The Lucy Show -- Season Six -- Reviews and First Impressions!

[C L A U D E]

Probably beacuse of all the devastation and so many people without power, there are some people still without power. Some many people lost alot, we were wondering what they would about election day as some many were in the dark or homeless, but I think alot of them did vote - but not all..

I never thought the devestation or power struggles would last this long. I watched CNN all through this storm and i find they did not do a great job in showing us how seruious it was right from the beginning. I was stunned when DAYS later, we finally saw all those wiped out homes and this beach area of sand having been relocated where the homes used to have backyards and gardens and so on. And the power STILL not having been restored so long afterwards, and then the new storm on top of it all, just unbelievable.

[C L A U D E]

Still cannot get over the fact that the Joan Crawford one was one of the very last Lucy shows Lucy ever did. It was supposed to be for Gloria Swanson. I hadn't noticed before that one of the shows featured a supporting actor, it was the one who played her gyno date from Yours Mine and Ours.

[mikidiki]

Still cannot get over the fact that the Joan Crawford one was one of the very last Lucy shows Lucy ever did. It was supposed to be for Gloria Swanson. I hadn't noticed before that one of the shows featured a supporting actor, it was the one who played her gyno date from Yours Mine and Ours.

 

I wish Joan couldn't make it that day!

[C L A U D E]

I wish Joan couldn't make it that day!

I think more was made of the whole situation than it actually was. Joan had done the whole bitchfight thing with La Davis on Whatever Happened to Baby Jane so the publicity department or the columnists thought it would be a great story. Basically, Joan was nervous and drunk, Lucy was shocked at someone so ill prepared and unprofessional, that's all. I was actually happier with Joan than Swanson, Joan was still considered a huge movie star and getting her on the show was quite the coup. Joan was still making movies in the late sixties, lousy B movies but movies nonetheless.

[tjw]

I think more was made of the whole situation than it actually was. Joan had done the whole bitchfight thing with La Davis on Whatever Happened to Baby Jane so the publicity department or the columnists thought it would be a great story. Basically, Joan was nervous and drunk, Lucy was shocked at someone so ill prepared and unprofessional, that's all. I was actually happier with Joan than Swanson, Joan was still considered a huge movie star and getting her on the show was quite the coup. Joan was still making movies in the late sixties, lousy B movies but movies nonetheless.

 

I agree... Joan was still a "big name" as far as TV was concerned. (She did a "Night Gallery," directed by a just-starting-out Steven Spielberg, and he was nervous as hell to be working with such a giant...)

 

As for the Lucy/Joan relationship, the publicity machine did not really mention any of the "behind the scenes" things for a good ten years after. It was not until the mid/late 1970s that the "nasty" stories started to circulate.... (Normally, these things were not common knowledge in those days...)

 

Swanson, however, was also a great TV guest in the mid-1960s. While not exactly Garbo, she did very few things...

[Neil]

The Robert Goulet and Little Old Lady ones were much better than i remembered. Lucy in that blonde white wig looked a bit like Doris Day as the little old lady and her face looked younger than it had in years which was weird considering she was playing OLD. I think they made Paul Winchell look perfect though. Guess they couldn`t convince Lucy to let herself be made to look older.

 

That wasn't Paul Winchell...That was Day....Dennis, not Doris.

Paul played old "Doc Putnam" in the Mainstreet musical shows.

Milt must have missed his Jack Benny days because so many of Jack's supporting cast appeared in shows. And under Milt's helm, Mooney/Harry morphed into Jack Benny so Milt could raid his trunk-full of cheapskate lines.

 

Speaking of playing old, I watched a 1958 Alfred Hitchock show last night. The plot concerned 4 "little old ladies" in a boarding house. 3 of the 4 were ILL alums. They were:

Estelle Winwood: age 75

Ida "Ruth Knickerbocker's Mother" Moore: age 76

Our own Elizabeth Patterson: age 83

and

Ellen Corby: age 47!! Born in 1911, the same year as you-know-who!! Older than Lucy by only 2 months.

 

What is it about Ellen that makes her look so much older than her years? I don't think she ever played anything BUT old ladies. She was 45 when she played Miss Hannah and only 34 in "It's a Wonderful Life"!

In 1973, Lucy was dolled up as Mame, while Ellen was finally playing someone roughly her own age in The Waltons. She was only 17 years older than her son Ralph Waite and nearly a full decade younger than her husband Will Geer.

[Mot Morenzi]

That wasn't Paul Winchell...That was Day....Dennis, not Doris.

Paul played old "Doc Putnam" in the Mainstreet musical shows.

Milt must have missed his Jack Benny days because so many of Jack's supporting cast appeared in shows. And under Milt's helm, Mooney/Harry morphed into Jack Benny so Milt could raid his trunk-full of cheapskate lines.

 

Speaking of playing old, I watched a 1958 Alfred Hitchock show last night. The plot concerned 4 "little old ladies" in a boarding house. 3 of the 4 were ILL alums. They were:

Estelle Winwood: age 75

Ida "Ruth Knickerbocker's Mother" Moore: age 76

Our own Elizabeth Patterson: age 83

and

Ellen Corby: age 47!! Born in 1911, the same year as you-know-who!! Older than Lucy by only 2 months.

 

What is it about Ellen that makes her look so much older than her years? I don't think she ever played anything BUT old ladies. She was 45 when she played Miss Hannah and only 34 in "It's a Wonderful Life"!

In 1973, Lucy was dolled up as Mame, while Ellen was finally playing someone roughly her own age in The Waltons. She was only 17 years older than her son Ralph Waite and nearly a full decade younger than her husband Will Geer.

 

 

As a side note to that, I know Ralph Waite's former sister-in-law.

[C L A U D E]

I agree... Joan was still a "big name" as far as TV was concerned. (She did a "Night Gallery," directed by a just-starting-out Steven Spielberg, and he was nervous as hell to be working with such a giant...)

