Life with Lucy is Coming to DVD

I think I saw the first episode. I never loved her in her original series (actually, I couldn't stand her.) Her two subsequent series sucked without a hot Cuban to look at. I know Desi couldn't stand her either. In my head, Ricky had quite the casting couch with his band members.

I saw half of an episode when it aired originally. Those 12 minutes taught me that

1) She was past her prime and needed to retire

2) Confirmed Richard Burton's diary post [QUOTE]Burton wrote in in memoirs, “She is a MONSTER of staggering charmlessness and monumental lack of humor….Milady Ball can thank her lucky stars that I’m not drinking. There is a chance if I had, I might have killed her!” She even lectured Burton where to stand on stage.

Underappreciated?

That article is generous. And repeated comparisons to Urkel and That’s So Raven don’t exactly make the argument that it’s some lost treasure. On the contrary it seems to say, well this other crap was popular so Life With Lucy should have been too. Not how it works.

I watched some of the crappy transfers on youtube, and I don't think it was horrible. It was no worse than many sitcoms of the 1980s that ran for a lot longer. Honestly, I think she was a victim of ageism. People just weren't comfortable seeing her be older and they didn't like seeing an older woman doing physical comedy. Meanwhile, if Carol Burnett tried something similar, today, she would be lionized as empowering older women.

That being said, the family was horrible. Gail Gordon, however, was the best he had been in years. And, the episode with Audrey Meadows as her sister was great. Lucy should have ditched the family, and made it a more slapstick Golden Girls, with her, Gale, Audrey, and a few other older tv stars.

The family was fucking terrible. So boring. She needed a stronger supporting cast, but maybe she didn't like anyone pulling focus. Reminds me of the terrible milquetoast supporting cast for Bea Arthur in Amanda's By the Sea, when she was surrounded by charisma vacuums.

At least it had Eydie Gorme singing the theme song.

I was hoping for "Death with Desi!"

Aaron Spelling was responsible for that shit? What happened to the has-been guest stars? May with them the series could have lasted more than a few episodes.

After this show tanked she went into a decline. Apparently she was a workaholic and control freak who was used to doing a weekly tv series for decades. When that was over, she was lost. There was no focus to her life anymore.

I once asked my mom why old people like wearing bright colored track suits, like that hideous light blue one Lucy wears in those credits. She said, "Track suits because they are so comfortable, and bright colors because as as people get old they often wear bright colors more and more so they don't feel invisible." She added, "That does not mean young people necessarily want to SEE old people in bright colored track suits."

[quote]After this show tanked she went into a decline. Apparently she was a workaholic and control freak who was used to doing a weekly tv series for decades. When that was over, she was lost. There was no focus to her life anymore.

Thank goodness. At least it saved us from "Mame II - She's BACK!"

She'd been off the air for awhile. I don't think it was the workaholic/focus thing. It was years of smoking and drinking and the sad knowledge that there was no coming back. She was awful and the premise was just a rehash of her previous shows, complete with (at her insistence) Madelyn Pugh and Bob carroll, Jr.

And she hired a sound engineer who was nearly deaf!

Spelling was involved but couldn't stop Ball from doing obviously bad stuff like this.

[quote]Apparently she was a workaholic and control freak who was used to doing a weekly tv series for decades. When that was over, she was lost. There was no focus to her life anymore.

Lucy had no interests or passions outside of working in television. Well, that and smoking cigarettes. When she no longer had a weekly series to work on, she really was adrift because there was nothing else that really interested her. Her life after that, except for a few one-off tv projects every few years, was basically spent at home playing backgammon, smoking, and bossing Gary around.

I saw it when it first aired. It was absolutely horrible. Far from "par for the course" for its day. The worst of it was that it absolutely killed the wonderfully funny show that followed it -The Ellen Burstyn Show,. That show had Elaine Stritch as EB's mother and was well-written and funny, but audiences fled the channel to get away from Lucy's fallout.

OMG R16

Elaine was all of 7 years older than daughter Ellen.

ABC talked with her for 7 years before this show premiered. It doesn't sound like she was all that anxious to get back into doing a series.

Party at Larry Anderson's house after the show was cancelled

[quote]Richard Burton's diary post: “She is a MONSTER of staggering charmlessness and monumental lack of humor….Milady Ball can thank her lucky stars that I’m not drinking. There is a chance if I had, I might have killed her!”

Ball and Burton were both absolutely miserable when they drank, which was frequently, and often absolutely miserable when they didn't drink.

Thank you, thank you [17]!

I saw it, and have it all on DVD transferred from someone's old VHS tapes. 13 episodes in all. And I liked it.

R23 clearly has no hobbies.

The old bitch raped me.

^ He actually died in 2005.

^From PTSD caused by being raped by this...

Wow, in #7's clip she was really trying hard. I was surprised at her physicality when she would be dead just 3 years later.

"Aaron Spelling attributed the failure of the show to his decision to allow Ball to do the same type of shows she had done in the past. Spelling said that at her age the audience were more worried for her safety than laughing at her pratfalls. He took the blame for allowing her full creative control..."

I don't think "safety" had anything to do with it. She was just awful.