The Lucy Show OR Here's Lucy

[Brock]

I agree with you completely on the Lucy/Mooney vs. Lucy/Harry analysis.

[C L A U D E]

I have to confess I'm no scholar on either TLS or HL, certainly haven't watched them to the point I can tell you what episode was from what season as you guys can do and like I can for ILL, but to me I much prefer the Lucy/Gale interaction from HL to TLS. I felt Gale screamed way more on TLS and frankly had a meaner edge to his performances; "Mr Mooney" could barely tolerate "Mrs Carmichael" while Harry merely got exasperated with Lucille on occasion.

 

I give HL the slight edge as the more appealing show even though I think TLS was generally funnier however I feel it has a much more forced flavor in the humor than we usually associate with Lucy and the "star" guest appearances here are usually more tiresome than in her other shows, the kids are boring, there's a whiff of sadness (Lucy & Viv, no Desi & Bill), the very unpleasant (to me) Mr Mooney/Mrs Carmichael flareups, and frankly I think you can often feel the stress Lucy was going through at the time.

 

I prefer the much more relaxed HL; the star appearances here can be silly too but Lucy Carter isn't as wowed by every second-tier celebrity as Lucy Carmichael was, I think the Lucy/star interactions are better here, she's happy to meet them for two minutes and then it's just another person in her orbit. Also enjoy seeing Lucy with her real kids, she was obviously very proud of them and enjoyed working with them and it shows. There's much less hostility in the Lucy/Gale combo than before and that's a relief. I'm rarely knocked out by HL episodes but most of them leave you with a good feeling while sometimes with TLS I feel I've spent a half hour on a block that's being ripped apart by construction workers with noisy equipment.

Great observations. I'll never forget when I first read that she was going to be doing a NEW series with her very own kids, couldn't wait, and it was such fun knowing that like with Desi on ILL, Lucille Ball, superstar was again working with her REAL kids. I thought the premise of BRIDGING THE GENERATION GAP was a splendid idea and I loved every minute of their interplay, as badly written as it was. As for the stars guesting on the show, one has to remember that they might appear second tier NOW, many decades later but BACK THEN, they were the biggest stars their cheap budgets would allow. I mean, let's remember that the head honchos at CBS refused people like Elvis Presley because he cost too much money. The thing to remember though is that almost everybody loved Lucy and just being on her show was a tremendous boost to their careers too.

[Will]

I love both for different reasons but I prefer the Lucy Show because there were more physically funny shows and great story lines. I also agree though that Lucy/Harry is better than Lucy/Mooney. I found that Here;s Lucy is more dated for me a 26 year old so it is sometimes hard to get the jokes. Lucy look happier and more relaxed on Here's Lucy than the Lucy Show but appeared younger on the Lucy Show. Viv and Lucy were a team and I love both of them individually. Lucy and her kids were better than the Lucy Show kids but I blame the writers on that.

[C L A U D E]

I love both for different reasons but I prefer the Lucy Show because there were more physically funny shows and great story lines. I also agree though that Lucy/Harry is better than Lucy/Mooney. I found that Here;s Lucy is more dated for me a 26 year old so it is sometimes hard to get the jokes. Lucy look happier and more relaxed on Here's Lucy than the Lucy Show but appeared younger on the Lucy Show. Viv and Lucy were a team and I love both of them individually. Lucy and her kids were better than the Lucy Show kids but I blame the writers on that.

Yeah, I often wonder how anybody who's YOUNG gets any of the jokes on all her shows.

[Annaleigh]

For TLS, both plots are great. You basically get 2 TV series in one. Danfield wins it for me though. As for HL, the plot for the first 3 seasons was good, episodes were weak though. From 4-6 the plot basically changed each season on but the episodes became stronger. I love both, but like I said earlier Lucy Carmichael is the champ

[Irene Kampen Tripp]

Some of Heres Lucy makes me wonder HOW she could.still have a career..... Seriously...if anyone else played Lucy Carter that show would.ne cancelled.....everyone wants to.watch.Lucy...even in the 70s ....but Heres Lucy has to be an aquired taste...which I must say I havnt aquired YET.... However.... The Lucy Show is charming and although not as.good as THE show....it has an interesting flavor.... Of all her post ILL work TLS is a wonderful look at changing times at.Desilu and TV in general........The only thing I like at this juncture about HL is the DOLL that opens each episode....once she opens the curtain.....it is a disapointment

[Irene Kampen Tripp]

 

Yeah, I often wonder how anybody who's YOUNG gets any of the jokes on all her shows.

