Specific "Lucy" Memories

[Mot Morenzi]

Here, I thought we could share particular memories of experiencing Lucy's shows, films, appearances, or anything remotely connected to her. Any memories related to how we've experienced her work and/or history in some fashion.

I'll never forget the first time I saw "The Black Wig." It was on my mother's little 10" screen in her bedroom back when we lived in Stafford. The sight gag of Ethel coming out of the bedroom all dolled up really stuck with me. That was the first and only time I saw that episode until the season three DVD release. I think I skipped to that episode first just to relive it.

I also have a random memory of seeing "Fan Magazine Interview" on TNT or something around the same time. For some odd reason, I got it into my head as a kid that whenever Lucy had her hair down, it meant she was single. I distinctly remember saying "Oh, she's Lucy McGillicuddy in this episode!" She was only married to Ricky when her hair was up in a bun. My mother had to very patiently explain that, no, hairstyles didn't indicate marital status.

Before I started acquiring the various Lucy videotapes from CBS/FOX, the only source I had to watch the show whenever I wished was an extended play tape my mother had used to record a marathon of the Hollywood episodes. TNT broadcast it around 1990 or so. I remember coming downstairs one night all depressed, saying I wanted to watch "I Love Lucy" but it wasn't on anywhere at the time. Mom unearthed the tape and I was so thrilled. She didn't get all of them but she captured a fair few. The tape began at "Lucy Learns to Drive" and ended with "Ricky Needs an Agent." I think she accidentally stopped recording at one point because "Don Juan is Shelved" was missing, although a few seconds of it were still present. It cut off right after mother's line, "you mean he didn't even tell you..." then boom, the heart on satin appeared for the next episode. It wasn't until DVD that I finally got to see that episode and learn the end of the line!

What I remember the most now about that particular marathon was how severely edited the episodes were. Far more so than some syndication packages, as I recall. After I started getting official releases and began seeing the full-length versions, I realized how much I'd missed out on all these years. I also remember the commercials, as she just let the tape run its course without pausing. There was one Clorox bleach jingle I'll never get out of my head.

[Freddie2]

When I was in Jamestown a few years ago, we drove to see Lucy’s childhood home in Celeron. As we approached the street sign, I immediately had a legitimate flashback to a shot from the 50th Anniversary Special that I hadn’t seen in probably over a decade. It was really bizarre, but as soon as I saw that street sign the whole special came flooding back to me.

[Mot Morenzi]

11 hours ago, Freddie2 said:

When I was in Jamestown a few years ago, we drove to see Lucy’s childhood home in Celeron. As we approached the street sign, I immediately had a legitimate flashback to a shot from the 50th Anniversary Special that I hadn’t seen in probably over a decade. It was really bizarre, but as soon as I saw that street sign the whole special came flooding back to me.

Isn't it great when you have experiences that recall memories like that? I've never been to Jamestown myself, but I definitely plan on making it there someday.

[UKlucyfan]

My earliest memory is from equal rights. With them looking through the windows and doing the dishes. I couldnt remember specifics.

First movie I saw was Lured but 8 had really bad reception and spent years trying to see if again. I know have it on DVD of course but still remember watching it for the first time

First time I saw lucy in london I lived that too. With encouragement from the guys on here I went on to run a website about it but couldnt do it anymore after geocites closed

Never been to Jamestown but did go the the 50th anniversary convention in Burbank which was AMAZING! Still treasure the memories and souvenirs I got from there.

 

 

[rickylu]

Some of my fondest Lucy memories are when my gram would babysit me at her house. Nick at Nite would almost always be on. The Lucy Show must have been on past my bedtime because I mostly remember watching it at her house. Two episodes I vividly remember watching are "Lucy Meets a Millionaire " and "Lucy Discovers Wayne Newton" (with gram gushing about Newton the whole time).

[UKlucyfan]

For the longest time I old had the first 5.mins of millionaire. Same with here's lunch and the astronaught  episode lol.

 

[JessiLu]

I remember my mom putting on “I Love Lucy” each morning when I was young. Just after I turned 5, Lucy passed away, and I remember it being my first real experience of someone I “knew” who died.  Really, it was Lucy who taught me about death.  That day my mother bought two angel fish for our fish tank, and we named them Lucy and Ricky.

But it wasn’t until 2001, when I watched the 50th anniversary special, that I became fascinated by Lucy and Desi’s story and became a true fan.

