome, but colour doesn't sound right, does it! I don't know why, exactly. Certain things would be very different in colour though. Desi's hair dye would have been more obvious, for one. To say nothing of Lucy's... Pinky orange, didn't they say it was?! Since colour usually picks out more detail, the difference in age between Fred and Ethel (which, to be honest, I never really thought about) would likely have been much more obvious. Then there's all those revolting fifties colour schemes, the decor, etc. It'd date it much more. The clarity of the prints probably wouldn't be so good, either. Those early colour shows degraded much more quickly. And remember how TV shows used to overdo colour when they first made the switch. Anybody remember the early colour episodes of shows like 'Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea'?! It was like they'd bought every can of bright red and orange paint that they could find, just to underline the fact that they were in colour now! Fake scenery in the outdoors scenes always looks more obvious in colour, too. Look at the old Westerns. The fact that a lot of scenes were done in studios is much more obvious in the colour ones.

:wave:

It would be interesting but do you think the world would be ready to see I Love Lucy in color? It would probably tarnish the show, though.

"I Love Lucy" was always in black and white as well as "The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour". If people really want to our Lucy in color than they should watch either "The Lucy Show" and/or "Here's Lucy" because those were filmed in color (except the first season of TLS).

I saw the Coloumbia House videos and it had the ILL song and scenes from some of the episodes in color - it was interesting!:D

Ive seen like clips and stuff, but thats it. Ive always wanted to see a bunch of episodes in color...just to see what everything looked like! If it were in color though, it wouldve looked fake!

I saw one ep. Little Ricky was all grown up. Ricky was gone. There was another daughter all grown up and I think Lucy's brother (?) was there too. They all went to DC, horrible episode and Lucy looks terrible in color! There's a beautiful simplicity about black and white.

Just to go off topic for a moment - it kinda surprises me how many Lucy fans are Happy Days fans. The show has been repeated here very recently, and having just been watching Lucy again at last, thanks to the DVD releases, I was amazed at how many scenes on Happy Days were stolen, sometimes almost line for line, from ILL. I still like the show, and I'm not knocking it - most of us have grown up with the Fonz at least to some extent - but it really ruined some of those jokes for me, having just been watching them all done (better!) by the ILL cast. Has anybody else noticed the joke borrowing, or is it just me?!

:wave:

Originally posted by Mickey
Just to go off topic for a moment - it kinda surprises me how many Lucy fans are Happy Days fans. The show has been repeated here very recently, and having just been watching Lucy again at last, thanks to the DVD releases, I was amazed at how many scenes on Happy Days were stolen, sometimes almost line for line, from ILL. I still like the show, and I'm not knocking it - most of us have grown up with the Fonz at least to some extent - but it really ruined some of those jokes for me, having just been watching them all done (better!) by the ILL cast. Has anybody else noticed the joke borrowing, or is it just me?!

:wave:

no, it's just you.
Sorry, that was bitter. But there are fans who watched Happy Days long before they watched I Love Lucy. And yes, I'm sure there were some things stolen, but that's like saying the whole boy loves girl, girl loves boy thing in the movies is always stolen. I like I Love Lucy very much, but I love Happy Days and whether or not they're borrowing jokes, I still love Happy Days. And both shows have many unique qualities to them. I'm sure Fonzie would not work in a Chocolate Factory with the same class Lucy did and I'm sure Lucy can't jump over thirteen barrels the same way Fonzie does.

Originally posted by White_Daisy
There's a beautiful simplicity about black and white.

I agree.

Yes, I understand your points, White_Daisy - and I for one saw Happy Days long before I saw ILL. Roger episodes first, when they were being screened for the first time, then the Richie ones later. I've always enjoyed the show, and I still do, it just grates a little when some scenes are borrowed almost word for word. ILL did the same thing of course, as I've seen (heard!) when listening to the radio shows included on the DVDs. It's always happened, it just annoys me sometimes.


And yes, there is an attractive simplicity about b+w. So long as the print is clean, which sadly isn't the case with so many early shows and films, it can look so much better than colour, IMHO. Cary Grant never looked right in colour, and neither did Peter Lorre! Some directors preferred it. Billy Wilder hated working in colour.

:wave:

Ok, geez this is a great topic. The color thing, well, remember when Turner colorized those old classic movies, they looked so FAKE. But i agree with those who mentionned that Columbia House montage showing them in color, it was VERY nice! Mickey, you are such a great asset to these boards, because of you i will start watching Happy Days again to test your theory. Is that why Fonzie was on the ILL 50th anniversary tribute show? He noticed it too? I LOVED Happy Days, never missed it, but got turned off because Tom Bosly HATED Lucy and called her the B word after they co starred in Yours, mine and ours!