 

As for the Lucy/Joan relationship, the publicity machine did not really mention any of the "behind the scenes" things for a good ten years after. It was not until the mid/late 1970s that the "nasty" stories started to circulate.... (Normally, these things were not common knowledge in those days...)

 

Swanson, however, was also a great TV guest in the mid-1960s. While not exactly Garbo, she did very few things...

Yeah, was it Hillbillies Swanson did, like Mae West did Mr Ed. Mae would have been another great one for Lucy to GET, although only Ms Kennedy O. could have been bigger than Taylor/Burton were. Of course it would have been nice for Bette Davis to appear, especially if she cancelled twice. And CBS is to blame for not getting Elvis, cheapos! Seeing as you brought up the NASTY crap, you'd be the perfect person to ask this of, what was Moron Thompson's problem with Lucy? He's said more nasty things about her in books than Little Herbie Kenwith, Patty Duke, and Joan Crawford put together.

[C L A U D E]

That wasn't Paul Winchell...That was Day....Dennis, not Doris.

Paul played old "Doc Putnam" in the Mainstreet musical shows.

Milt must have missed his Jack Benny days because so many of Jack's supporting cast appeared in shows. And under Milt's helm, Mooney/Harry morphed into Jack Benny so Milt could raid his trunk-full of cheapskate lines.

 

Speaking of playing old, I watched a 1958 Alfred Hitchock show last night. The plot concerned 4 "little old ladies" in a boarding house. 3 of the 4 were ILL alums. They were:

Estelle Winwood: age 75

Ida "Ruth Knickerbocker's Mother" Moore: age 76

Our own Elizabeth Patterson: age 83

and

Ellen Corby: age 47!! Born in 1911, the same year as you-know-who!! Older than Lucy by only 2 months.

 

What is it about Ellen that makes her look so much older than her years? I don't think she ever played anything BUT old ladies. She was 45 when she played Miss Hannah and only 34 in "It's a Wonderful Life"!

In 1973, Lucy was dolled up as Mame, while Ellen was finally playing someone roughly her own age in The Waltons. She was only 17 years older than her son Ralph Waite and nearly a full decade younger than her husband Will Geer.

Oh i loved Estelle Winwood. I bought the first two seasons of Hitchcock's great tv series but they're very spensive so i stopped, only watched a few, found them very dated although the one you describe i would definitely buy, what season was it from? And seeing as you know all about these little old ladies, who were the two sitting at that table in MAME when Lucy and bigfoot are doing Bosom Buddies? Apparently, one of them knew Lucy from the OLD days. And yes, as i read every review of The Lucy sho season six from The Lucy Book last night, i noticed my error in confusing Dennis Day with Paul Winchell, sorry about that. Oh and one more thin, i absolutely A D O R E D Ellen Corby, then and still now, The Waltons was perfect for her, although it was so hard watching her after the stroke. But how could she not have been gerat as a little old lady or grandma, she had been playing those roles since she went through puberty.

[C L A U D E]

Ok, i'm off now, Joan's waiting for me in the living room, i hear she's cleaning houses now, poor thing. Later gators!

[RodMcK1]

Here is "Sitcoms Online's" review of TLS Season six DVD:

 

Introduction:

 

Lucy Carmichael has returned one last time for The Lucy Show - The Official Sixth and Final Season! The four disc set completes Lucy's second major series for CBS with 24 more episodes featuring guest stars such as Milton Berle, Joan Crawford, Carol Burnett, Jack Benny, and more.

 

Although this was the last season with Lucille Ball and Gale Gordon for this series, it wasn't their last season together ever. The following season, a new (and almost identical) series was introduced on CBS called Here's Lucy, which went on to last another six seasons. But these 24 episodes do mark a major milestone, as this season takes us through the end of the Desilu empire, one which began about a decade and a half earlier with I Love Lucy and cranked out hit after hit in those first two decades of television. In fact, you'll even notice throughout this season that the production studio actually changes midseason from Desilu to Paramount. But before Lucy's Desilu days fully fade into the sunset, we have these 24 episodes to enjoy.

 

 

 

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Episodes:

 

The sixth season begins with "Lucy Meets the Berles," where Lucy meets Milton Berle and his wife... and becomes convinced that he is cheating on her! Lucy plays hooky, but gets caught in "Lucy is Trapped." Mr. Mooney wants a famous French movie star as the bank's new client in "Lucy and the French Movie Star," but somebody may ruin this by having a few too many drinks at lunch. In "Lucy, the Starmaker," Mr. Mooney wants his nephew to become a banker, but he wants to go into show biz. Any guesses as to which side Lucy will take? Lucy ends up back in high school in "Lucy Gets Her Diploma." Lucy has to prove to Jack Benny that the bank's vault is safer than his own in "Lucy Gets Jack Benny's Account," but can she?

 

Lucy masquerades as a little old lady when Mr. Mooney needs to find a date for the elderly bank president in "Little Old Lucy" Lucy tries to help a trucker earn money after being rejected for a loan in "Lucy and Robert Goulet." In "Lucy Gets Mooney Fired," Lucy must scramble to get her boss back on the job. Lucy's Aunt Agatha comes to visit in "Lucy's Mystery Guest," except she just won't leave. Lucy wants to help a bum in "Lucy, the Philanthropist," and Mr. Mooney will have no part of it... until he finds out a secret that the bum has! It's Carmichael vs. Mooney in "Lucy Sues Mooney," where a crooked lawyer tricks her into suing her own boss.

 

In the two-part episode "Lucy and Carol Burnett," Lucy becomes an airline stewardess with her new friend Carol, but there is one problem: Carol is afraid of heights! Vivian Vance returns to the series to look back on her time on the series in "Lucy and Viv Reminisce." Lucy enters a local pool tournament in "Lucy and the Pool Hustler." In "Lucy Gets Involved," Lucy takes a second job to replace her broken TV, but would you believe she is even worse as a carhop than she is as a secretary? Mooney innocently flirts with a young girl in "Mooney's Other Wife," but when the girl takes it the wrong way, how will he get her out of his life before Mrs. Mooney comes home?

