Life with Lucy

I went to the Lucy Museum in Jamestown NY yesterday and they aired an episode of Life With Lucy. The episode had John Ritter as a guest star. I thought it was very funny and I laughed a lot. I'm surprised this show didn't make it on TV.

In the era of "The Golden Girls," Lucy attempted a comeback utilizing a comedic style three decades old. It was a BAD idea. Nobody wanted to see a rehash of "I Love Lucy," melded with a vacuous 80s sitcom family.

IMAGINE Lucy, at that age, in something MUCH better. Her comedic timing is legend, and she deserved a more sophisticated finale. I saw her in person, a few years prior to her death, and her caustic wit was astounding. Most likely, she feared moving away from the tried-and-true image she had established.

Eve Arden suffered a similar fate, and I would have killed to see the two of them in a series together.

I admire Ball's loyalty to her original creative team, but the enterprise is clearly a mistake, that her family and advisers should have stopped her from making.

Yes, I watched the series during its original run. The supporting "family" cast is appalling. Good grief, even if they'd just presented her and Gale Gordon as an older married couple, it might have survived.

She appeared on, I believe, The Tonight Show, after the failure of this sitcom. She was in tears, and it broke my heart. It is said that her despair over the failure of this show quickened her death. Whatever the case, she deserved much better.

The show was Lucille Ball's only failure, and many people have debated why it happened. What I recall most vividly, though, was the savagery of the critics. They were absolutely gleeful to see a mighty person fall, even if it was Lucy. I recall most of them proclaiming LIFE WITH LUCY to be the worst series in the history of television. With a response like that, why would any viewer give it a chance?

But I digress.....it really wasn't all that bad. The main problem was, at her age, Lucy was too old to be playing her patented zany character anymore. Furthermore, the type of humor she had perfected had become outdated by the 1980s, and she didn't seem to realize this. These two things alone were a recipe for failure. If one wasn't comparing it to Lucy's older material, it wouldn't have seemed half so bad to everyone.

It is sad to see IMDB reviewers jumping on the bandwagon here after all these years, using words like "horrendous" and "garbage" to describe the short-lived show. It was neither. At worst, it was an ill-advised idea, but Lucy fans today still might find it mildly amusing, if they could stop the horrible words of critics from ringing in their ears.

Now that it has had a DVD release, give it a chance.

Its just about 20 years since Lucille Ball came back to Television in the short lived, "Life with Lucy." I feel great stars work until the very end, like Lucy (she was on the Academy Awards with Bob Hope a few weeks before her death in 1989), Bette Davis dying of cancer and still made films shortly before her death.

Lucy wanted to work (certainly it was not for the money), America wanted to see her but not in the same manner as we did in 1950's-1960's shows. I feel her late husband did her in, he was a glory hog and mismanaged her. Why did he need Lucy in that vehicle--to put a few more bucks in his pocket? The show has a dull cast, its very 80's (shoulder pads, severe make up and pointy earrings). I think Lucy should have come back as a more serious actress, I always thought she could have played the Jane Wyman role on Falcon Crest. I as a fan was willing to see Lucy in different types of work the fans forced her to "paint on" the face of long ago Lucy. She was Lucille Ball a legend she should not have done this. In one of her books someone asks her while on a flight whats the fame like, she replied, "see all those lights down there, I could go to any house and it would be the most exciting thing that has ever happened to the residents." this was so true.

But what happened to Lucy happens to other, ie: Joan Crawford in the horror movies, Mae West in 1980 in Sextette playing it like she was 30 not 85.

Very, very, sad. At 75, Lucille Ball was coaxed from retirement to reprise the shenanigans of her former glory (and what glory it had been). With the help of her longtime writers Madelyn Pugh Davis and Bob Carroll Jr. and her old pal, actor Gale Gordon, Lucy joined the 1980's as though the world stopped spinning in 1974 when Here's Lucy has signed off. "I didn't know that moving me in could be such a turn-on!" said Ball's character (named Lucy, of course) after catching daughter Margo (Ann Dusenberry) kissing son-in-law Ted (Larry Anderson). The ancient slang was all too indicative of Life with Lucy, and as critics savaged the series, audiences ignored it. Lucy's fans expected more, and Lucy desevered better.