O Show da Lucy

I tend to disagree with the vast majority of the comments here. While The Lucy Show is not I Love Lucy by any means, it still cracks me up every time I watch it.

And yes, the show lost a little something when Vivian left. She and Lucy had an unbeatable on-screen chemistry. However, that doesn't mean the show should be written off entirely just because Viv's not there. I mean, it's Lucy! You really can't lose.

So, bottom line: Watch it! You won't be sorry. I bought a 2 disc DVD set and watched it yesterday and laughed my head off! Try to find the episode where Lucy babysits the monkeys, it's hilarious.

Anyway, that's just my two cents, and it ain't worth much.

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.

I am in complete agreement with the majority of the previous reviewers in that the first two seasons in black-and-white with Vivian Vance playing Vivian Bagley (television comedy's first divorcee) where undoubtedly the finest of the series. I am second to none in my admiration for Lucy, but after Vivian's character vanished, I thought the shows got more grating, annoying, repetitious and less funny as a rule. Vance was indeed a great co-star for Ball, they played off each-other beautifully and had genuine "star chemistry" between them. Mr. Mooney yelling at Lucy Carmichael got to be distractingly boring, uninspired and plain stupid. I have always been a great fan of Vivian Vance: in my thinking she was a vastly underrated comedy performer who had a unique voice, delivery style and physical mannerisms. Lucy was indeed fortunate to have had Desi finding Vivian playing in a play in La Jolla back in 195O. Lucy wouldn't have been nearly as successful without the special magic this actress brought to Ethel & Viv!

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.

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.