[chedderchester]

My earliest memory was watching Nick at Nite at my grandma's old house on the small 13 inch TV in the kitchen. It was the Vitameatavegamin episode of I Love Lucy, when Ricky plugged the TV in while Lucy was in it. Somewhere around 1994 or 1995. I also remember the Nick at Nite promos from back in the 90s for their Block Party Summer. Mary Mondays, Lucy Tuesdays, Bewitched BeWednesdays . . . God I miss that so much. 

In 1997 when I was 8 we went to the Lucy museum in Universal Orlando Resort and I tried playing the trivia game, which made the car go further along (based on their California road trip) if you got the answers right. If I recall, I didn't get any answers right. LOL. 

[Mot Morenzi]

6 hours ago, chedderchester said:

My earliest memory was watching Nick at Nite at my grandma's old house on the small 13 inch TV in the kitchen. It was the Vitameatavegamin episode of I Love Lucy, when Ricky plugged the TV in while Lucy was in it. Somewhere around 1994 or 1995. I also remember the Nick at Nite promos from back in the 90s for their Block Party Summer. Mary Mondays, Lucy Tuesdays, Bewitched BeWednesdays . . . God I miss that so much. 

In 1997 when I was 8 we went to the Lucy museum in Universal Orlando Resort and I tried playing the trivia game, which made the car go further along (based on their California road trip) if you got the answers right. If I recall, I didn't get any answers right. LOL. 

Oh I loved those Block Party Summer themes. I don't recall Mary Mondays, but the years I watched involved Munster Mondays and Monkee Mondays. Jeannie Fridays were my favorite after Lucy Tuesday.

[JoeySanJoaquin]

On 8/20/2018 at 9:26 PM, Mot Morenzi said:

Oh I loved those Block Party Summer themes. I don't recall Mary Mondays, but the years I watched involved Munster Mondays and Monkee Mondays. Jeannie Fridays were my favorite after Lucy Tuesday.

Bewitched Be-Wednesdays!

[Mot Morenzi]

I was so PO'd the year they replaced Jeannie with The Wonder Years on Fridays. Never really was in to that show. 

[HarryCarter]

5 hours ago, Mot Morenzi said:

I was so PO'd the year they replaced Jeannie with The Wonder Years on Fridays. Never really was in to that show. 

I will never forgive The Wonder Years for taking I Love Lucy's timeslot on the Nick at Nite schedule. 

[Harrison]

On ‎8‎/‎27‎/‎2018 at 8:36 AM, HarryCarter said:

I will never forgive The Wonder Years for taking I Love Lucy's timeslot on the Nick at Nite schedule. 

I didn't mind as it allowed me to rediscover The Wonder Years. I recall watching it in syndication shortly after its original run. Anyways, it did make a great pairing with another Nick-at Nite show at the time; Happy Days, as both depicted an earlier decade than what they were made in. And it was Happy Days that stole the crown from I Love Lucy and bumped Lucy to being the number #2 show on network. I would image that the success of Happy Day's first year on Nick-at-Nite might have been a factor in the network's decision of acquiring The Wonder Years. Anyways, by the time The Wonder Years was added, I Love Lucy had already been on the Nick-at-Nite for, at least, three years at that point. All Nick-at-Nite did was move Lucy an hour later. Which isn't too bad given that 10pm is a respectable timeslot.

 

[Harrison]

On ‎8‎/‎27‎/‎2018 at 2:55 AM, Mot Morenzi said:

I was so PO'd the year they replaced Jeannie with The Wonder Years on Fridays. Never really was in to that show. 

I was perplexed at the time when they removed I Dream of Jeannie totally off their schedule but kept Bewitched. It was weird at first seeing Bewitched without Jeannie. But I guess they figured that Jeannie had run its course and needed it (as a recognizable fan-favorite) to lure people over to their newest TV network, TV Land. They did same thing with The Munsters. Looking back now, it kind of makes sense why Bewitched remained as N@N was waiting for TBS's rights to the color episodes to expire so that way they could air them. Because up to that point, N@N was only airing the black and white episodes and not the entire series. And with I Dream of Jeannie, they already had the complete run of that show under its belt.

[rickylu]

I remember around the time TVLand was getting started there was a commercial where a guy was saying shows that were coming soon to the network and Here's Lucy was one of them. Too bad it never aired. It would have been a good fit for the channel back then.

