CBS
In October 1951, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz debuted the first episode of what was to become one of the best-loved and most watched TV shows of all time. Zany redhead Lucy and her Cuban bandleader husband Ricky Ricardo, along with their neighbors and comic foils Ethel and Fred Mertz (Vivian Vance and William Frawley), got into the most hilarious predicaments ever imaginable. Overflowing with notable guest stars and escapades that never lose their entertainment value, it’s no wonder why everyone still loves Lucy.
REVIEW
October 15, 1951 was earth-shattering in terms of television to that point. Sure, the medium had been around for a while and was becoming more prevalent in homes, with families gathered around the box with the glowing tube in the evening for some entertainment, to be thrilled by a Western, chilled by an anthology drama, or just to have some laughs. I Love Lucy gave audiences something they had really never seen before — a filmed comedy series, where many at the time were broadcast live, or were broadcasts of kinescopes, essentially a live show filmed off of a television monitor. But I Love Lucy was different because its creators, Lucy and Desi, wanted something of quality that could withstand the test of time so Desi created (some may say he adapted a previously used system) a three-camera process filming the show from different angles and editing the footage to get the best laughs. It worked, the show was a hit and the process became a standard for filming sitcoms (both on film and video) that’s still used today (although there may be more cameras in the mix). Aside from the cast of Ball, Arnaz, Vance and Frawley, who all knew how to do comedy with subtlety rather than going completely over-the-top, the show had a talented team of writers including Bob Carroll Jr., Madelyn Davis, Jess Oppenheimer, Bob Schiller and Bob Weiskopf, as well as directors William Asher (later the director of Bewitched and future husband of that show’s star, Elizabeth Montgomery), James V. Kern, Marc Daniels and Ralph Levy, and cinematography for Karl Freund, whose resume included German silent films The Golem, Varieté and Metropolis, and Hollywood classics like Dracula, Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Good Earth, Pride and Prejudice, and Du Barry Was a Lady (starring Lucille Ball in glorious Technicolor). The show also had some well-known guest stars during its run, most notably during the Hollywood episodes that allowed the Arnazes to call in some of their famous movei star friends like William Holden and John Wayne, actors who would have never considered ‘lowering themselves’ to appear on a television series in that era.
I Love Lucy has never been off television since it premiered, launching into Syndication around the country, and becoming a staple of classic TV networks like Nick at Nite and Me TV, as well as streaming now on Paramount Plus and Pluto TV. Over six seasons and 181 episodes, the Ricardos, Mertzes and their friends made audiences laugh and we’ve been laughing ever since. Even though the show is firmly set in the 1950s, it is still timeless because it rarely mentioned current events and, unlike shows of recent vintage, ignored any kind of special holiday-themed episodes except for a single Christmas episode that went unseen for decades, never part of the series’ Syndication package. The show remains relevant (and we have to admit there is more than a little misogyny here, inherent of the time) because of the situations Lucy got herself into, usually with the help (very often reluctantly) with her gal pal Ethel, to ‘pull one over on the boys’ or simply to get Ricky to put Lucy in his shows at the club. The show also managed to breathe some life into the format by getting the Ricardos and Mertzes out of their apartment building with almost season long arcs in Hollywood (Season 4) and Europe (Season 5), and completely moving out of New York City to a home in Connecticut (with the Mertzes in tow as their next door neighbors) in Season 6.