Whats YOUNG have to do.with NOT getting the jokes? Tell a young person....You know there are two.things that I cant eat for.breakfast...lunch and dinner....and tell me they dont laugh....yu have to use her timing and inflection...yu will make them laugh

[Neil]

Whats YOUNG have to do.with NOT getting the jokes? Tell a young person....You know there are two.things that I cant eat for.breakfast...lunch and dinner....and tell me they dont laugh....yu have to use her timing and inflection...yu will make them laugh

Though TLS and HL (even more) stayed away from topical references, they did occasionally use jokes that were only funny if you knew what they were referring to, usually commercials. So you must be scratching your head that these lines got big laughs.

1."Please mother!! I'd rather do it myself" and the follow up

2."Please, mummy!! I'd rather do it myself"

3."Now only your hairdresser AND I know for sure"

4."Harry, you're a margarine salesman?"

5."Is this any way to run an airline?"

 

1 and 2. an asprin commercial where a woman with a headache cracks and yells at her elderly mother trying to help her in the kitchen.

3.Lady Clairol "Does she or doesn't she? Hair color so natural, only your hairdresser knows for sure." (Line delivered to perfection by Gale Gordon)

4.I don't remember the premise exactly, but someone takes a bite of something with this brand of margarine on it; trumpets blare and a crown appears on their head. (Why? I don't know)

5. This one I don't know. I think the source of this line is "This is a hellava way to run an airline" or something like that.....Can someone tell me why this gets a BIG laugh?

 

And of course there were all those "Laugh In" catch-phrases in Here's Lucy. Since LI wasn't rerun (except briefly), does anyone under a certain age know what "Here Come Da Judge" and "Sock it to me" mean? I'm not sure what a "Love In" is, a phrase that came out of the hippie movement. The writers' disdain for hippies and youths protesting against the Vietnam war comes through again and again. For example, the "cause" is belittled in the Here's Lucy exchange when Lucy is aghast that Craig is at "the protest" and even more so when Kim tells her "Craig ORGANIZED "the protest"".

More than any one thing, Vietnam caused "The Generation Gap", a phrase that came up a lot back then. The "establishment" generation who lived through WW2 couldn't understand why young men weren't thrilled to get drafted against their will, go to some far off land, and DIE in an undeclared war with a purpose no one really undestood. It was a very ugly time in American history.

[Luvsbway]

The "is this anyway to run an airline" line I believe is explained in the Production Notes of whatever season it's episode is in.

[Brock]

I think people would still be able to "get" the "margarine salesman" joke as the crown is still pretty prominent on the Imperial Margarine tub.

[Neil]

Had Lucy hired a new production team for Here's Lucy, it might have been something. Instead, it was essentially the same show as the last season of The Lucy Show with the kids thrown in. These writers wrote JOKES and had strayed horribly from the heart of The Lucy Show and the Lucy character. First season episodes with Shelly Winters, Wally Cox and Victor Buono seem like they're left-over scripts from TLS.

Lucy, by this time, was riding the impressive coattails of her enormous success and it seems like the quality of her current product mattered little.

Up until this board, all the Here's Lucy fans I knew (and there weren't that many) preferred season 1-3 to 4-6 and I'm the opposite. I find many 1-3 episodes VERY hard to watch.

[Mr. Wilson]

Had Lucy hired a new production team for Here's Lucy, it might have been something. Instead, it was essentially the same show as the last season of The Lucy Show with the kids thrown in. These writers wrote JOKES and had strayed horribly from the heart of The Lucy Show and the Lucy character. First season episodes with Shelly Winters, Wally Cox and Victor Buono seem like they're left-over scripts from TLS.

Lucy, by this time, was riding the impressive coattails of her enormous success and it seems like the quality of her current product mattered little.

Up until this board, all the Here's Lucy fans I knew (and there weren't that many) preferred season 1-3 to 4-6 and I'm the opposite. I find many 1-3 episodes VERY hard to watch.

