Lucy Calls the President

.....it's still Lucy and many of her long-time co-professionals, either beside her or behind the cameras. In contrast to many emerging comedies in 1977, this is trapped in time, identical in style to 1960's Lucille Ball series----although the reliable Gale Gordon is cast as her father-in-law, and she's not a widow. (Ed McMahon is miscast as the husband, but he's still less annoying than he is as Ed McMahon.) The familiar supporting cast reliably goes through their paces as the thin-but-familiar plot unfolds toward the surprise guest at the end. Casual viewers may or may not like this, but those of us who really love Lucy will want to give it a watch....and maybe add it to their collection.

Thankfully, I don't recall them as looking incredibly old, but they must have been. I also don't recall alot of applauding. The only reason I do remember it is because Sis pointed out that Mary Wickes from . . . was in it and she had never worked regularly with Ball. The only jokes I can recall, if you could call them jokes, was something about a tray of hors devoures and the couch collapsing when too many people sat on it. The running joke was for some reason Lucy would be getting a phone call from then President Jimmy Carter. In the end, she did get a phone call, but not from Jimmy.

She got a phone call from Miss LIllian Carter, Jimmy's mother. And the woman herself actually appeared, but in an obviously prerecorded scene that looked like Miss Lillian was in Georgia. Miss Lillian wasn't a natural actress, either by the way. Not the funniest piece in the world, but by this time Lucy had become very set in her ways, but a good nostalgic bit. If anyone should ever see it, expect an overload of Lucy and the seventies, like Nick at Nite.

Lucy and Viv are my favorite couple ever!! Ever since I was a little girl, long before I acknowledged myself as being sapphic and long before I ever really understood lesbianism or romance at all, Lucy and Viv still somehow struck a chord with me. They always made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, and somehow, I knew that I wanted what they had with each-other. They are my ideal pair and always have been!

Looking back, it's no wonder "The Lucy Show" was unofficially referred to as "Two Dykes In Danfield" by the writers and crew in the early years when Lucy and Viv were featured living together! As a kid, I hated knowing this bit of trivia, as I thought it was an insult. But now that I am a sexually developed woman and no longer a sexually shy child, I totally appreciate that secondary title, whether it was given with sincerity or not, because the fact that the writers and crew even thought of it proves that I'm not alone in sensing a certain deliciously lovely lesbian energy between Lucy and Viv!💜💜💜💜💕

This here may not be the best TV movie in general, but we get great Lucy-Viv screentime, and that makes it so special! These two women, though supposedly straight in real-life, have an on-screen chemistry that turns me on and resonates with me on a more personal level than any other! They never kissed on the lips or had a sex scene, yet every touch of the hand, every sly remark, every inside joke, gives me all the warm fuzzies as though they had- now THAT'S chemistry!!

They really should have made a movie together, just the two of them! It would have given all the official lesbian films a run for the money and even put some to shame!

Lucy & Viv 4ever!!! 💌💜💜💜💜💜💕

I think I was 7 or 8 when this was on TV - so honestly I'm only giving it a 7 because I remember my parents thought it was good. My brother and I thought it lacked the zaniness of Lucy's previous sitcoms - but in retrospect I suspect she was eschewing the more slapstick-oriented style of the sitcoms for more sophisticated humor.

What I remember most, though, is how it presented a view Jimmy Carter's presidency early on in his first and only term that has largely been lost to history.

Believe it or not, people were actually kind of excited about Jimmy Carter at the beginning of his presidency. After Vietnam and Watergate, America wanted a nice, normal-guy kind of president - and Jimmy Carter fit the bill perfectly. And although people mostly remember Carter mostly for out-of-control inflation and his inability to handle the Iran hostage crisis - he actually set some landmark precedents for how US presidents conduct themselves. For starters - he was the first US president to ask to be called by his nickname throughout his candidacy and presidency.

Richard Nixon was Dick Nixon to his friends and 'Tricky Dick' to his enemies - but was always Richard Nixon in any official capacity. And I'm pretty certain it never crossed Lucille Ball's mind to do a TV movie in which she invited him over for dinner.

Whatever his limitations as a president, Jimmy Carter was always just Jimmy to his friends, his enemies, and to the country as a whole. And one of the very few Lucy and the rest of us would be happy to have for dinner.

If I didn't know any better I would have sworn that this was a pilot for yet another Lucille Ball series. Might have been a good one. But I doubt that the White House would have put its imprimatur on a TV series, a special but not a TV series by having a first family member appear.

I also don't think that Ed McMahon would have left the Tonight Show and Johnny Carson to do a series either.

McMahon and Lucy are a married couple in a small Indiana town. Ed's father Gale Gordon lives with them and Ed owns a bowling alley. Lucy on a national call-in show speaks to President Carter about a community problem and he decides to drop in as he's speaking in Indianapolis the next day.

The rest of the show is devoted to her frantic preparations for the presidential visit. Such Lucy friends as Mary Jane Croft, Mary Wickes, and Vivian Vance are also in this which features the usual Lucy schemes and situations.

Lucy fans and others will love it.