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CBS Salutes Lucy: The First 25 Years


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Right. Most specials tended to just focus on I Love Lucy. Even Finding Lucy gave her later sitcoms the shaft overall. And A Home Movie had a one line mention, but considering it dealt primarily with the Desilu days that's not surprising.

 

I found it very curious to learn that it was actually Lucille Ball Productions who produced this special, but they hid behind the CBS name to make it seem less self-congratulatory. But still nice for the new interviews.

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There are several differences between the network airing and DVD release, leaving out some of the musical highlights and also Gale's tribute to William Frawley which is solely his "Carolina in the Morning" duet with Viv; all excised, I would guess for musical rights.  (Though I would have thought "Carolina" would be in public domain). Gale acknowledges Frawley's desire to be a song-and-dance man as justification for the clip.   Fine, but that's not why we loved Fred Mertz so much.  A montage of Fred's best lines would have been much more satisfying.  There were so many.

Since Gary produced, I was surprised there wasn't more HL representation, but there's very little.  In fact, Lucie and Desi, Jr. aren't represented at all (except in virtual cameos).  I've written many times about what I would include instead of Gary's choices (Danny Thomas should have introduced "Morning, beautiful" instead of Lucy as showgirl from 1965, though I have no problem with the latter), but the special was so great I do wanna CARP.

You have to remember this was before any of these shows was readily available so seeing some of these old ones was a real thrill to those of us around in 1976.

The only awkward moment was Jimmy Stewart presenting a plaque to Lucy at the end in front of an imaginary audience.  Why neighbor Stewart who, strangely enough never appeared on a Lucy show?

And then there's Burton introducing the "nadir" of his career.  Strange that he would have anything to do with LBP again!

Strangely they re-edited the opening montage.  I don't know if they made it better, but they didn't make it any worse.  (I'm actually partial to the new version). Some time ago, I posted a comparison on you tube (there is no sound). And look at the blurry b/w copy I put up with for years!

 

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Loved watching that, thanks Neil.  It would end with that asswipe mike wallace, always speaking so well of Lucy but never ever interviewing her in his long career.  Maybe, like most people it was her who refused knowing his rep for being thorough and rough.  Yes, burton's showing up made no sense, since he resented her so much for telling him how to do comedy, guess he needed the paycheque at this point in his unOscared  life.

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This special was the highest rated of her post Here's Lucy specials and is my favorite.  Before our great DVDs this gave me a chance to see clips of Here's Lucy (I got THe Lucy Show on TBS and Nick and Nite).  I love the whole format of this special.  It was great to see everyone.  I wish the plaque wasn't given at the end since it was really presented to Lucy on the Merv Griffith Show in 1973 by someone from the Academy.  I agree the newer opening is better than the original but both would be great as well as getting the musical numbers included so we have it all.  Overall a great effort.  Only one problem.  Where was Lucie and Desi talking about their Mom?  At least later years they did great tributes to her on All Star Salute to Lucille Ball and TV Academy in 1984.and countless times after her death.

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