 

Lucy helps Mr. Mooney get a mink for his wife in "Lucy and the Stolen Stole," but it is a steal... literally. Lucy tries to help a lounge singer make a comeback in "Lucy and Phil Harris." In "Lucy Helps Ken Berry," Lucy is determined to help a dance school owner make his loan payment by getting any customer to come in... even if it is a bunch of truck drivers! Lucy and Viv try to help Joan Crawford become meaningful in show biz once again (a story which was sadly a bit more true than the writers intended) in "Lucy and the Lost Star." Lucy and Mooney can't tell the difference between Sid Caesar and a lookalike in "Lucy and Sid Caesar." The series ends with "Lucy and the Boss of the Year Award," where Mooney submits the name of his boss for an award, but Lucy submits Mooney's name... and they're both doing it for themselves!

 

The episodes appear to be unedited (as far as I can tell). One episode runs about 15 seconds shorter than the rest, but I don't believe anything is missing. Runtimes are as follows:

 

Disc 1:

1. "Lucy Meets the Berles" (25:33)

2. "Lucy Gets Trapped" (25:18)

3. "Lucy and the French Movie Star" (25:34)

4. "Lucy, the Starmaker" (25:34)

5. "Lucy Gets Her Diploma" (25:35)

6. "Lucy Gets Jack Benny's Account" (25:33)

 

Disc 2:

7. "Little Old Lucy" (25:34)

8. "Lucy and Robert Goulet" (25:35)

9. "Lucy Gets Mooney Fired" (25:37)

10. "Lucy's Mystery Guest" (25:33)

11. "Lucy, the Philanthropist" (25:34)

12. "Lucy Sues Mooney" (25:35)

 

Disc 3:

13. "Lucy and Carol Burnett (Part 1)" (25:33)

14. "Lucy and Carol Burnett (Part 2)" (25:35)

15. "Lucy and Viv Reminisce" (25:26)

16. "Lucy and the Pool Hustler" (25:35)

17. "Lucy Gets Involved" (25:35)

18. "Mooney's Other Wife" (25:35)

 

Disc 4:

19. "Lucy and the Stolen Stole" (25:34)

20. "Lucy and Phil Harris" (25:35)

21. "Lucy Helps Ken Berry" (25:33)

22. "Lucy and the Lost Star" (25:32)

23. "Lucy and Sid Caesar" (25:34)

24. "Lucy and the Boss of the Year Award" (25:31)

 

 

 

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Packaging:

 

Six seasons and consistent packaging for all six of them? Great job, CBS! Once again, we have a Viva case with an outer slipcase, but both of these have the same artwork. On the cover, we have a large color photo of Lucy, along with several black and white photos of Lucy in various costumes, with a yellow background and a green border. On the back, we have a few episode snapshots and a brief description of the season, along with a complete list of special features. Inside, you'll find the four discs, all of which have the series logo on a gray background. Each disc contains six episodes. Titles, descriptions, and airdates for all episodes are printed inside the case.

 

 

 

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Menu Design and Navigation:

 

The menus on this set are, as far as I can tell, pretty much identical to the previous season. The main menu gives options of Play All, Episode Selection, Special Features, and Set Up. Selecting Episode Selection gives you a photo snapshot of the episodes on the disc along with the title. Once you select an episode, you get a menu featuring a photo from the episode, a list of scenes, and options of Play, Set Up, and Credits. Special Features will take you to a list of special features on the set (exactly what it sounds like!). And finally, Set Up is where you can turn on English subtitles.

 

 

 

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Video and Audio Quality:

 

The video and audio quality on this set is about as good as they could possibly get it. The episodes are said to be restored, and while I don't know how much work was really required to restore them, they look really good for episodes that are almost fifty years old. There is the occasional grain, but it isn't too bad. The audio is a very loud and clear mono track, with few problems of note. Each episode contains English subtitles.

 

 

 

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Special Features:

 

Six seasons later, and we've still got a ton of special features... even for this very last set! We'll start with the features which you'll find on every disc. Once again, there are many original opening and closing credit sequences (some are actually from same season rebroadcasts), where you can see the original sponsor plugs in the credits. Some of these are in black and white, but it seems that most are actually in color this time... even including the CBS "in color" tag on many of the opening credits. I wish that they would have set up the episodes to where we could watch these "reattached," but given that there seems to be some inconsistencies on what is available for each episode, I can sort of understand why they didn't.

 

They've also included the guest cast biographies for each episode again, where you can go through each episode and look up each guest star... and if you select their name from the menu, you can get a very nice (but brief) text biography of who they are. Production notes take us behind the scenes on some of the episodes and the series in general. It is interesting to read the notes about how Desi Arnaz "moved back" into the studio at Desilu this season, and how his own studio shared resources to produce The Mothers-in-Law and The Lucy Show at the same time. Finally, there is a photo gallery on each disc, with publicity stills from the episodes included on that particular disc.

 

Just like the fifth season, Disc 1 has another featurette about the opening credits, "Keep Smiling" (1:43), where we get to see raw footage of Lucille Ball creating new poses for the opening credits. "Special Footage" (1:40) is a series of "episode trims" (i.e. footage of the production crew at work) from the episode "Lucy Gets Jack Benny's Account." Don't bother adjusting your volume for these... they are silent. We have two radio PSAs (1:32, 0:32) from Lucille Ball for Youth Appreciation Week, where she credits "the 95% of our great youth" for The Optimist Club... clearly, they weren't too optimistic about that other five percent! We get images from the episode "Lucy Gets Her Diploma" while the audio plays. Speaking of the episode "Lucy Gets Her Diploma," they've actually included a recently discovered version of that episode... in Italian! You can watch just the much different opening credits (0:34) or the entire program (25:34), which includes Italian audio and English subtitles. Surprisingly, this audio track sounds very good, and syncs up very well to the video.