 

 

I don't think Lucy was riding the impressive coattails of here enormous success during the Here's Lucy years (1968-1974). Here's Lucy was very underrated and didn't get the recognition I Love Lucy and The Lucy Show received. Here's Lucy was vastly different from The Lucy Show. Throughout its' six-year run Here's Lucy was a good sitcom and Lucy was still able to do comedy that made her famous in the 50's. The problem was that Lucy put her real-life kids into the series and in my opinion the kids had no talent. The whole show rested on Lucy and Gale. She put her career on the line for her kids. Also, Lucy had the toughest competition from Laugh-In on NBC and still managed to stay in Nielsen's Top 10. As a matter of fact Lucy finally topped Laugh-In during the 1970-71 season - Lucy was third for the year and Laugh-In fell to 14th place. Even when Laugh-In was number one for two seasons (68-69 and 69-70) Here's Lucy was number 9 and number 6. On top of that ABC use to throw blockbuster movie titles against her from 1970 through 74. I always believed that if people don't like a TV show, movie or play (no matter the star) they are going to turn away, but they didn't turn on Lucy. I digress, The Lucy Show is my favorite over Here's Lucy, I enjoy both the Vivian Vance years and the California Years. It was a funnier show, a better written show and won Lucy four Emmy nominations for Best Actress In A Comedy Series and two wins for seasons five and six. The Lucy Show also had way less poorly written episodes than Here's Lucy, although, "Mooney, the Monkey," ranks as one of the worst Lucy episodes along with the two jungle episodes from Here's Lucy. As I stated earlier, Here's Lucy had many more poorly written (bad) episodes than The Lucy Show. In a given season there are atleast four badly written episodes in Here's Lucy, but, the amazing thing is that there are more good epiosdes than bad. I think all six seasons of Here's Lucy are the same and can't split them like The Lucy Show (Vivian Vance/California Years). I do think, however, that Lucy should have quit at the end of season 5. Breaking her leg made the show a little weaker, audiences were use to Lucy's madcap antics. When she broke her legs things kind of calmed down a lot. Season six was the least successful Lucy season and that's because comedy was changing at the time. In 1973 shows like Maude, Mary Tyler Moore and All in the Family were riding high in the Nielsens and Lucy started to slip big time (29th place), this was the first time she had been out of the Top 15 shows. Another reason for her decline in her last year was that the writers were running out of ideas, Lucy was getting older (62) and the writing was the worst for season six even with gems like Wandering Mother, Lucy Meets Lucille Ball, Fight The System, Lucy & Joan Rivers Do Jury Duty and Lucy Plays Cops & Robbers. It was an end of an era and there is no one who can ever replace Lucille Ball. She is the Queen of Comedy and The First Lady of Television. She did things her way and she knew when to get off the weekly grind of doing a television series. Her biggest mistake was coming back with Life With Lucy and the same old writers. She would have been perfect in a Golden Girls like sitcom, but, probably Gary had a lot to do with her coming back to TV because of the money. I believe Gary Morton was really responsible for ruining most of Lucy's later career. After, Here's Lucy ended Gary made a lot of the decisions in picking vehicles for Lucy that just didn't work. She was offered a lot of different roles but Gary turned them down. He became a wall between her older friends in Hollywood and Hollywood executives. Nobody really liked him. He was the biggest jerk and joke in Hollywood.

[C L A U D E]

Maybe this is the place to ask the question.... Why is Heres Lucy lessentertaining than her other tv shows? I want to like it as much.or.more so can anyone tell me why I find it less entertaining? And if it is the.writing......why wasnt it immediately adsressed? Surely people involved knew how to increase the quality....what wws the blockade? If it was Lucille..what were her reasons? If anyone knows I wud appreciate an answer.....thanks... By the way its hard.to.type on this crappy phone lol

She just wanted to work, her hubby tried to get everything as cheap as possible and the writers, any writers, ran out of great comedic ideas for her to do.

[C L A U D E]

Some of Heres Lucy makes me wonder HOW she could.still have a career..... Seriously...if anyone else played Lucy Carter that show would.ne cancelled.....everyone wants to.watch.Lucy...even in the 70s ....but Heres Lucy has to be an aquired taste...which I must say I havnt aquired YET.... However.... The Lucy Show is charming and although not as.good as THE show....it has an interesting flavor.... Of all her post ILL work TLS is a wonderful look at changing times at.Desilu and TV in general........The only thing I like at this juncture about HL is the DOLL that opens each episode....once she opens the curtain.....it is a disapointment

That's your answer right there, LUCY WAS THE SHOW, which was true of all her series, Desi said it about her in ILL and one could enjoy Here's Lucy for one reason, you were seeing the Queen of television comedy, playing with big name guests, acting with her children and as Lucy herself said, the world changed, wars came and went, but Lucy and her character stayed the same, you could watch her, be entertained and forget about all the crap that was going on in the world.

