I Love Lucy

Tanya Childress

English 255

Mrs. Lane

March 25, 2013

I Love Lucy

I Love Lucy first aired on October 15, 1951 and last episode airing on May 6, 1957, starring Lucille Ball (Ball) with costars Vivian Vance, William Frawley, and her husband on and off the show, Desi Arnaz (Arnaz). They also had a wide variety of guest stars that played themselves and sometimes another character of the episode. George Reeves, Harpo Marx, Eve Arden, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Cornel Wilde, Charles Boyer, Danny Thomas, Red Skelton, Rock Hudson, John Wayne, and Bill Holden to name a few.

Lucille Ball who was starring in a CBS radio situation comedy (sitcom) "My Favorite Husband" from July 23, 1948 until March 31, 1951, was approached by CBS and asked to do a version of the show for television (TV). CBS wanted her radio costar, Richard Denning to costar in the television version, but Ball would only agree if Arnaz played her husband. CBS and prospective sponsors were reluctant to cast Arnaz, fearing his ethnic-identity and Cuban accent would alienate the TV viewers (emmy).

To prove them wrong and to dispel their doubts, in the summer of 1950 the couple toured performing the nightclub act they created. The show being a huge success, the "connectors" being CBS agreed to finance a pilot starring Ball and Arnaz as husband and wife. The writers for the My Favorite Husband series, Jess Oppenheimer, Madelyn Pugh, and Bob Carroll Jr. followed Ball and were writers for the I Love Lucy Show, Jess Oppenheimer also being producer with Arnaz the executive producer, and also producer when Oppenheimer left CBS to work for NBC.

Generally the filming process would be shooting on a closed soundstage with one camera, but they wanted Ball's rapport with a live audience, interaction with other performers and to capture spontaneity in her performances. Desi Arnaz being a connector because he knew who to contact asked Karl Freund a famed cinematographer to help in solving the problem. Freund adapted a technique that was used by others with limited success, shooting with multiple cameras; Freund developed a system where the lighting is set above, because you could not change lighting when performing in front a live audience. I Love Lucy combined the visual quality with the vitality of a live performance, by running three cameras simultaneously in front a studio audience. This was a 'tipping point' in the way television filmed in front of live audiences. This accomplishment makes Freund a Maven, because of his knowledge and expertise in lighting and camera techniques.

Many of the ideas for the episodes of I Love Lucy were based on scripts from the radio series. The heart with I Love Lucy that is shown in the shows intro was also used in the advertisements for the radio show, and the music theme played on every show is also the theme music used for the radio show. This is a link to listen to an episode of the radio show that I found interesting but not quite as funny as the television show. http://www.megaloradio.com/audio/My_Favorite_Husband_1948_07_23_Pilot_Episode.mp3

The show is based in an apartment building in New York, but was filmed in the Desilu studios located in Hollywood California. Lucy Ricardo played by Ball is a typical housewife married to Cuban bandleader Rickey Ricardo whose best friends are Fred played by William Frawley and Ethel Mertz played by Vivian Vance that are the Ricardo's landlords also. Lucy is always trying to get into Ricky's acts at his club, but Ricky has told Lucy that he does not want to be married to someone in show business, that he wants his wife to stay home to greet him when he gets home from work and to raise their children when they have them.

Lucy does not listen to Ricky and in her eagerness and at times sly antics to appear in his act she winds up in trouble. She will go to extraordinary measures in her pursuit for stardom. She talks Ethel and sometimes Fred into helping her in her schemes. The foursomes are very close and always go everywhere together such as Hollywood when Ricky was suppose to star in motion picture titled "Don Juan," Italy, France, Switzerland, Spain, Ireland, Scotland, and other countries that Ricky and his band are overseas on tour.

The success of the show can be attributed to the staying power of the show's producers, writers, and directors, and their turning every episode into a hilarious fiasco that Lucy would inevitably be in the middle of after causing it. Lucy's obsession with movie stars led to some very funny and must watch TV. While they were in Hollywood they stole John Wayne's foot prints, and the amount of times John Wayne had to redo his prints in wet cement because of the original being dropped and broken by Lucy and Ethel. Lucy's scene with Harpo Marx, mimicking each other as if they were looking in a mirror, Rock Hudson scheming with Ricky to get Lucy to return to Hollywood from Palm Springs, and the scene that has had me laughing so hard my stomach hurt no matter how many times have seen it is when Lucy meets Bill Holden in and spilling spaghetti on him when she was not suppose to be anywhere near the restaurant. When Ricky feels bad and brings Holden to their motel to meet Lucy, she disguises herself in hope that he will not recognize her and give it away that she was at the famous restaurant after promising Ricky she would not go.

The curlers in her hair and most especially the fake wax nose she is wearing of course surprises Ricky on entering their suite, but he does not say anything, not knowing what she is up to. The heat in the room starts to soften the nose and becomes itchy, so at one point Lucy tries to scratch it and the nose is then pushed to the side. When she is trying to discreetly straighten it, she only makes it worse because it then becomes long and pointed, at which time the look on Holden and Ricky's face is incredulous. That look becomes even more so when Lucy lights a cigarette and the flame catches the wax nose, and she then picks up her cup of coffee and dips her nose in it to put out the flame. The gig was up at that point, even though Holden did not 'rat' her out to Ricky.

Other Mavens in the success of the show are the writers, they knew the TV viewers wanted a clean, fun, and funny show centered on family. They kept writing episodes that made the show an immediate success and the highest rated series on television for four of the six seasons it was broadcasted, and never finished lower than third place. A testament to their creativeness is writing the episodes of when Lucy was pregnant which coincided with her real pregnancy, and made her the first actress to ever be pregnant