 

Disc 2 has a "Fashions by Stevenson" featurette, where we get to find out a bit about Eddie Stevenson, the fashion designer for Lucille Ball. Mostly, we get to see a lot of the sketches that he created for her outfits, and how the outfits actually turned out on screen. According to the biography, he actually died about nine months after the series ended, so his legacy, which included working with Lucy for over a decade, didn't get a chance to carry on through Here's Lucy.

 

Disc 3 begins with a brief clip from one of the very first episodes of The Carol Burnett Show (3:13), where Lucille Ball was a guest star. This is almost somewhat of a promo for Time-Life's recently released DVD sets of the series. "Meet Jack Baker" is a text biography which tells us about Jack Baker, choreographer for this series (as well as some episodes of I Love Lucy).

 

Disc 4 has another "Lucy Wins an Emmy" featurette (2:18), where Lucy wins her fourth Emmy, and second for this series. It is really interesting how Lucy won an Emmy in both of the final two seasons of these series considering that the earlier seasons were certainly more "Emmy worthy" (it is really surprising that she didn't win one in those earlier years, she certainly should have), but everything looks different in hindsight! "Funny Outtakes" (3:54) is a nice collection of the few bloopers which were saved by Lucy's estate from the sixth season. Finally, "Here's Lucy Promo" (1:09) is just a promo advertising MPI's releases of Here's Lucy... a task which they will be completing this coming December.

 

There really is nothing to complain about here with the special features... they've done a very nice and thorough job here, just as they did with every other season.

 

 

 

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Final Comments:

 

I didn't enjoy the quality of the episodes included on the fifth season as much as the previous ones and my recollection of this season was not really that positive either... but in watching these episodes, I have to say that they are better than I remember, and these episodes are actually a little better than those fifth season episodes. These episodes are mostly just Lucy and Mr. Mooney (and occasionally Mary Jane) along with their "guest star of the week," but we do get to see some great episodes which only focus on the main cast here, and I feel that they did a better job of working in the guest stars in this season by giving them less ridiculous plots. Although it was technically a different series, I feel that the retooling made as the series transitioned to Here's Lucy did make a major improvement to the series, almost bringing it up to the excellent quality that this series had in the first three seasons.

 

I'm also glad that CBS did an excellent job not only on this set, but on all of these releases. We've gotten episodes which are about 99.9% unedited, a healthy collection of special features for ALL six seasons (I honestly expected them to transition to "episodes only" sets around after a season or two), and on top of that, we got it all wrapped up in just a little over three years. The same can be said for the fine folks at MPI who are in the process of completing Here's Lucy. The mutual cooperation and cross-promoting from both studios seems to have made these both of these series, which are certainly a less memorable part of Lucille Ball's legacy, thrive on DVD. I feel that now we can really close the book on this series and call it a wrap, but I can't help but to wonder if we'll see a complete series release in the future with even more special features. These sets would be hard to top, and really, that statement in and of itself is a great compliment.

 

 

 

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Final Numbers (out of 5 stars - How our point system works)

 

Video Quality: 4.5/5

Audio Quality: 4.5/5

Special Features: 3.5/5

Menu Design/Navigation: 5/5

Overall: 4.5/5

 

-- Reviewed by skees53 on 10/07/12

 

To purchase the DVD, click below and help support SitcomsOnline.com:

 

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B008OIQYQY/ref=nosim/happydaysonline4-20

 

Questions or comments about this set? Post on our message board:

 

http://www.sitcomsonline.com/boards/showthread.php?t=304770

[mickie]

Another Great review - Thanks for posting..

 

 

Here is "Sitcoms Online's" review of TLS Season six DVD:

 

Introduction:

 

Lucy Carmichael has returned one last time for The Lucy Show - The Official Sixth and Final Season! The four disc set completes Lucy's second major series for CBS with 24 more episodes featuring guest stars such as Milton Berle, Joan Crawford, Carol Burnett, Jack Benny, and more.

 

Although this was the last season with Lucille Ball and Gale Gordon for this series, it wasn't their last season together ever. The following season, a new (and almost identical) series was introduced on CBS called Here's Lucy, which went on to last another six seasons. But these 24 episodes do mark a major milestone, as this season takes us through the end of the Desilu empire, one which began about a decade and a half earlier with I Love Lucy and cranked out hit after hit in those first two decades of television. In fact, you'll even notice throughout this season that the production studio actually changes midseason from Desilu to Paramount. But before Lucy's Desilu days fully fade into the sunset, we have these 24 episodes to enjoy.

 

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Episodes:

 

The sixth season begins with "Lucy Meets the Berles," where Lucy meets Milton Berle and his wife... and becomes convinced that he is cheating on her! Lucy plays hooky, but gets caught in "Lucy is Trapped." Mr. Mooney wants a famous French movie star as the bank's new client in "Lucy and the French Movie Star," but somebody may ruin this by having a few too many drinks at lunch. In "Lucy, the Starmaker," Mr. Mooney wants his nephew to become a banker, but he wants to go into show biz. Any guesses as to which side Lucy will take? Lucy ends up back in high school in "Lucy Gets Her Diploma." Lucy has to prove to Jack Benny that the bank's vault is safer than his own in "Lucy Gets Jack Benny's Account," but can she?

 

Lucy masquerades as a little old lady when Mr. Mooney needs to find a date for the elderly bank president in "Little Old Lucy" Lucy tries to help a trucker earn money after being rejected for a loan in "Lucy and Robert Goulet." In "Lucy Gets Mooney Fired," Lucy must scramble to get her boss back on the job. Lucy's Aunt Agatha comes to visit in "Lucy's Mystery Guest," except she just won't leave. Lucy wants to help a bum in "Lucy, the Philanthropist," and Mr. Mooney will have no part of it... until he finds out a secret that the bum has! It's Carmichael vs. Mooney in "Lucy Sues Mooney," where a crooked lawyer tricks her into suing her own boss.