[C L A U D E]

Whats YOUNG have to do.with NOT getting the jokes? Tell a young person....You know there are two.things that I cant eat for.breakfast...lunch and dinner....and tell me they dont laugh....yu have to use her timing and inflection...yu will make them laugh

That's not what I meant, I meant references to old entertainers they never even heard of. Customs and habits that existed back then that are relics of the past and have disappeared.

[C L A U D E]

Though TLS and HL (even more) stayed away from topical references, they did occasionally use jokes that were only funny if you knew what they were referring to, usually commercials. So you must be scratching your head that these lines got big laughs.

1."Please mother!! I'd rather do it myself" and the follow up

2."Please, mummy!! I'd rather do it myself"

3."Now only your hairdresser AND I know for sure"

4."Harry, you're a margarine salesman?"

5."Is this any way to run an airline?"

 

1 and 2. an asprin commercial where a woman with a headache cracks and yells at her elderly mother trying to help her in the kitchen.

3.Lady Clairol "Does she or doesn't she? Hair color so natural, only your hairdresser knows for sure." (Line delivered to perfection by Gale Gordon)

4.I don't remember the premise exactly, but someone takes a bite of something with this brand of margarine on it; trumpets blare and a crown appears on their head. (Why? I don't know)

5. This one I don't know. I think the source of this line is "This is a hellava way to run an airline" or something like that.....Can someone tell me why this gets a BIG laugh?

 

And of course there were all those "Laugh In" catch-phrases in Here's Lucy. Since LI wasn't rerun (except briefly), does anyone under a certain age know what "Here Come Da Judge" and "Sock it to me" mean? I'm not sure what a "Love In" is, a phrase that came out of the hippie movement. The writers' disdain for hippies and youths protesting against the Vietnam war comes through again and again. For example, the "cause" is belittled in the Here's Lucy exchange when Lucy is aghast that Craig is at "the protest" and even more so when Kim tells her "Craig ORGANIZED "the protest"".

More than any one thing, Vietnam caused "The Generation Gap", a phrase that came up a lot back then. The "establishment" generation who lived through WW2 couldn't understand why young men weren't thrilled to get drafted against their will, go to some far off land, and DIE in an undeclared war with a purpose no one really undestood. It was a very ugly time in American history.

I think it was if you ate THAT particular margarine, you felt like you were a King or something.

[C L A U D E]

Had Lucy hired a new production team for Here's Lucy, it might have been something. Instead, it was essentially the same show as the last season of The Lucy Show with the kids thrown in. These writers wrote JOKES and had strayed horribly from the heart of The Lucy Show and the Lucy character. First season episodes with Shelly Winters, Wally Cox and Victor Buono seem like they're left-over scripts from TLS.

Lucy, by this time, was riding the impressive coattails of her enormous success and it seems like the quality of her current product mattered little.

Up until this board, all the Here's Lucy fans I knew (and there weren't that many) preferred season 1-3 to 4-6 and I'm the opposite. I find many 1-3 episodes VERY hard to watch.

AND let's not forget that all variety shows and especially Bob Hope's featured the same horrible writing.

[C L A U D E]