[Mot Morenzi]

I recently recalled a childhood Lucy moment: my dad and I watching a commercial for a videotape release of the lost pilot. As memory serves (and I could well be wrong), it wasn't the "Very First Show" version with the still of Lucy and Ricky, but instead featured the "Lucy Tells the Truth" knife-board photo on the cover. It looked like this particular release wasn't released in stores but was only available via mail order. At the time, being so young, I had no idea what a television pilot was, and just assumed it was an episode about an airplane pilot. I think dad used that commercial as an opportunity to explain the concept.

[Mot Morenzi]

On 11/28/2019 at 9:54 AM, Mot Morenzi said:

I recently recalled a childhood Lucy moment: my dad and I watching a commercial for a videotape release of the lost pilot. As memory serves (and I could well be wrong), it wasn't the "Very First Show" version with the still of Lucy and Ricky, but instead featured the "Lucy Tells the Truth" knife-board photo on the cover. It looked like this particular release wasn't released in stores but was only available via mail order. At the time, being so young, I had no idea what a television pilot was, and just assumed it was an episode about an airplane pilot. I think dad used that commercial as an opportunity to explain the concept.

Incredibly, I just found the EXACT commercial I described here! It was an ad for the Columbia House subscription series, which began with the pilot...hence the "Tells the Truth" publicity still on the cover. It was so tickling to find something I haven't seen in 25 years or so but could still remember.

 

[Neil]

In 2020 dollars, each 3 episode VHS tape cost $85!!  (PLUS S&H).   They were originally $30 each.  Now, in 2020,  you can get the entire series for $45 which is the equivalent of  $17 in early 80s dollars.   I don't know if they ever released the entire 180 episodes (60 VHS tapes or $1800!!) but they tried to group them by theme and they must have been running out of common threads towards the end.    Again, to put this in perspective $1800 is the same as 2020 $4400!  So we could have waited for 35+years and saved ourselves a bundle!

But when all you could see on TV were those WTBS edited 16mm episodes, we went for it.   The concept of having episodes available any time you wanted to watch was new and irresistible.  I don't remember how often they came in the mail but I think it was a couple months in between each shipment. 

Somewhere along the line, those sniks at Columbia House lowered the price to $20 a tape but somehow forgot to tell those of us that signed on at $30, BUT if you called them, they corrected the "error" for future purchases.    Oh, and I've still got mine.  Why?  I don't know. 

[Luvsbway]

I love these price compares. Ocassionly I find people sell all or part of these VHS sets. Unless for sentimental reasons I don't know why anyone would buy them.

And they are never cheap. Well cheap compared to what you listed above. But the most recent I saw for the full set was $150. You can buy the entire series on dvd 3 times over for that prices.

[JoeySanJoaquin]

Sadly, semi-regretfully I was one of those "shnooks" who bought back then (gawd that had to be 30+ years ago!!) t he ENTIRE Columbia series on VHS and yes, it eventually featured every single episode of the series, including the "lost (long unaired) pilot) as well as the Christmas episode, with the last tape's theme being "From the Beginning to the End", quite appropriately (must have had the Statue ep on it); and if I recall that last tape had 4 episodes on it.  My memory is fuzzy now as it's been too long but along with the priced reduction (a whopping $5 per tape!) at some point I believe they bumped up the episodes per tape from 3 to 4. And yes...I still have the entire collection as I now can't believe what I paid for 'em and I just haven't had the heart to get rid of them ... despite the fact I havent played them in years! 

Listen, nobody knew, and believe me if I'd had any inkling... that someday her entire OUVRE would be readily available on DVD and streaming I would probably not put out so much money for now nearly obsolete tapes.... but then, when Laser Discs first came along, I did the same damn thing!! Am I sorry now? For the most part.... but then I still have a Lucy "collectible" in my collection that I probably wouldn't have otherwise.... But again, damn, if we had just known DVDs were coming... and how WUNDAFUL they would be....

No use in looking back I guess... Can't re-write history! 😫

[Neil]

Well, but if you knew you had to wait 20 years to get the series on these new-fangled DVDs, wouldn't you have still bought the VHSs?