 

In the two-part episode "Lucy and Carol Burnett," Lucy becomes an airline stewardess with her new friend Carol, but there is one problem: Carol is afraid of heights! Vivian Vance returns to the series to look back on her time on the series in "Lucy and Viv Reminisce." Lucy enters a local pool tournament in "Lucy and the Pool Hustler." In "Lucy Gets Involved," Lucy takes a second job to replace her broken TV, but would you believe she is even worse as a carhop than she is as a secretary? Mooney innocently flirts with a young girl in "Mooney's Other Wife," but when the girl takes it the wrong way, how will he get her out of his life before Mrs. Mooney comes home?

 

Lucy helps Mr. Mooney get a mink for his wife in "Lucy and the Stolen Stole," but it is a steal... literally. Lucy tries to help a lounge singer make a comeback in "Lucy and Phil Harris." In "Lucy Helps Ken Berry," Lucy is determined to help a dance school owner make his loan payment by getting any customer to come in... even if it is a bunch of truck drivers! Lucy and Viv try to help Joan Crawford become meaningful in show biz once again (a story which was sadly a bit more true than the writers intended) in "Lucy and the Lost Star." Lucy and Mooney can't tell the difference between Sid Caesar and a lookalike in "Lucy and Sid Caesar." The series ends with "Lucy and the Boss of the Year Award," where Mooney submits the name of his boss for an award, but Lucy submits Mooney's name... and they're both doing it for themselves!

 

The episodes appear to be unedited (as far as I can tell). One episode runs about 15 seconds shorter than the rest, but I don't believe anything is missing. Runtimes are as follows:

 

Disc 1:

1. "Lucy Meets the Berles" (25:33)

2. "Lucy Gets Trapped" (25:18)

3. "Lucy and the French Movie Star" (25:34)

4. "Lucy, the Starmaker" (25:34)

5. "Lucy Gets Her Diploma" (25:35)

6. "Lucy Gets Jack Benny's Account" (25:33)

 

Disc 2:

7. "Little Old Lucy" (25:34)

8. "Lucy and Robert Goulet" (25:35)

9. "Lucy Gets Mooney Fired" (25:37)

10. "Lucy's Mystery Guest" (25:33)

11. "Lucy, the Philanthropist" (25:34)

12. "Lucy Sues Mooney" (25:35)

 

Disc 3:

13. "Lucy and Carol Burnett (Part 1)" (25:33)

14. "Lucy and Carol Burnett (Part 2)" (25:35)

15. "Lucy and Viv Reminisce" (25:26)

16. "Lucy and the Pool Hustler" (25:35)

17. "Lucy Gets Involved" (25:35)

18. "Mooney's Other Wife" (25:35)

 

Disc 4:

19. "Lucy and the Stolen Stole" (25:34)

20. "Lucy and Phil Harris" (25:35)

21. "Lucy Helps Ken Berry" (25:33)

22. "Lucy and the Lost Star" (25:32)

23. "Lucy and Sid Caesar" (25:34)

24. "Lucy and the Boss of the Year Award" (25:31)

 

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Packaging:

 

Six seasons and consistent packaging for all six of them? Great job, CBS! Once again, we have a Viva case with an outer slipcase, but both of these have the same artwork. On the cover, we have a large color photo of Lucy, along with several black and white photos of Lucy in various costumes, with a yellow background and a green border. On the back, we have a few episode snapshots and a brief description of the season, along with a complete list of special features. Inside, you'll find the four discs, all of which have the series logo on a gray background. Each disc contains six episodes. Titles, descriptions, and airdates for all episodes are printed inside the case.

 

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Menu Design and Navigation:

 

The menus on this set are, as far as I can tell, pretty much identical to the previous season. The main menu gives options of Play All, Episode Selection, Special Features, and Set Up. Selecting Episode Selection gives you a photo snapshot of the episodes on the disc along with the title. Once you select an episode, you get a menu featuring a photo from the episode, a list of scenes, and options of Play, Set Up, and Credits. Special Features will take you to a list of special features on the set (exactly what it sounds like!). And finally, Set Up is where you can turn on English subtitles.

 

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Video and Audio Quality:

 

The video and audio quality on this set is about as good as they could possibly get it. The episodes are said to be restored, and while I don't know how much work was really required to restore them, they look really good for episodes that are almost fifty years old. There is the occasional grain, but it isn't too bad. The audio is a very loud and clear mono track, with few problems of note. Each episode contains English subtitles.

 

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Special Features:

 

Six seasons later, and we've still got a ton of special features... even for this very last set! We'll start with the features which you'll find on every disc. Once again, there are many original opening and closing credit sequences (some are actually from same season rebroadcasts), where you can see the original sponsor plugs in the credits. Some of these are in black and white, but it seems that most are actually in color this time... even including the CBS "in color" tag on many of the opening credits. I wish that they would have set up the episodes to where we could watch these "reattached," but given that there seems to be some inconsistencies on what is available for each episode, I can sort of understand why they didn't.

 

They've also included the guest cast biographies for each episode again, where you can go through each episode and look up each guest star... and if you select their name from the menu, you can get a very nice (but brief) text biography of who they are. Production notes take us behind the scenes on some of the episodes and the series in general. It is interesting to read the notes about how Desi Arnaz "moved back" into the studio at Desilu this season, and how his own studio shared resources to produce The Mothers-in-Law and The Lucy Show at the same time. Finally, there is a photo gallery on each disc, with publicity stills from the episodes included on that particular disc.

 

Just like the fifth season, Disc 1 has another featurette about the opening credits, "Keep Smiling" (1:43), where we get to see raw footage of Lucille Ball creating new poses for the opening credits. "Special Footage" (1:40) is a series of "episode trims" (i.e. footage of the production crew at work) from the episode "Lucy Gets Jack Benny's Account." Don't bother adjusting your volume for these... they are silent. We have two radio PSAs (1:32, 0:32) from Lucille Ball for Youth Appreciation Week, where she credits "the 95% of our great youth" for The Optimist Club... clearly, they weren't too optimistic about that other five percent! We get images from the episode "Lucy Gets Her Diploma" while the audio plays. Speaking of the episode "Lucy Gets Her Diploma," they've actually included a recently discovered version of that episode... in Italian! You can watch just the much different opening credits (0:34) or the entire program (25:34), which includes Italian audio and English subtitles. Surprisingly, this audio track sounds very good, and syncs up very well to the video.

