The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour is a collection of thirteen black-and-white one-hour specials airing occasionally from 1957 to 1960 (as opposed to the thirty-minute regular series, I Love Lucy). The first five were shown as specials during the 1957–58 television season. The remaining eight were originally shown as part of Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse. Its original network title was The Ford Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show for the first season, and Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse Presents The Lucille Ball–Desi Arnaz Show for the following seasons. The successor to the classic comedy, I Love Lucy, the programs featured the same cast members: Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Vivian Vance, William Frawley, and Little Ricky (billed as Richard Keith in his post-Lucy–Desi acting assignments). The production schedule avoided the grind of a regular weekly series.
Desilu produced the show, which was mostly filmed at their Los Angeles studios with occasional on-location shoots at Lake Arrowhead, Las Vegas, and Sun Valley, Idaho. CBS reran these thirteen specials under the "Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour" title as prime-time summer replacements, from 1962 to 1965, with a final run in 1967. 1966–67 was the first TV season in which all first-run prime time network shows were in color. These "Lucy–Desi" repeats were the only black and white series aired that year, after which it, and I Love Lucy, went into syndication.
Contents
Premise
Arnaz was often questioned why he changed the format of I Love Lucy, a weekly, 30-minute program produced at 25 new episodes a season very successfully, to the Comedy Hour format of one-hour specials shown weeks or months apart. He noted at the time:
You've got to change in this business. Lucy is my favorite character ever and I love I Love Lucy[;] it's my favorite show. I'd rather make a big change while we are still ahead. It would be ridiculous for us to wait until people got sick and tired of the regular half-hour every Monday night. We have been the luckiest show on the air, but we've worked for it. I have never worked so hard in my life. And while I suppose it's not really for me to say, I think I can honestly say that we have never done a really bad show in six years.
He also noted the high stakes involved in the cost per episode ($350,000): "They not only have to be good, they have to be great. We're going to be in an awful spot with these shows; they've got to be good."
Arnaz's determination to change scheduling formats went back several years, as far back as 1954. "When I first suggested it, CBS wouldn't listen. Last year (1956) again, they talked me into continuing with the weekly half-hour. But this time (1957) I made up my mind."
Keeping the main plot line of the I Love Lucy program allowed Comedy Hour to retain the main cast. It also allowed Arnaz to drop any hint of continuity by releasing all of the I Love Lucy characters and substituting them with celebrity guest stars. That concept, which proved so successful during the program's Hollywood episodes in seasons 4 & 5, was what Arnaz had in mind when he commented "you can't stand still." Except for the main characters (still played by Ball, Arnaz, Vance, Frawley, and Thibodeaux) one character from I Love Lucy appeared on Comedy Hour: Lucy's mother Mrs. McGillicuddy as Little Ricky's babysitter, in "The Ricardos Go to Japan"; columnist Hedda Hopper played herself in "Lucy Takes a Cruise to Havana" as she had in the season 4 I Love Lucy episode "The Hedda Hopper Story." Arnaz believed the use of celebrity stars would allow him to demand higher fees, take some pressure off himself portraying Ricky Ricardo, and keep the "Lucy" concept fresh by encouraging continued ratings success. Although done during the last season of I Love Lucy, the move to Connecticut allowed the writers to expand possible script ideas as they had "used up every conceivable story line that could be set in the tiny New York apartment."
Description and evaluation
During the final season of I Love Lucy (episode 14), the Ricardos, soon followed by the Mertzes, had moved to Westport, Connecticut, reflecting the growth of the suburbs throughout America during the 1950s. Ricky commuted into New York City where he now owned Club Babalu. A key part of the Comedy Hour format was guest stars in each episode, including Hedda Hopper; Ann Sothern; Rudy Vallee; Cesar Romero; Tallulah Bankhead; Fred MacMurray and June Haver; Betty Grable and Harry James; Fernando Lamas; Maurice Chevalier; Danny Thomas and his Make Room for Daddy co-stars; Red Skelton; Paul Douglas; Ida Lupino and Howard Duff; Milton Berle; Bob Cummings; and, in the final episode, "Lucy Meets the Moustache", Ernie Kovacs and Edie Adams.
Comedy Hour episodes focused on Lucy's interaction with the celebrity guest stars. Although still a key character, Ricky is not a major part of the episodes and has less interaction with Lucy. Nearly every episode features him not allowing her to do something, which allows Lucy to interact with the guest stars to confound Ricky. Ricky's 'manic' personality had changed as well, and by the last episode (aired in April 1960) he is more subtle, and melancholy. His contributions are generally low-key (with the exception of the 'Berle' episode).
Fred and Ethel are featured in fewer plot themes after the move to Connecticut, although Ethel does help Lucy carry out her schemes. Although noted in I Love Lucy as the main reason they were able to afford moving to Connecticut, the joint Ricardo-Mertz egg business is only mentioned once. Fred assumes his role as Ricky's band manager. As noted Arnaz had each episode written to 'stand alone' in order to expand themes and plots using celebrity guests. He also expected those guest stars to have significant screen time. Arnaz, Vance, and Frawley all had their dialog and screen time reduced a great deal compared to I Love Lucy. This reduction was not well received by Vance, who considered leaving. Frawley, however, was happy with the reduction which gave him more time to attend to his other interests.
New friends from the I Love Lucy Connecticut episodes, the Ramseys (or the Mortons), were not in the Comedy Hour cast and are mentioned twice, each as babysitters for Little Ricky. Besides the Mertzes the only character from I Love Lucy to appear on the Comedy Hour was Lucy's mother (who appeared briefly in "The Ricardos Go to Japan").
Cast
Lucille Ball as Lucy Ricardo
Desi Arnaz as Ricky Ricardo
Vivian Vance as Ethel Mertz
William Frawley as Fred Mertz
Keith Thibodeaux, billed as Richard Keith as Ricky Ricardo Jr. (Little Ricky)
Theme song
With the new hour-long show, Desi Arnaz wanted to keep the famous I Love Lucy theme composed by Eliot Daniel, but with some changes. The task of updating the theme fell to music arranger Frank Comstock, who kept most of the theme (like the harp "hits") similar, but added were more syncopation and flourishes, as well as a few "punch" notes. Even though Wilbur Hatch was still musical conductor, studio musicians were employed to record the theme, as the Desi Arnaz Orchestra had been disbanded.
Most, if not all, end credit music themes on each episode have been edited for time in the syndicated versions of the series. However, in 2018 a fan uploaded to YouTube a complete theme song, reconstructed from the different episodes.
Episodes
Jerry Thorpe directed ten, and Desi Arnaz three, of the Comedy Hour episodes. Ball, Arnaz, Vance, Frawley, and Keith appeared in all thirteen episodes.
Home media
CBS DVD (distributed by Paramount Home Entertainment) released the entire series of all thirteen Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour specials on DVD under the package name I Love Lucy: The Final Seasons 7-9 on March 13, 2007, in Region 1, and is presented with certain edits such as "The Celebrity Next Door" when Tallulah Bankhead remarks at the Ricardo's house about being allergic to strawberries (which is a plot point later in the episode) and digitally remastered.
Other releases
In September 2018, Time Life released a DVD set, Lucy: The Ultimate Collection, which contains 2 episodes of The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour, and also 32 episodes of I Love Lucy, 24 episodes of Here's Lucy, 14 episodes of The Lucy Show, and 4 episodes of the short-lived ABC series Life with Lucy (which had never before been released to home media), plus a wide variety of bonus features. As of August 2020, the set was no longer available from Time Life.