Along the way, Lucy found herself getting drunk doing a TV commercial, baking a giant loaf of bread to prove they could live without modern technology, getting locked in a freezer, getting one-upped by a candy conveyor belt, stealing John Wayne’s footprints from Grauman’s Chinese Theater, having a disastrous encounter with William Holden, meeting Harpo Marx, getting a role in an Italian movie that nearly killed her (for real), becoming a cheese smuggler, dressing as a Martian with Ethel for a promotional stunt … the list goes on. Everyone has their favorite Lucy moments. The most notable, of course, is when Lucille got pregnant in real life and, for the first time in TV history, Lucy was also written to be … expecting, because the network censors would not allow such an offensive word as ‘pregnant’ to be said on television. This created a unique situation for the show as the cast and crew worked feverishly to film a batch of episodes to keep new shows running while Ball was on maternity leave (her baby boy Desi Jr. was born the same day as Little Ricky on TV!), but this also helped create another television first — the rerun! In order to keep the show on the air in its Monday night timeslot, Arnaz, Vance and Frawley filmed new scenes in character to reminisce about Lucy’s past foibles which were edited onto a previously aired episode (that decision to shoot the show on film really paid off here) and, voila, the rerun was born. But as the show wore on, the relationship between Lucy and Desi was falling apart and neither of them wanted to continue playing the loving couple when they were having their own marital issues. So the show ended after six seasons but CBS still wanted more and contracted the cast to produce a series of one-hour specials that aired over the next three years as The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour, which has been erroneously marketed as Seasons 7, 8 and 9 of I Love Lucy. They are but they aren’t. Same characters, new wacky situations, but in an hour-long format. Sadly, it all came to an end in 1960, but the legacy has endured almost 75 years later (and Lucy, of course, went on to star in two more long-running hit series, followed by a third that did not fare as well), proving that after all this time we still love Lucy — and Ricky and Fred and Ethel.
CBS
VIDEO
I Love Lucy has been released in various formats over the years from collections of episodes on VHS, to a special Criterion Collection laserdisc featuring two episodes, to season-by-season DVD releases, a complete series DVD release, Blu-ray releases for Seasons 1 and 2, and after a very long delay, a complete series Blu-ray release that is, unfortunately, a bit of a mixed bag. Right off the bat, the packaging is terrible, cramming 33 discs into one package, with three stacked on on a spindle and three more stacked on a second, with inserts that flip like pages with more stacked discs. This means you have to remove five discs if you want to get to that sixth one. It’s terribly inconvenient and you risk damaging your discs. (This is the exact same packaging as the most recent complete series DVD release and the boxes themselves are indistinguishable save for the tiny Blu-ray logo on the spine.) The package is the collection’s biggest downfall.
As for the presentation of the episodes themselves, Seasons 1 and 2 are reprints of the previously released Ultimate Editions that are loaded with extras including the episodes as they’ve been seen for years, episodes as they were originally broadcast with the animated Lucy and Desi stick figures and cigarette ads, and the rerun episodes, with a ton of behind the scenes extras and audio presentations of the radio show that birthed I Love Lucy, My Favorite Husband, which starred Ball but not Arnaz. The episodes have been remastered beautifully, everything carefully preserved and looking as it did when first aired. There is absolutely nothing to complain about. Then comes Seasons 3-6. After the first two seasons didn’t sell as well as expected, CBS didn’t want to pour any more money into creating those ultimate editions, and the project languished for years. It seems all that was done for these four seasons was transferring the original film to an HD format with little enhancement to the image, sometimes looking overly corrected to reduce the original film grain, giving the episodes — particularly Season 5 — a flat look with little contrast. But cut to The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour episodes and we’re back to some breathtaking images with lovely black-and-white cinematography and contrasts, as well as more special features.
AUDIO
The audio for this set comes in two varieties. The previously remastered Seasons 1 and 2 audio is LPCM 2.0 audio, with the remaining seasons presented in DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 lossless. There is nothing special about the sound which was recorded in mono so pretty much everything is front and center — dialogue, music, sound effects and the live audience laughter (there have been claims that there was never any ‘sweetening’ of the laughter, but the persistent ‘Uh Oh Lady’ heard in almost every episode suggests otherwise). Speaking of that laughter, you can occasionally hear what sounds like Desi laughing off camera when he isn’t in a scene, and the 19th episode of Season 6, ‘Lucy Raises Chickens’, held the record (perhaps still does) for the longest, sustained audience laughter in TV history in a scene involving the tango and a blouse full of eggs. The first two seasons have episodes with multiple audio tracks, English and Spanish, as well as subtitles. Despite being fully centered, the audio is well balanced and the dialogue is always clear.