I don't think Lucy was riding the impressive coattails of here enormous success during the Here's Lucy years (1968-1974). Here's Lucy was very underrated and didn't get the recognition I Love Lucy and The Lucy Show received. Here's Lucy was vastly different from The Lucy Show. Throughout its' six-year run Here's Lucy was a good sitcom and Lucy was still able to do comedy that made her famous in the 50's. The problem was that Lucy put her real-life kids into the series and in my opinion the kids had no talent. The whole show rested on Lucy and Gale. She put her career on the line for her kids. Also, Lucy had the toughest competition from Laugh-In on NBC and still managed to stay in Nielsen's Top 10. As a matter of fact Lucy finally topped Laugh-In during the 1970-71 season - Lucy was third for the year and Laugh-In fell to 14th place. Even when Laugh-In was number one for two seasons (68-69 and 69-70) Here's Lucy was number 9 and number 6. On top of that ABC use to throw blockbuster movie titles against her from 1970 through 74. I always believed that if people don't like a TV show, movie or play (no matter the star) they are going to turn away, but they didn't turn on Lucy. I digress, The Lucy Show is my favorite over Here's Lucy, I enjoy both the Vivian Vance years and the California Years. It was a funnier show, a better written show and won Lucy four Emmy nominations for Best Actress In A Comedy Series and two wins for seasons five and six. The Lucy Show also had way less poorly written episodes than Here's Lucy, although, "Mooney, the Monkey," ranks as one of the worst Lucy episodes along with the two jungle episodes from Here's Lucy. As I stated earlier, Here's Lucy had many more poorly written (bad) episodes than The Lucy Show. In a given season there are atleast four badly written episodes in Here's Lucy, but, the amazing thing is that there are more good epiosdes than bad. I think all six seasons of Here's Lucy are the same and can't split them like The Lucy Show (Vivian Vance/California Years). I do think, however, that Lucy should have quit at the end of season 5. Breaking her leg made the show a little weaker, audiences were use to Lucy's madcap antics. When she broke her legs things kind of calmed down a lot. Season six was the least successful Lucy season and that's because comedy was changing at the time. In 1973 shows like Maude, Mary Tyler Moore and All in the Family were riding high in the Nielsens and Lucy started to slip big time (29th place), this was the first time she had been out of the Top 15 shows. Another reason for her decline in her last year was that the writers were running out of ideas, Lucy was getting older (62) and the writing was the worst for season six even with gems like Wandering Mother, Lucy Meets Lucille Ball, Fight The System, Lucy & Joan Rivers Do Jury Duty and Lucy Plays Cops & Robbers. It was an end of an era and there is no one who can ever replace Lucille Ball. She is the Queen of Comedy and The First Lady of Television. She did things her way and she knew when to get off the weekly grind of doing a television series. Her biggest mistake was coming back with Life With Lucy and the same old writers. She would have been perfect in a Golden Girls like sitcom, but, probably Gary had a lot to do with her coming back to TV because of the money. I believe Gary Morton was really responsible for ruining most of Lucy's later career. After, Here's Lucy ended Gary made a lot of the decisions in picking vehicles for Lucy that just didn't work. She was offered a lot of different roles but Gary turned them down. He became a wall between her older friends in Hollywood and Hollywood executives. Nobody really liked him. He was the biggest jerk and joke in Hollywood.

Oy, so many retorts from me and so little time to type them, LOL!

[Taylor]

Oy, so many retorts from me and so little time to type them, LOL!

 

Whaaa? Lucy's kids had no talent?? Are you deaf, dumb, and blind? I couldn't do that crap at 15 or 17, dance, sing, play drums. They're acting wasn't that great in the beginning but they got better as the series went along.

[chedderchester]

Definitely TLS better--HL had more of a mature, mod edge to it--not much physical comedy. I think my favorite season is 2, and maybe 5 or 6, of HL. TLS had a lot more laughs, but I prefer the more mature Lucille Carter over the dingaling Lucy Carmichael. I also felt bad for Lucy Carmichael having to put up with Mr. Mooney--what a jerk. I LOVE the first season of TLS, but season 2 was kind of a dud for me, not many episodes stand out except for the first 3, and Loophole, Millionaire, Redecorating, and Fire at the Bank. Military Academy was funny but it was the typical "Lucy has to sneak in dressed as a man" plot. How did they not think she was a woman? Yes the last 3 seasons felt like a completely different show. Same with Here's Lucy, but that's once Craig left, and most episodes only featured Lucy, Harry, Mary Jane, Vanda, and occasionally Kim.

And as for looks, I wasn't crazy about Lucy's hair in the first 4 seasons of HL. I liked her slightly longer wig seen in season 4 (and the last ep of season 5) but the longer hair made her look younger. And I also wasn't crazy about Lucy's wig in season 3 of TLS but I prefer her look in that show.

[Irene Kampen Tripp]

Whaaa? Lucy's kids had no talent?? Are you deaf, dumb, and blind? I couldn't do that crap at 15 or 17, dance, sing, play drums. They're acting wasn't that great in the beginning but they got better as the series went along.

AND let's be frank here.. they weren't given much great material to work with either.. their characters weren't well defined.. so they did a credible job with what they had to work with.

[C L A U D E]

AND let's be frank here.. they weren't given much great material to work with either.. their characters weren't well defined.. so they did a credible job with what they had to work with.