MONDAY MAY 6, 1963.  I was involved in a playground accident.  My face took the brunt of the injuries (no cracks....), all bloody and swollen.   Nothing broken.  My family was not about to waste 15 cents on a TV Guide, though I loved it.   Still do (from that era).  My mother, feeling sorry for me, bought one.  I was rattled and lying on the couch.  I asked her to read what that night's Lucy Show plot was going to be.  She started reading "In the first in a series of RERUNS....."  I wailed.. OH COULD THIS DAY GET ANY WORSE???

Though the show that aired "Lucy and the Electric Mattress" lifted my spirits.  That's my memory.  Someone else will have to verify this information because it's a bit odd that The Lucy Show would start their reruns with Episode #12 instead of one of the earlier ones.   It would be interesting to find out which episodes they picked to repeat every season before Vacation Playhouse or Glynis (that one summer) took over.  In 1963,  they repeated probably no more than 8 or 9 of the 30.  The other 21-22 were not seen again until CBS ran them in the morning in 1969.  

 

 

[Mot Morenzi]

On 26 February 2020 at 10:56 AM, Neil said:

Well, but if you knew you had to wait 20 years to get the series on these new-fangled DVDs, wouldn't you have still bought the VHSs?

MONDAY MAY 6, 1963.  I was involved in a playground accident.  My face took the brunt of the injuries (no cracks....), all bloody and swollen.   Nothing broken.  My family was not about to waste 15 cents on a TV Guide, though I loved it.   Still do (from that era).  My mother, feeling sorry for me, bought one.  I was rattled and lying on the couch.  I asked her to read what that night's Lucy Show plot was going to be.  She started reading "In the first in a series of RERUNS....."  I wailed.. OH COULD THIS DAY GET ANY WORSE???

Though the show that aired "Lucy and the Electric Mattress" lifted my spirits.  That's my memory.  Someone else will have to verify this information because it's a bit odd that The Lucy Show would start their reruns with Episode #12 instead of one of the earlier ones.   It would be interesting to find out which episodes they picked to repeat every season before Vacation Playhouse or Glynis (that one summer) took over.  In 1963,  they repeated probably no more than 8 or 9 of the 30.  The other 21-22 were not seen again until CBS ran them in the morning in 1969.  

 

 

That's a fantastic memory. I love the visual of little you bemoaning a rerun. 

This stirred a minor memory for me. I was watching some channel that was obviously airing a fisherman-themed marathon that day, and was most delighted when "Deep Sea Fishing" came on. This was before I had many videos, so still relied on broadcasts to watch most of them. 

[Freddie2]

We're at the point in "lockdown" where somebody has the terrible idea to put on home movies, as most families do, and I'll be damned if tonight I didn't see video footage from when I was less than a year old lamenting about how I wasn't allowed to watch Lucy that night because apparently I hadn't helped pick up toys at daycare. Later on, there's a recording of my second birthday party where one of my gifts was the GoodTimes "Lucy's Lost Episodes" tape. 

Although not Lucy-related, it may interest some readers to know that in another section of the tape, my grandmother and I (at two years old) pretended to be on the phone inviting Elizabeth and Emmett over for coffee. Apparently we thought they needed a respite from Mrs. Bucket next door.

[Mot Morenzi]

2 hours ago, Freddie2 said:

We're at the point in "lockdown" where somebody has the terrible idea to put on home movies, as most families do, and I'll be damned if tonight I didn't see video footage from when I was less than a year old lamenting about how I wasn't allowed to watch Lucy that night because apparently I hadn't helped pick up toys at daycare. Later on, there's a recording of my second birthday party where one of my gifts was the GoodTimes "Lucy's Lost Episodes" tape. 

Although not Lucy-related, it may interest some readers to know that in another section of the tape, my grandmother and I (at two years old) pretended to be on the phone inviting Elizabeth and Emmett over for coffee. Apparently we thought they needed a respite from Mrs. Bucket next door.

What great stories. I especially love the idea of two year old you being a "Keeping Up Appearances" fan. 

On a similar tangent, two of my favourite movies as a child were "9 to 5" and "Manhattan Murder Mystery". I used to reenact scenes around the house and in public. Mom used to love having me quote this line to her friends: "I need a drink, Roz. I'm takin' the rest of the day off!"

Back to Lucy, I did actually sort of "dress up" as her for part of a "Wake Up Spring" campaign at my elementary school circa 1996. We all wore costumes and stormed through each classroom chanting "wake up Spring!" in anticipation of winter ending. It wasn't an overly elaborate costume, I just had a scarf tied around my head, plus a broom to do my swippin'.