 

Disc 2 has a "Fashions by Stevenson" featurette, where we get to find out a bit about Eddie Stevenson, the fashion designer for Lucille Ball. Mostly, we get to see a lot of the sketches that he created for her outfits, and how the outfits actually turned out on screen. According to the biography, he actually died about nine months after the series ended, so his legacy, which included working with Lucy for over a decade, didn't get a chance to carry on through Here's Lucy.

 

Disc 3 begins with a brief clip from one of the very first episodes of The Carol Burnett Show (3:13), where Lucille Ball was a guest star. This is almost somewhat of a promo for Time-Life's recently released DVD sets of the series. "Meet Jack Baker" is a text biography which tells us about Jack Baker, choreographer for this series (as well as some episodes of I Love Lucy).

 

Disc 4 has another "Lucy Wins an Emmy" featurette (2:18), where Lucy wins her fourth Emmy, and second for this series. It is really interesting how Lucy won an Emmy in both of the final two seasons of these series considering that the earlier seasons were certainly more "Emmy worthy" (it is really surprising that she didn't win one in those earlier years, she certainly should have), but everything looks different in hindsight! "Funny Outtakes" (3:54) is a nice collection of the few bloopers which were saved by Lucy's estate from the sixth season. Finally, "Here's Lucy Promo" (1:09) is just a promo advertising MPI's releases of Here's Lucy... a task which they will be completing this coming December.

 

There really is nothing to complain about here with the special features... they've done a very nice and thorough job here, just as they did with every other season.

 

 

 

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Final Comments:

 

I didn't enjoy the quality of the episodes included on the fifth season as much as the previous ones and my recollection of this season was not really that positive either... but in watching these episodes, I have to say that they are better than I remember, and these episodes are actually a little better than those fifth season episodes. These episodes are mostly just Lucy and Mr. Mooney (and occasionally Mary Jane) along with their "guest star of the week," but we do get to see some great episodes which only focus on the main cast here, and I feel that they did a better job of working in the guest stars in this season by giving them less ridiculous plots. Although it was technically a different series, I feel that the retooling made as the series transitioned to Here's Lucy did make a major improvement to the series, almost bringing it up to the excellent quality that this series had in the first three seasons.

 

I'm also glad that CBS did an excellent job not only on this set, but on all of these releases. We've gotten episodes which are about 99.9% unedited, a healthy collection of special features for ALL six seasons (I honestly expected them to transition to "episodes only" sets around after a season or two), and on top of that, we got it all wrapped up in just a little over three years. The same can be said for the fine folks at MPI who are in the process of completing Here's Lucy. The mutual cooperation and cross-promoting from both studios seems to have made these both of these series, which are certainly a less memorable part of Lucille Ball's legacy, thrive on DVD. I feel that now we can really close the book on this series and call it a wrap, but I can't help but to wonder if we'll see a complete series release in the future with even more special features. These sets would be hard to top, and really, that statement in and of itself is a great compliment.

 

 

 

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Final Numbers (out of 5 stars - How our point system works)

 

Video Quality: 4.5/5

Audio Quality: 4.5/5

Special Features: 3.5/5

Menu Design/Navigation: 5/5

Overall: 4.5/5

 

-- Reviewed by skees53 on 10/07/12

 

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http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B008OIQYQY/ref=nosim/happydaysonline4-20

 

Questions or comments about this set? Post on our message board:

 

http://www.sitcomsonline.com/boards/showthread.php?t=304770

[C L A U D E]

Another Great review - Thanks for posting..

I'm surprised the BERLE one didn't run longer, must have driven them crazy editing that one with that salad dressing on head scene alone. Probably my second favorite Lucy show after the Dean Martin one.

[mickie]

A review from dvdtalk.com

 

http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/58278/lucy-show-the-official-sixth-final-season-the/

[C L A U D E]

A review from dvdtalk.com

 

http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/58278/lucy-show-the-official-sixth-final-season-the/

Wow, great review. And singling out Mr Watson for more credit was certainly well said.

[mickie]

Wow, great review. And singling out Mr Watson for more credit was certainly well said.

 

SO TRUE Claude.

[Neil]

Wow, great review. And singling out Mr Watson for more credit was certainly well said.

 

Watch it! The next thing you know Mr. "Tiny Type" Watson will have you shining his shows and typing out his letters simultaneously.

 

That was a pretty apt review of the season. There's very little to argue with. And he's right: those later shows look a whole lot better in retrospect than they did originally---mainly because of the unfair comparison to I Love Lucy and the first TWO seasons of The Lucy Show, which managed to straddle the fence between wild slapstick and sophisticated comedy, much trickier than anyone gives the shows credit for. For the most part, the post BBBM shows did away with the latter.

 

What does he mean with "the shows are 99.9% unedited"? What .1% was edited out?

 

But a couple of nit-picks:

1. I Love Lucy JUMPED THE SHARK when Lucy set fire to her nose???

If I understand the definition, this is absurd. Any shark yumping happened in the 6th season.

2.The roster of guests hardly qualified as "top Hollywood stars". Were people clamoring for Frankie Avalon's services in 1967? I love that he mentioned the outcry for "more Joan Crawford movies" which by that time had descended to "Berserk" and "Trog".

3. And (I know this is REALLY picky) this season qualified as TLS's highest ranking, but at 27, it's the 4th highest rated season.

That top honor goes to the 1st season: 29.8.

Though The Lucy Show's numbers held pretty steady, the ranking of TLS by season ratings goes:

1,2,4,6,5,3--the only season in the ILL 9pm slot. Evidently we wanted our Lucy Show at 8:30 (7:30 central!).

By top ten ranking:

Season 6 (#2--DAMN that Laugh-in),4 (#3),5-1 (tie #4),2 (#6),3 (#8)

I've always found it interesting that the departure of Vivian Vance and Don Knotts which happened the same year made nary a dent in the ratings of TLS and Andy Griffith. AG, which suffered the loss more, went down a little, but TLS went UP.

