Life With Lucy

I have feeling somewhere down the road. it will be released
on dvd.

This interests me one because I remember only handful eps
When they first aired and two all rest ep's were never aired
or re aired on any network ? I know whole thing is bad
If can release a piece crap cartoon Garbage Pail Kids on dvd.
Life With Lucy is sort of fools gold in comparison.

 

I really don't think we'll see it released on DVD. People don't have fond memories of it like they do her other shows. It doesn't really have any kitsch value. It's just a really bad show.



Lucy's character comes off like a woman suffering from Alzheimer's.

Whenever I try to watch it I just get really sad and want to watch I Love Lucy instead.

 

I can see it appearing as one of those VOD (video on demand) releases. I vaguely remember watching it when it was on and wouldn't mind revisiting it.

 

If "There's worse crap on DVD" has become the standard for releasing something, then sure, they might as well.

 

Wow, I don't remember it at all.

 

One reason I could see it not being released is that frankly it's a blemish on Lucy's legacy. Her family probably doesn't want people remembering this show. They wan people to remember I Love Lucy, The Lucy Show, and Here's Lucy.

 

Vidiot will probably chime in shortly...he has written a few really interesting things around here about the show as he worked on it. I am a huge Lucy fan and am sorry I never saw any episodes, though I have never heard anything good about it. But if it came out on DVD? Yes, I would pick it up just out of curiosity. I think Vidiot said some episodes were filmed and not released. The whole concept was probably in hindsight a bad idea. I will let him tell why as he had numerous reasons, all of which made sense.

 

I've seen an episode on YouTube. It wasn't that bad, I thought. But not exactly good.
As I say every time this show comes into discussion here, I LOVE its theme song.

 

Yeah, it was pulled from the schedule before the whole season aired.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_with_Lucy#Episodes

I believe 8 episodes aired, a further 5 were unaired, and another one was scripted but never shot (the Christmas episode).

 

Very old Lucy was not funny doing slapstick and teetering on ladders. It was just disturbing and scary.

 

One interesting bit of trivia about the show is that Lucy's granddaughter in the show was played by a young Jenny Lewis, who went on to co-found the band Rilo Kiley and now has a successful solo music career on Warner Bros. She just came out with a new album about a month ago.

 

"He touched my breast!"

(Sorry, had to).

 

I think my big problem with the show is that when I see Lucy at this age, she reminds me of my Grandma or someone else's Grandma, and seeing your Grandma doing some of these wacky stunts makes you really concerned for their well-being... It's not exactly a breeding ground for laughs.

 

I remember reading about this show at the time, that Lucy was doing a new series with Gale Gordon no less. I remember thinking, "he's still alive?" I wanted to check it out but kept forgetting and then it was off the air. Same thing with 704 Houser, the show set in Archie Bunker's home when he no longer lived there. I was a big fan of The Lucy Show from having watched the reruns as a kid, so I got the DVDs when they came out. It doesn't hold up too well, and I'm sure I'm not missing much.

 

Doh, that was such a awful experience. I've told the story before a few times, and somebody who runs a Lucy website did a Google search, tracked me down, and had me write it down again for his site. (I'll try to find the URL.)

Some of the sad circumstances:

1) the producers and Lucy were convinced the show would be #1 right out of the box, and they were floored when the show just crashed and burned so quickly. It was clear the audience was not prepared to watch a woman in her 70s do pratfalls or any kind of physical comedy.

2) Lucy herself was a total pro at comedy, but had a terrible time memorizing her lines. This was one of the rare shows I ever worked on where the star used cue cards for the entire series.

3) Lucy was determined to get herself in shape for the part, and made the (bad) decision to quit smoking a few months before rehearsals began. This made her even crankier and more difficult during production. She was very demanding with the cast, but only in the sense of wanting to make the show better and funnier -- not being obnoxious or dictatorial.