Thank you, exactly what I was going to say. Both later had careers in F I L M after all, and on the boards also.

[Harrison]

I guess The Lucy Show as it started out so strong and had the same creative team who were behind I Love Lucy. And it was nice to see the one and only Vivian Vance paired up with Lucy once more as they had such strong chemistry between each other. Also, their characters were like Lucy and Ethel all over again; however, this time with different labels put on them. But as we all know, the series became something else when Vivian Vance left the show and Lucy hired an all-new writing staff. The Lucy character was never entirely the same afterwards. With Here's Lucy, there was little attempt to revert back to the early Lucy Show format but instead the format with celebrities and musical shows and numbers within-a-show (a variety-type show) was expanded even more. Lucy was best at doing physical comedy and clever dialogue not singing and dancing. And with me, I am there to watch LUCY (do what she does best) not some guest star or musical number that I have zero interest in. As you can probably tell, the whole musical show/guest star was the downfall for me because it took away the focus from stories that could have been about the actual characters on the show. It seemed like with the later era (1965-1974) the writers were trying to come up with plots to fit the celebrities in no matter how outlandish and unbelievable it could be. It was just for the sake of having the guest star and not actual good story-telling and so the writing suffered because of that mentality. The first two seasons of The Lucy Show, I think, were two of the strongest post-ILL seasons and guess what there was only one major guest star and that was Ethel Merman. Why couldn't the other post-ILL seasons been like that? Well, because Lucy wanted stars to be a major part of her show to bump up the show's ratings (that's what I read) but it came at the expense of strong writing.

[JoeySanJoaquin]

I guess The Lucy Show as it started out so strong and had the same creative team who were behind I Love Lucy. And it was nice to see the one and only Vivian Vance paired up with Lucy once more as they had such strong chemistry between each other. Also, their characters were like Lucy and Ethel all over again; however, this time with different labels put on them. But as we all know, the series became something else when Vivian Vance left the show and Lucy hired an all-new writing staff. The Lucy character was never entirely the same afterwards. With Here's Lucy, there was little attempt to revert back to the early Lucy Show format but instead the format with celebrities and musical shows and numbers within-a-show (a variety-type show) was expanded even more. Lucy was best at doing physical comedy and clever dialogue not singing and dancing. And with me, I am there to watch LUCY (do what she does best) not some guest star or musical number that I have zero interest in. As you can probably tell, the whole musical show/guest star was the downfall for me because it took away the focus from stories that could have been about the actual characters on the show. It seemed like with the later era (1965-1974) the writers were trying to come up with plots to fit the celebrities in no matter how outlandish and unbelievable it could be. It was just for the sake of having the guest star and not actual good story-telling and so the writing suffered because of that mentality. The first two seasons of The Lucy Show, I think, were two of the strongest post-ILL seasons and guess what there was only one major guest star and that was Ethel Merman. Why couldn't the other post-ILL seasons been like that? Well, because Lucy wanted stars to be a major part of her show to bump up the show's ratings (that's what I read) but it came at the expense of strong writing.

Bravo! Well said and I couldn't agree more.

 

I've often wondered how the original "3 Bobs & a Babe" writers would have handled and progressed the show if THEY hadn't left but only Viv had: would she still have relocated to Hollywood? Would she perhaps made a new "best friend" a la Rosie Harrigan to take Viv's place? Would she have moved to Manhattan and (still) written out the kids and eventually become a "career gal" there, crossing paths with various Broadway names of the day? I think there's many, many directions they could have gone in.....and I'm curious what they could have and would have done with the character... there are so many possibilities that sadly, were ultimately never explored.

[C L A U D E]

Bravo! Well said and I couldn't agree more.

 

I've often wondered how the original "3 Bobs & a Babe" writers would have handled and progressed the show if THEY hadn't left but only Viv had: would she still have relocated to Hollywood? Would she perhaps made a new "best friend" a la Rosie Harrigan to take Viv's place? Would she have moved to Manhattan and (still) written out the kids and eventually become a "career gal" there, crossing paths with various Broadway names of the day? I think there's many, many directions they could have gone in.....and I'm curious what they could have and would have done with the character... there are so many possibilities that sadly, were ultimately never explored.

Good writers wanted a decent wage for good material and gary just couldn't bear to part with the money in the budget that went instead for his cars, watches, shirts, sweaters etc. LOL!