And just for fun, by actual rating numbers, HL goes

3,2,1,4,5,6 (season 1 and 4 are separated by a mere 10th of a ratings point)

This list is identical by ranking.

A rating number refers to the percentage of homes with television, whether on or off, that were tuned into the show. It's usually followed by the share number, which is the percentage of homes with televisions actually on at the time tuned to that show.

I Love Lucy's numbers were of course through the roof, but when listings are made of the top rated shows of all time, they only go back to 1960 because Nielsen "changed the way they figured the ratings so the numbers before and after are not directly comparable"---something I've read but never understood.

So when the top rated series episode rankings are published it's always the finale of "Mash" and a couple of "Beverly Hillbillies" episodes while "Lucy Goes to the Hospital", in all likelihood the highest rated episode of any TV series of all time, does not make the list.

[C L A U D E]

1. I Love Lucy JUMPED THE SHARK when Lucy set fire to her nose???

If I understand the definition, this is absurd. Any shark yumping happened in the 6th season.

So when the top rated series episode rankings are published it's always the finale of "Mash" and a couple of "Beverly Hillbillies" episodes while "Lucy Goes to the Hospital", in all likelihood the highest rated episode of any TV series of all time, does not make the list.

Truer than true on both counts! That's the one percent that should have been edited from his review.

[Mr. Wilson]

Watch it! The next thing you know Mr. "Tiny Type" Watson will have you shining his shows and typing out his letters simultaneously.

 

That was a pretty apt review of the season. There's very little to argue with. And he's right: those later shows look a whole lot better in retrospect than they did originally---mainly because of the unfair comparison to I Love Lucy and the first TWO seasons of The Lucy Show, which managed to straddle the fence between wild slapstick and sophisticated comedy, much trickier than anyone gives the shows credit for. For the most part, the post BBBM shows did away with the latter.

 

What does he mean with "the shows are 99.9% unedited"? What .1% was edited out?

 

But a couple of nit-picks:

1. I Love Lucy JUMPED THE SHARK when Lucy set fire to her nose???

If I understand the definition, this is absurd. Any shark yumping happened in the 6th season.

2.The roster of guests hardly qualified as "top Hollywood stars". Were people clamoring for Frankie Avalon's services in 1967? I love that he mentioned the outcry for "more Joan Crawford movies" which by that time had descended to "Berserk" and "Trog".

3. And (I know this is REALLY picky) this season qualified as TLS's highest ranking, but at 27, it's the 4th highest rated season.

That top honor goes to the 1st season: 29.8.

Though The Lucy Show's numbers held pretty steady, the ranking of TLS by season ratings goes:

1,2,4,6,5,3--the only season in the ILL 9pm slot. Evidently we wanted our Lucy Show at 8:30 (7:30 central!).

By top ten ranking:

Season 6 (#2--DAMN that Laugh-in),4 (#3),5-1 (tie #4),2 (#6),3 (#8)

I've always found it interesting that the departure of Vivian Vance and Don Knotts which happened the same year made nary a dent in the ratings of TLS and Andy Griffith. AG, which suffered the loss more, went down a little, but TLS went UP.

And just for fun, by actual rating numbers, HL goes

3,2,1,4,5,6 (season 1 and 4 are separated by a mere 10th of a ratings point)

This list is identical by ranking.

A rating number refers to the percentage of homes with television, whether on or off, that were tuned into the show. It's usually followed by the share number, which is the percentage of homes with televisions actually on at the time tuned to that show.

I Love Lucy's numbers were of course through the roof, but when listings are made of the top rated shows of all time, they only go back to 1960 because Nielsen "changed the way they figured the ratings so the numbers before and after are not directly comparable"---something I've read but never understood.

So when the top rated series episode rankings are published it's always the finale of "Mash" and a couple of "Beverly Hillbillies" episodes while "Lucy Goes to the Hospital", in all likelihood the highest rated episode of any TV series of all time, does not make the list.

 

 

 

Actually Season 5 has the lowest Nielsen Rating. Season 5 finished in 4th place with a 26.2 rating and Season 3 finished with a 26.6 rating. The Nielsen Seasons: 1 (29.8) (tied for 4th place w/Bonanza), 2 (28.1) (6th place), 4 (27.4) (3rd place), 6 (27.0) (2nd place), 3 (26.6) (8th place) and 5 (26.2) (4th place). There really wasn't much of a Nielsen difference between the Vivian Vance years and the California Years. The first 3 seasons w/Vivian Vance averaged a 28.1 rating while the California seasons averaged a 26.8 nielsen rating -- a difference of 1.2. It showed that Vivan's departure didn't matter much and Lucy continued to rank high in the ratings. Also, I believe that if Vivian stayed on with The Lucy Show the ratings would have continued to drop. Season three was good but the show was starting to go down and the California Years began an all new adventure for Lucy with Season 4 (my favorite season after seasons 1 and 2).

[tjw]

 

I Love Lucy JUMPED THE SHARK when Lucy set fire to her nose???

If I understand the definition, this is absurd. Any shark yumping happened in the 6th season.

 

 

There's a school-of-thought "out there" in criticland that says the LUCY programs changed forever with "L.A. at Last" (tho not the "nose on fire" scene itself)... It refers to the "Lucy meets a big star" syndrome that pervaded Lucy's series forever after...

 

These people say that up until "L.A. at Last," I LOVE LUCY was a simple little series about two married couples who faced rather ordinary crises in life, only handled them in a much more comedic way than the rest of us. Beginning with William Holden's appearance, however, the series shifted focus (ever so slightly at first, then more and more as time went on) with the characters becoming involved with big show business names. The emphasis shifted from being about Lucy, Ricky, Fred and Ethel, and their normal lives, to "Lucy meets a big star and embarasses herself." They say a similar pattern was used in THE LUCY SHOW and HERE'S LUCY...

