Hoppla Lucy!

I tend to disagree with many of the previous comments about how the show was not the same without Vivian Vance. I was just given a four CD box set of 28 episodes, some black and whites taking place in Connecticut, but most were the color ones taking place in California.

I found the early episodes unappealing, in many ways, especially coming off of I Love Lucy. Bear in mind, I was born in 1959, so I viewed all of the black and white Lucy's in re-runs. I did not like the setting in Danfield, CT. Lucy did not seem to fit in there well, the children did nothing for me and as far as Vivian Vance, I had already seen their best antics on I Love Lucy. I Love Lucy is a show that only comes about once in a lifetime and they were so good, I did not think this aging team, now getting into their 50's, were as good and many were just repeats. I just watched the Shower Installation episode, which is considered one of the funniest, and again, I didn't think it was that funny. I saw this comedy routine on Abbott and Costello and the Three Stooges. I did like the day they both went to a farm and William Frawley was there and Vance said to Lucy, "hey this guy looks familiar, doesn't he?" They did continue to get great guest stars and that was a saving grace. I may not be the best critic, because I rarely saw the black and white episodes in re-runs.

What I did get to see live and then in the early 70's in re-runs, were the color shows from 1965-68, when Lucy relocates to California. Here, the kids and Vance were gone and Lucy got to do her own antics and since she was so enormously funny and talented, I liked watching her solo with either famous actors and comedians or with some of the supporting cast from earlier Lucy's like Mary Jane Croft and Mary Wickes, to name a few. Gale Gordon was splendid as the straight man to Lucy's foils and the way he yelled MRS. CARMICHAEL!!! The show was sunny and colorful and the apartment stage set seem to fit her now 60's style much better as does Southern California. Yes, there were some marginal episodes, but many great ones as well. My favorite being Mary Wickes as Aunt Agatha. Bear in mind that the last two years of this show, 1967-68, it was number two in the ratings, higher than any of the ratings when it took place in Connecticut.

All in all the show had many funny moments and again, I liked seeing Lucy solo. When Here's Lucy came along in the fall of 1968, with Vance, Lucy Arnaz and Desi Jr. as well as Gale Gordon, the show was better and funnier with many good episodes both on CBS and NBC. All of her shows lasted six seasons, the norm for a good comedy.

I cherish all of the work she did throughout her 23 consecutive years on television. She and all of her cast will always be missed forever.....

Add my opinion to the others...Vivian Vance added a great deal of class to all the "Lucy" shows. None was more evident than in "The Lucy Show" when she departed (much too soon). After Vivian left the show it was apparent that Lucy needed a sidekick and various guest stars tried to fill Vivian's shoes but none came close. Once the show was broadcast in color, Lucy doing too much (such as running Desilu) started acting with too many broad strokes thinking that whatever she did would be funny. It wasn't. Some of the later shows were actually embarrassing to watch and you realized that not only were the writer's out of ideas but Lucy should have ended this show years before.

This was Lucy's first series after the Lucy-Desi break-up. In many ways though it followed the same formula as I Love Lucy in that the comedy was set up just as well and Lucy is just as funny. Her character was developed as one that actually hit the times well.

Lucy was portrayed here as a single woman and still energetic enough to pull it off. Folks like Garry Marshall were among the talented writers enlisted to do scripts and many of the scripts were very funny. Lucy with her talent added to all of them.

Famous guest stars littered the shows, from her second encounter with legend John Wayne to Jack Benny and the first physical sighting of his famous vault where he squeezed his first dime. Gale Gordon was a great support actor as Lucy's boss at the bank she worked at during the series. That was the difference between this series & I Love Lucy is that most of the time Lucy was trying to keep her bank job with Mr. Mooney instead of trying to be a star.

It is a subtle change but important to note that Lucy could still be funny in different situations. Viven Vance is always a delight when she is on this show. She could not be on all the time due to some health problems she had but she did appear a lot. Ratings for this show were number 1 until it's last season when NBC stripped a gear & Laugh-In came on board.

The black and white episodes were the funniest of the entire series. Maybe this has to do with Vivian Vance, who was better here than in the "I Love Lucy" show. I always thought that Viv was the glue that held those earlier episodes together. Who could ever forget the episode about "Crazy Crunch" or of the Christmas episode about "Chris Crinkle".

I loved the first year of "The Lucy Show" because it was a great showcase for Vivian Vance. Honestly, Vivian was ten times a better actress than Lucy. Viv was real, while Lucy was loud and over-the-top. When Vivian left, the show died really. I hated Gale Gordon! It was so sad - a 60-year-old man yelling at a 50-year old woman! Why was that funny? Viv and Lucy had so much warmth together. It was great fun. Lucy would have done well to have retired from television in 1965 along with Vivian, because "Lucy" shows post-Vivian were just not funny.