4) Desi Arnaz was dying of throat cancer at the time Life with Lucy was in production, and he was delirious with pain. There were several nights that he called her very late, begging forgiveness for cheating on her 30 years earlier, and she was kind enough to stay on the phone and try to calm him down. As a result, there were a few shows where she was physically and emotionally exhausted, while trying to act like she was energetic and funny.

5) Lucy's husband, Gary Morton, was flustered and confused by the "new" process of finishing the show electronically, which we were doing with most sitcoms in the 1980s. When the ratings started tumbling down, he questioned several co-workers of mine that maybe that was the reason the show wasn't working.

All of us knew the show was terrible from day one. It's funny: there's been shows where you knew it was a hit right from the pilot -- which happened to me with Will & Grace and also Big Bang Theory -- but this one was a terrible dud. I think Lucy herself was really crushed that her last big TV effort was such a bomb.

 

I remember how much this show was anticipated and then almost instantly how much this show was dismissed.

Sad Lucy could not have found herself a supporting role on a well written show before she died.

 

That was somewhat depressing, and unfunny.

 

Yikes! My understanding from Vidiot was she insisted on using her previous writers and some of the same actors when she probably should have been doing different material. I Love Lucy just would not have been funny if she had been in her late 70's. As you said, you would have simply been scared for her, and it simply would not have been funny. I really think for a show to be funny it has to be plausible that what the actors are doing could really happen. That would have certainly not been the case, from what I have read, on Life with Lucy. I feel bad she went out on such a sour note. Sometimes I think you have to know when to quit, like Johnny Carson did, to preserve your legacy. She was already kind of pushing it, imo, with her Here's Lucy series in the late 60's. I think that was only successful because of her previous shows.

 

Ha! I knew you would come in and fill in the blanks...was trying not to steal your thunder. Thanks...I find everything about Lucy pretty fascinating.

 

I never thought of that...a supporting role would have been ideal for her, as Betty White has proven. Would have been a much more graceful use of her talent, but I hear she had a huge ego, and maybe someone of her stature deserved to have one, so perhaps a supporting role would have been beneath her.

 

I'm not sure about that. I think if she liked the project and it was extremely well-written, having her as the "wacky grandmother" in a show like (say) Tim Allen's Home Improvement could have worked -- kind of like Cloris Leachman in Malcolm in the Middle or Raising Hope. I never heard of Lucy being egotistical, but because she was the executive producer on the show, there was a "her way or the highway" kind of thing going. I know the writers tried very hard to get her to modernize and update the jokes, but Lucy nixed that pretty quickly.

I told the long-suffering editor on the show that the final episode that aired, the one with Audrey Meadows as a guest star playing Lucy's sister, was the show we should have done. Having those two TV icons fighting each other every week would've been a riot, kind of like a 2-person Golden Girls. He agreed that it was one of the best shows they did, but was doubtful that Audrey (who had a fortune) wanted or needed to work on a series.

 

@Vidiot, did you meet the young Jenny Lewis, who played Lucy's granddaughter? Here she is today:

 

No, but I was a good friend of castmate Donovan Scott, the fat comic actor who took all the pratfalls in the show. Very, very funny and talented man.

 

Do you mean filming some scenes without an audience?

Funny you should say that, because "Life With Lucy" ran opposite "The Golden Girls"

 

Whenever there were "stunt" scenes -- like the one in the pilot where Lucy was in the room that filled to the ceiling with soap suds -- they almost always shoot those on a "preshoot" day, then edit it the next morning and play it back that evening to the studio audience just to record their laughter. This is usually done for special sets, unusual guest stars or animals, or weird setups (like a car interior or elevator interior or something). Some shows did this quite a bit, especially when they had many, many short scenes, like Seinfeld.

I had forgotten that! We worked on both shows at Complete Post. The difference was, The Golden Girls could afford the very special "digital laugh filter" that made the show funnier. Couldn't get that for Life with Lucy.