CBS
SPECIAL FEATURES
The set is loaded with special features, mostly in the Seasons 1 and 2 collections. A quick overview of the bonus material includes:
- Season 1: Costume & Makeup Tests (two versions); the I Love Lucy unaired, and long-thought lost pilot (which was discovered in 1990 and aired on CBS in 1998); a 1951 promo for the show; the Criterion Collection episodes with commentary; a before-and-after comparison of the film restoration; flubs; on-set color home movies; the opening and closing of The Sunday Lucy Show (afternoon reruns of episodes for the whole family to enjoy); photo galleries and talent profiles; and several audio only episodes of My Favorite Husband and audio excerpts from Jess Oppenheimer’s book about the making of the show.
- Season 2: A 1952 promo; a collection of the introductory scenes filmed for the ‘flashback’ rerun episodes; a colorized version of ‘Job Switching’ (the candy factory episode); the French-Canadian version of ‘Job Switching’; the repeat open and close for ‘The Handcuffs’; Flubs; the cast appearance on Stars in the Eye; a CBS Eye promo; the international open and close for ‘Redecorating’; a Phillip Morris ad celebrating the arrival of Little Ricky; Heart Fund PSA with Lucy and Desi; more ‘flashback’ episode opening scenes; a clip from The Red Skelton Show poking fun at Lucy merchandise; the Spanish-language title from ‘Lucy Hires a Maid’; I Love Lucy: The Movie, which consisted of three episodes stitched together with newly filmed footage but never theatrically released due to Lucy and Desi’s The Long, Long Trailer release on the horizon, and MGM asked to not have the films compete since their film would be the first time the public saw the couple in color; more My Favorite Husband episodes; and cast and crew profiles and galleries.
- Season 3: Season 3 promos; Original Opening and Sponsor Material; Flubs; a March of Dimes ad; The Long, Long Trailer promo; My Favorite Husband episodes; and an audio excerpt from Jess Oppenheimer’s book.
- Season 4: Community Chest PSA; Original Opening and Closing; a lost scene from ‘The Business Manager’; Flubs; Sponsor Material; Olympic Fund PSA; My Favorite Husband episodes; and an audio excerpt from Jess Oppenheimer’s book.
- Season 5: Original Openings and Closings; Flubs; The Top Ten I Love Lucy Shows; Christmas With the Greatest Show on Earth promo; ads; My Favorite Husband episodes.
- Season 6: Primetime Reruns (opening and closings for reruns of The Sunday Lucy Show, I Love Lucy and the Top 10 episodes); Original Openings and Closings; Flubs; a newly discovered ‘flashback’ scene from a repeat of ‘Ethel’s Birthday’ filmed to maintain continuity as the Ricardos and Mertzes trips to Florida and Cuba concluded; a colorized version of ‘Lucy and the Loving Cup’; a commentary track featuring Keith Thibodeaux, Doris Singleton and Steve Kay speaking over a photo gallery from ‘Lucy and Superman’; Sponsor Material; a lost ‘flashback’ from ‘The Black Wig’; and episodes of My Favorite Husband.
- Season 7-9: Promotional ads; Flubs; Original Opening and Closing for ‘Lucy Takes a Cruise to Havana’; Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse ads; and other Special Footage.
OVERVIEW
If you’re an I Love Lucy fan, or someone who loves classic TV and TV sitcoms, this is definitely a collection you’ll want to add to your library, despite some of its shortcomings, and even if you have the Complete Series DVD. It would have been nice since it’s been such a long wait since the Ultimate Season 2 set — ten years! — if CBS could have put a little more effort into Seasons 3-6, but this is probably going to be the best we’ll ever get (I can’t imagine them revisiting the show again for a 4K release considering the time and cost that would involve) so let’s rejoice that we do have a decent-to-excellent HD representation of the series. This is a show that is always rewatchable for any generation, past, present and future. We will always love Lucy.
CBS/Paramount generously provided Hotchka with the Blu-ray for reviewing purposes.
I Love Lucy has a run time of 89 hours 57 minutes and is not rated, but is suitable for all ages.
I Love Lucy | 45 Minutes of Classic Comedy
CBS