I Love Lucy Complete Series on DVD

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by Paul Guerrero, Feb 19, 2021.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. Kyle B

    Kyle B Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chicago
    Barry Livingston, Ernie on “My Three Sons,” wrote a funny anecdote about Lucy and Gary in his book. MTS filmed on the Desilu lot and Barry was bouncing a ball against the wall of one of the buildings. It was leaving marks, and Gary saw it and yelled at him. Lucy witnessed this, told Gary to get back in his golf cart, and told Barry to bounce away and that she hoped he made it to the Dodgers some day. She also made it a point to have Barry guest star on “The Lucy Show” after that.

    So she had a soft spot for kids. And/or wanted to put Gary in his place.
     

  2. According to the item description at Amazon, all the contents of that disc is included. Furthermore, I've checked my released-in-Australia set and all of that is in it as well. Although I've learned it often pays to double and triple check what is/isn't included in some "complete" sets (or even individual seasons of shows)!
     
  3. MRamble

    MRamble Forum Resident

    It's been a few years and I'm re-watching the entire series from episode 1. As usual, it's been great fun and each time I watch the series like this my appreciation for this show grows bigger. Sharp writing, great actors and strong performances--what more do you need?

    One weird thing I've been paying attention to lately is the studio audience. The people associated with the show have always been very proud that they had a live studio audience with true honest reactions. The well known story is that many subsequent sitcoms following Lucy actually re-used many of the laugh tracks from their episodes.

    But I still wonder how much "sweetening" was done in post to audience reactions especially on Lucy? I'm not doubting the laughter is real on these old shows but I do wonder if they have been enhanced more than we think? As natural as it sounds compared to most all sitcoms today, they do sound a little too "perfect."

    @Vidiot --do you have any insight on how things were done during these early sitcoms in the 50's? Were the laugh tracks raw and unedited or did they have license to sweeten and add laughs here and there as most shows would today?
     
    Shoes1916 and Vidiot like this.
  4. Grand_Ennui

    Grand_Ennui Forum Resident

    Location:
    WI
    While I never really disliked "I Love Lucy", it's never been a must have series for me... However, while I was at the thrift store, they had 4 of the seasons-I grabbed them up and bought them*, and now am looking for the rest of them... I know Big Lots has a few of the seasons, but they're ones I snagged that day, so I'll have to look elsewhere, but I'm in no rush to find them either...

    *seasons 2, 3, 4, and 6-The ones in the white packaging with Lucy's pictures drawn on them.
     
    Last edited: Apr 14, 2021
    bmasters9 likes this.
  5. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    Yes, they still had to sweeten the laugh tracks on Lucy and Danny Thomas and the other Desilu comedy shows, though generally the rule of thumb was that it was an "honest" laugh from that audience, just from another take. But there were some "pre-shoot" scenes shot that had no audience because of stunts/explosions/special setups, and I think in those cases either the actors just pantomimed the actors and the audience reacted to a description of the stunt, or they watched monitors and reacted to what they saw there.

    Note that by The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour, quite a few of the episodes were shot on location or on special sets without an audience, so those have a ton of laugh tracks. I believe famed Hollywood sound effects master Charley Douglass got some of the Desilu audience recordings and used them for his original "laugh track" machine (though other reports say he got them from Red Skelton's pantomime sketches). I got to meet Mr. Douglass one day when he was wheeling his machine out of Complete Post in the late 1980s, and he cheerfully showed me how all the tape cartridges worked, and how he could basically "play" the machine like a piano and create small laughs, medium laughs, big laughs, and enormous roars. I asked if he had the famous "uh-oh!" reaction from Lucy, and he had that effect up in about 2 seconds. I remarked that "wow, I bet a lot of those people are dead!" and he agreed, saying that the audiences were no longer with us but their laughter will live forever. Nowadays, they have multitrack digital audience reactions from more recent shows, and it's a little more refined. Though it was amazing to watch Charley work: he could watch the show in real-time (along with reading the script) and instantly play the laughs, and it actually sounded fairly good.