Just to not appear like a complete Fonzie-basher(:)), it's probably not all the way through the series. I noticed it with a handful of repeats that I happened to see just after watching the DVDs. We're talking later episodes here. Roger rather than Richie, but early in his tenure. One scene that struck me was Fonzie miming to a record, with the speeding up and slowing down being exactly in the same order, and done in the same way as Lucy miming to Carmen Miranda in "Be A Pal". That's something that loads of people have done, to be fair (I don't even know if Lucy would have been the first to do it on TV), but there were others. I can't remember them all now.

Did anybody ever see the colourised Laurel And Hardies? It never looked quite right, IMHO. I know that the TV execs worry that we don't like monochrome, and figure that it's all got to be colour to attract us, but these things don't work, as a rule. And what have they really got against b+w anyway? Imagine some of those early dramas and horror films. Far less atmospheric in colour, I think. Maybe that's it. TV execs don't like b+w 'cause they don't like admitting that for the most part they can't make things as well anymore!

:wave:

I never knew that Tom didnt like Lucy!!! :eek: Dont worry!! I have now lost respect for him! :eek: :mad: :/


-Ash

You know it could be that bossy thing of hers, she was sometimes too direct so she probably told him to do something and he didn't like it, or the director or someone else could have complained to Tom about her behavior, all i know is he had such a small part as the doctor, and he NEVER said ONE good thing about her after that movie! Happy Days had a great role for him though, and i sorta liked him in that, until i heard his comments anyway!

I have heard before that Tom didn't like Lucille Ball that much after the movie. I feel sorry for Tom, because he missed out on being friends with a great lady we call Lucille Ball.

Originally posted by Mickey
Yes, I understand your points, White_Daisy - and I for one saw Happy Days long before I saw ILL. Roger episodes first, when they were being screened for the first time, then the Richie ones later. I've always enjoyed the show, and I still do, it just grates a little when some scenes are borrowed almost word for word. ILL did the same thing of course, as I've seen (heard!) when listening to the radio shows included on the DVDs. It's always happened, it just annoys me sometimes.


And yes, there is an attractive simplicity about b+w. So long as the print is clean, which sadly isn't the case with so many early shows and films, it can look so much better than colour, IMHO. Cary Grant never looked right in colour, and neither did Peter Lorre! Some directors preferred it. Billy Wilder hated working in colour.

:wave:

I think it's a wonderful thing that the best eps of Lucy remain in black n white. Another thing is that you're more likely to see flaws in color (too much makeup, blemishes...etc) and I don't want to see Lucille Ball with a flaw!

Originally posted by Fanof227
Has the I Love Lucy show ever been shown in color? I know that alot of shows like, I Dream of Jeannie, Andy Griffith started out in black and white then changed into color the later years. Jeannie was in the 2nd season, Andy G was the last season. I was curious if the last season of I Love Lucy was in color.
Does any one think that TVland will reair the ILL Christmas show in color????Like CBS did!?

Post 4150!
Originally posted by CBSrulz

Does any one think that TVland will reair the ILL Christmas show in color????Like CBS did!?
I doubt it because CBS treated the color version of the I Love Lucy Christmas Show as a must-see, very rare special. I may be wrong but that is my conclusion.

I agree, it was all muted dull colors anyhoo, not that big a deal, it's just nice to see the red hair in color for a change! Sorry, orange hair! She could have done commercials for Sunkist!

I have a ton of colour pictures from the Christmas special.:) I'll scan 'em up and you guys can see it!:D

Originally posted by Babalu
I have a ton of colour pictures from the Christmas special.:) I'll scan 'em up and you guys can see it!:D
OMG Please DO!!!!!
Anyways...has any one been to the 50th Annv. Tour?? Well I have and the New York set and the Hollywood set looked Wonderful! The Hollywood set had mostly orange,red, and brown, and bright flamboyant colors but the New York Set was dull! The walls were a light pink, and the wood trim around the walls and doors were a light easter yellow! and everything else was a navy blue such as The chairs and the carpit if i remember??? The kitchen was the same! The walls was a light yellow. I know it was like this because the B&W filmed picked those colors up the best! but anyways i could just see Lucy& the rest of the gang sitting around and talking! So did the New York Set look like this in color in the Christmas Specail?:confused:

Hum, as i recall it was all set in the living room only as they were all decorating the tree, they're in the kitchen at the end with the five Santa Clauses, but that's a quick clip, i was so happy to see the color, i focused on the tree and the stars. You should also know that the show was still mostly black and white because it was three flashbacks to other episodes, there were no reruns back then, so they wanted to show those clips to the audience that hadn't seen them originally!

The color version would be so cool to watch! I wonder why they chose the Christmas version to colorize? I remember seeing "It's a Wonderful Life" on different cable channels every year, some would show it in color and others would show it in black and white. I always liked the black and white version better, though.

Yep, it's always best to go with the original version of these thins, however, it was so nice and different to see a little part in color after all those years of seing it the same way all the time. I think they wanted the Christmas special to be a big hit, they were afraid people wouldn't tune in, so they colorized it to make it more of an EVENT! It got HUGE ratings as all of Lucy's specials always do!