 

Personally, I (1) see what they are saying, but (2) have always enjoyed these shows so much that I don't care if the presence of William Holden, or Danny Kaye, or whomever, somehow upsets the basic recipe in any way...

 

I MINDED A GREAT DEAL when the writers stopped writing stories about the Lucy characters (whichever series) and relied almost SOLELY on the presence of a big star to get them through the show... but that's another conversation...

 

tt (tiny type)

[C L A U D E]

There's a school-of-thought "out there" in criticland that says the LUCY programs changed forever with "L.A. at Last" (tho not the "nose on fire" scene itself)... It refers to the "Lucy meets a big star" syndrome that pervaded Lucy's series forever after...

 

These people say that up until "L.A. at Last," I LOVE LUCY was a simple little series about two married couples who faced rather ordinary crises in life, only handled them in a much more comedic way than the rest of us. Beginning with William Holden's appearance, however, the series shifted focus (ever so slightly at first, then more and more as time went on) with the characters becoming involved with big show business names. The emphasis shifted from being about Lucy, Ricky, Fred and Ethel, and their normal lives, to "Lucy meets a big star and embarasses herself." They say a similar pattern was used in THE LUCY SHOW and HERE'S LUCY...

 

Personally, I (1) see what they are saying, but (2) have always enjoyed these shows so much that I don't care if the presence of William Holden, or Danny Kaye, or whomever, somehow upsets the basic recipe in any way...

 

I MINDED A GREAT DEAL when the writers stopped writing stories about the Lucy characters (whichever series) and relied almost SOLELY on the presence of a big star to get them through the show... but that's another conversation...

 

tt (tiny type)

Well, yeah, B U T how many situations were those writers supposed to come up with FOR THSOE FOUR CHARACTERS when they had exhausted every type of scenario they could possibly come up with already. Was it better to redo every comedic situation like the ring stuck on a finger several times instead. The Holden episode was and is still my all time favorite of the series, so i agree with you, BRING ON THEM STARS! Her friend Bob Hope and her competition Laugh In, both used the same set up on their shows.

[Neil]

The Nielsen Seasons: 1 (29.8) (tied for 4th place w/Bonanza), 2 (28.1) (6th place), 4 (27.4) (3rd place), 6 (27.0) (2nd place), 3 (26.6) (8th place) and 5 (26.2) (4th place).....I believe that if Vivian stayed on with The Lucy Show the ratings would have continued to drop. Season three was good but the show was starting to go down and the California Years began an all new adventure for Lucy with Season 4 (my favorite season after seasons 1 and 2).

 

I don't know if Viv continuing would have caused the ratings to drop, but there are no 3rd season episodes I can think of where the Lucy-Viv friendship has the HEART it did during the first two seasons, so continuing along those lines would not have done the show any good.

 

Finally SOMEBODY agrees with me about the much-maligned season 4. There are episodes in every season (from 3 on) that I can't defend, so season 4 to me is NOT Superwoman, Rain Goddess, Saving Private Berle or Mickey Rooney. It's Dean Martin, Choirmaster, the Countess episodes, and yes (and pre-emptive OH SHUT UP about the next three) Music World/Wingding, Danny Thomas*, and Ironman 1--the season is filled with MANY solid but but not necessarily great ones like the Clint Walker two, Ironman 3/Bob Crane, Lucy and Joan, even Marineland has grown on me (thanks mostly to the scenes not involving the porpoises).

 

Interesting that as the 60s progressed the ratings of the top 10 as a whole went DOWN. I don't know if there's any explanation for that ....because as I said to MYSELF in the 60s: What ELSE is there to do??

The Lucy Show's 6th season #2 ranked rating would have tied at #10 in 62-63.

 

 

*I still think Brock must have had a hemorrhoid flare-up or something while watching this episode and that is what affected his opinion.

[Neil]

Watch it! The next thing you know Mr. "Tiny Type" Watson will have you shining his shows and typing out his letters simultaneously.

 

Oops that was supposed to say "shining his SHOES"

[Neil]

There's a school-of-thought "out there" in criticland that says the LUCY programs changed forever with "L.A. at Last" (tho not the "nose on fire" scene itself)... It refers to the "Lucy meets a big star" syndrome that pervaded Lucy's series forever after...

Personally, I (1) see what they are saying, but (2) have always enjoyed these shows so much that I don't care if the presence of William Holden, or Danny Kaye, or whomever, somehow upsets the basic recipe in any way...

 

Agree with your #1 and #2 (except for Danny Kaye, not because of him; the episode was so disappointing)

But I think they overdo the emphasis on how often the Lucy-meets-big-star theme was done, because by my un-proofed count, the 29 episodes that encompass the Hollywood arc had but SIX guest stars----I'm not counting Hedda Hopper or Don Loper, although I thought about including Mrs. Richard CARLSON :rolleyes:

And of those shows Rock and Widmark are only extended cameos. I've seen some of the original scripts and the guest star is sometimes designated as "guest star". And not one of the guest star shows is built solely around that actor to showcase their talents at the expense of the regulars. (ala "Lucy Sells Craig to Wayne Newton"* and "Lucy and Sammy") So the series still focused on the core relationships and wasn't a vehicle for celebrities.

Upon the release of the later Lucy Shows and HL, I was actually surprised that there were less guest star shows than I had remembered; far fewer than half.

I MINDED A GREAT DEAL when the writers stopped writing stories about the Lucy characters (whichever series) and relied almost SOLELY on the presence of a big star to get them through the show

 

..especially when the guest stars moved farther and farther down the food chain away from the "A" list. Frankie Avalon in 1973? Petula Clark? Dan Dailey? RUDY VALLE IN 1970?? Not knocking these people but their "peaks" were well in the past and they're a far cry from William Holden, Rock Hudson and John Wayne.

 

*though gotta LOVE that episode title...which should have been subtitled "...but he was outbid by Liberace"

[Brock]

although I thought about including Mrs. Richard CARLSON

 

 

Always love this...so much, I hereby rename this emoticon : MrsRichardCarlson : (with no spaces) in her honour.