Echo Bridge's "Lucy Show" Summary

[Mot Morenzi]

The latest Public Domain release from Echo Bridge (taking over for the discontinued "Platinum Disc" editions) summarized The Lucy Show like this:

 

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Sans ex-husband Desi Arnaz, Lucille Ball returned to television with another hilarious half-hour series called The Lucy Show, featuring recently widowed secretary Lucy Carmichael, an employee of the First National Bank. From a branch in Connecticut to one in sunny California, Lucy trades on irritable supervisor (Mr. Barnsdahl, Charles Lane) for an equally bad-tempered boss (Theodore J. Mooney, Gale Gordon).

 

Expect plenty of Lucy-esque blunders and office shenanigans in this second smash-hit series, plus some familiar faces, including I Love Lucy regular Vivian Vance!

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Okay, let's break this down. Firstly, I'm not wild about the phrasing of "sans ex-husband Desi Arnaz". Why not just say "After giving Desi the boot, Lucy came back to TV"? That's what your getting at, right? Not necessary.

 

Secondly, this blurb once again reiterates some common TLS misconceptions. The Danfield of this series was in New York, not Connecticut, and this summary makes it sound like Lucy worked full time at the bank during the Danfield years. Not to mention the egregious error of making it sound like Charles Lane was a series regular AND her boss for the first 3 seasons, and that Gale Gordon didn't join the show until the California years.

 

It's amazing that, despite the efforts of Fidelman and others to correct these myths, they're still common knowledge. You'd think now that all six seasons are officially released people would have a clearer idea of what this show was really about. At least they didn't include I Love Lucy photos on the packaging, although 2 of the 3 publicity stills shown are for episodes not in the public domain, so once again ignorant buyers won't really know what they're getting.

 

Thankfully CBS did a super professional job on their official sets!

 

 

[Neil]

Maybe they only saw the last episode:

 

"It's 6 short years that I've worked for him.

72 great months filled with cheer.

There were happy days.

He'd surprise me with a raise.

Let's salute the Boss of the Year"

 

When in actuality, Lucy was Mooney's secretary for 2 AND A HALF years, having started part-time in December of 1965. I don't know if there was an episode where she officially became full time.

Where did they get this First National? In 1964, the Danfield bank had been in existence since 1899, "65 years longer than any other bank in town." so up until 1964 the DB with its lax security and easy access to the vault was the only game in town.