In addition to being raised on Flaming Nose Favorite I Love Lucy, many of us grew up with Lucille Ball's subsequent television series, including The Lucy Show which premiered in the Fall of 1962. New premise -- Lucy is a widow living in Danfield, NY, -- but with an old friend as co-star -- Vivian Vance played fellow widow Vivian who shared a house with Lucy (and both women's kids) -- The Lucy Show was a worthy follow-up to I Love Lucy, but certainly pales in comparison in terms of public awareness via syndication. By no means a buried classic, but also infrequently exposed in a couple of decades, it's an impeccably put-together show with many hilarious moments. One of the classic episodes is discussed below, and then watch the episode here!
From Wikipedia: While filming the 1963 episode "Lucy and Viv Put In A Shower", in which the leading ladies attempted to install a shower stall (but become trapped inside, unable to shut the water off), Ball nearly drowned while performing in the tank of water. She was unable to bring herself back to the surface, and it was Vance who realized there was a problem and pulled her co-star to safety; Vance went on to ad lib until Ball could catch her breath to resume speaking her lines (all the while, cameras continued to film). Neither the film crew nor the live studio audience realized there was a problem.
The Lucy Show (Season One) is now available on DVD!
From Wikipedia: While filming the 1963 episode "Lucy and Viv Put In A Shower", in which the leading ladies attempted to install a shower stall (but become trapped inside, unable to shut the water off), Ball nearly drowned while performing in the tank of water. She was unable to bring herself back to the surface, and it was Vance who realized there was a problem and pulled her co-star to safety; Vance went on to ad lib until Ball could catch her breath to resume speaking her lines (all the while, cameras continued to film). Neither the film crew nor the live studio audience realized there was a problem.
The Lucy Show (Season One) is now available on DVD!
What an incredible TV trivia snippet about the shower stall incident! I had never read that one before.
ReplyDeleteI highly recommend revisiting both I Love Lucy and The Lucy show now that it is easy to record multiple episodes with DVR. Of course one could also purchase the boxed set of DVDs. I am always astonished when I start to watch an episode and I think for a few moments that perhaps I never saw it before. Inevitably, it will occur to me that I have seen in and can quote the lines. I think I am turning into my Dad who had the same syndrome with John Wayne movies. He would always say, "I don't believe I've ever seen this one before", but it was never true. He had seen them all a billion times.
Thanks for the memories! I still love Lucy. :)
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