    Laugh track - Wikipedia
     
    Shoes1916, JorgeGvb, JM Jones and 2 others like this.
  6. mj_patrick

    mj_patrick Senior Member

    Location:
    Elkhart, IN, USA
    That's a shame. The original Twilight Zone seasons came out on Blu-Ray, and from memory they were about $50 a season at time of release which was 10 years ago. Not inexpensive, but the quality was so damn good I had to buy them. And yeah, it was a bargain compared to the VHS collection.

    Now you can buy Twilight Zone: The Complete Series on Blu-Ray for a little less than $60 which really feels priced appropriately. I guess I could see them charging a little more for I Love Lucy since there were more seasons, but anything over $100 is silly.

    I'd love to have a complete series in proper high definition!
     
    Michael, Jrr and MRamble like this.
  7. Jrr

    Jrr Forum Resident

    Thank you for all the wonderful info you generously take the time to give us in too many threads to count!
     
    JorgeGvb, Alan G. and dr jazz like this.
  8. Michael

    Michael I LOVE WIDE S-T-E-R-E-O!

    pretty much a no go it seems after reading...
     
  9. bmasters9

    bmasters9 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Fountain Inn, SC
    Thinner-style, keepcases? That's how my nephew Eli in Alabama has some of his collection of Lucy-- I had the first two gos of it in the original releases at one time, but I didn't care for it, so I gave them to him. He saw them and really enjoyed them, so I got him more (first the third and fourth ones for Christmas one time, then the fifth one for when he came to visit, and then the 6th and final one and the LDCH [7-9] for his birthday [all those in the keepcases you describe, BTW]).
     
    Grand_Ennui likes this.
  10. MRamble

    MRamble Forum Resident

    A ha! I knew it :)

    Thanks for this great insight as usual. It can be very easy to take all the hype that people tied to the show spew; things get exaggerated and things can so easily be taken literally. Always good to ask questions!

    Hope you're still taking care of that ILL signed VHS tape!!
     
    Shoes1916 and Vidiot like this.
  11. Michael

    Michael I LOVE WIDE S-T-E-R-E-O!

    Indeed...he's a gem!
     
    Jrr likes this.
  12. Grand_Ennui

    Grand_Ennui Forum Resident

    Location:
    WI
    Yeah, the cases where it's the season's worth of DVDs in one case, with two flippers (one DVD per side), and then the fifth DVD is sitting on the interior of the back cover for seasons 2, 3, & 4. Season 5, only containing 4 DVDs, just has the two flippers with the DVDs placed on them.

    At the thrift store the other day, I noticed they had (I believe it was) Season three, with each DVD in its own slim-case, all packed into a slipcase.
     
    bmasters9 likes this.
  13. JorgeGvb

    JorgeGvb Senior Member

    Location:
    Virginia Beach
    CBS Access had the series and watched about 70% of the I Love Lucy episodes. Lucy wrote an autobiography that was never finished and ends in the early 60s. However, I read it and it was excellent. A lot of great stories about her incredible life and is worth reading. It is called Love, Lucy. If you get the audio version, her daughter is the narrator.
     
    Shoes1916 and MRamble like this.
  14. FredV

    FredV Senior Member

    [​IMG]
     
    MRamble likes this.
  15. shokhead

    shokhead Head shok and you still don't what it is. HA!

    Location:
    SoCal, Long Beach
    October 15, 1951 first I love lucy
     
    MRamble, DreadPikathulhu and OldSoul like this.
  16. MRamble

    MRamble Forum Resident

    thanks for the reminder!
     
  17. Michael

    Michael I LOVE WIDE S-T-E-R-E-O!

    thanks! nice story...
     
  18. Shoes1916

    Shoes1916 Forum Resident

    Location:
    United States
    ^ Thread win.
     
    Hooperfan and MRamble like this.
  19. Shoes1916

    Shoes1916 Forum Resident

    Location:
    United States
    ^ Co-thread win.
     
    Hooperfan likes this.
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.

Share This Page

molar-endocrine