upperco Posted September 20, 2018 Report Share Posted September 20, 2018 Found a discrepancy in commonly accepted I LOVE LUCY airdate information and wanted to see if anyone here could shed some light on the matter. Older episode guides -- like Bart Andrews' and Geoffrey Mark Fidelman's -- list the second season episodes "Redecorating" and "Ricky Loses His Voice" as having been originally broadcast on November 17th and November 24th, 1952, respectively. Presumably the rebroadcast of "The Fur Coat" then aired on December 1st. According to the DVDs, the Blu-rays, and now, most internet sources, "The Fur Coat" was rebroadcast on November 17th and the new episodes then followed on November 24th and December 1st. Newspaper listings favor the older guides' information. As we know, those publications aren't always accurate, but three weeks in a row of incorrect printed episode loglines seems hard to buy. What's the real story here -- why did our understanding of when these episodes were first broadcast change? (Does this having something to do with discrepancies in local markets?) And, ultimately, which airdate information is most correct? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neil Posted September 21, 2018 Report Share Posted September 21, 2018 ------Does this having something to do with discrepancies in local markets?----- I don't know for sure but I think this may be the reason. I don't have TV Guides from that era but I've got a bunch from the late 50s and early 60s and I Love Lucy, reruns still running in prime time, is all over the place. Local stations evidently had scheduling discretion, especially in smaller markets where one station was an affiliate for more than one network (sometimes all 3). I don't know when the transcontinental cable came to be but the lack of the ability to send the shows to markets electronically, I can only assume, meant that prints were delivered physically to local stations (16mm??) And if a station carried more than one network, was the station "courted" by the networks to run their programming? These dual-network affiliates would run whatever they chose at the original network time and then carry some other shows in off-hours. One affiliate (can't remember which) ran "The Lucy Show" at 7:00 on Saturday. Speaking of local stations opting out of the network feed, I would NOT have wanted to be a kid in Kansas in the 60s. The Kansas TV Guide I have covers a wide enough area that there were 3 CBS affiliates listed and NOT ONE carried I Love Lucy in the morning, though they carried the 2 subsequent sitcom reruns "The McCoys" and "Pete and Gladys". And it's not like the replaced Lucy with ratings-grabbers. Each station ran a different show in the ILL time slot. One station ran a show entitled something like "Farm Life Today". Why was Kansas so anti-ILL? CBS owned I Love Lucy then ;and I read somewhere that the TOTAL budget for a week's worth of 5 episodes was only $5,000! And while I'm asking unanswerable questions: why would CBS have scheduled a failed 2-season 72-episode show like "Pete and Gladys", for 2 full years? (meaning each episode was seen 7 or 8 times on top of the original nighttime run--and summer rerun). It's because CBS was part-owner of the show, as revealed in the closing credits and their out-of-pocket expense was small (my guess). Why was P&G NOT a Desilu production? Since the show it spun off of ,"December Bride", was? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luvsbway Posted September 21, 2018 Report Share Posted September 21, 2018 50 minutes ago, Neil said: ------Does this having something to do with discrepancies in local markets?----- I don't know for sure but I think this may be the reason. I don't have TV Guides from that era but I've got a bunch from the late 50s and early 60s and I Love Lucy, reruns still running in prime time, is all over the place. Local stations evidently had scheduling discretion, especially in smaller markets where one station was an affiliate for more than one network (sometimes all 3). I don't know when the transcontinental cable came to be but the lack of the ability to send the shows to markets electronically, I can only assume, meant that prints were delivered physically to local stations (16mm??) And if a station carried more than one network, was the station "courted" by the networks to run their programming? These dual-network affiliates would run whatever they chose at the original network time and then carry some other shows in off-hours. One affiliate (can't remember which) ran "The Lucy Show" at 7:00 on Saturday. Speaking of local stations opting out of the network feed, I would NOT have wanted to be a kid in Kansas in the 60s. The Kansas TV Guide I have covers a wide enough area that there were 3 CBS affiliates listed and NOT ONE carried I Love Lucy in the morning, though they carried the 2 subsequent sitcom reruns "The McCoys" and "Pete and Gladys". And it's not like the replaced Lucy with ratings-grabbers. Each station ran a different show in the ILL time slot. One station ran a show entitled something like "Farm Life Today". Why was Kansas so anti-ILL? CBS owned I Love Lucy then ;and I read somewhere that the TOTAL budget for a week's worth of 5 episodes was only $5,000! And while I'm asking unanswerable questions: why would CBS have scheduled a failed 2-season 72-episode show like "Pete and Gladys", for 2 full years? (meaning each episode was seen 7 or 8 times on top of the original nighttime run--and summer rerun). It's because CBS was part-owner of the show, as revealed in the closing credits and their out-of-pocket expense was small (my guess). Why was P&G NOT a Desilu production? Since the show it spun off of ,"December Bride", was? Well I find this all so fascinating and would like to subscribe to your newsletter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mot Morenzi Posted September 21, 2018 Report Share Posted September 21, 2018 22 hours ago, upperco said: Found a discrepancy in commonly accepted I LOVE LUCY airdate information and wanted to see if anyone here could shed some light on the matter. Older episode guides -- like Bart Andrews' and Geoffrey Mark Fidelman's -- list the second season episodes "Redecorating" and "Ricky Loses His Voice" as having been originally broadcast on November 17th and November 24th, 1952, respectively. Presumably the rebroadcast of "The Fur Coat" then aired on December 1st. According to the DVDs, the Blu-rays, and now, most internet sources, "The Fur Coat" was rebroadcast on November 17th and the new episodes then followed on November 24th and December 1st. Newspaper listings favor the older guides' information. As we know, those publications aren't always accurate, but three weeks in a row of incorrect printed episode loglines seems hard to buy. What's the real story here -- why did our understanding of when these episodes were first broadcast change? (Does this having something to do with discrepancies in local markets?) And, ultimately, which airdate information is most correct? Great question and astute observation. Maybe Tom Watson and Gregg Oppenheimer would know the answer to this, given their involvement with the home media releases. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neil Posted September 22, 2018 Report Share Posted September 22, 2018 7 hours ago, Luvsbway said: Well I find this all so fascinating and would like to subscribe to your newsletter. TV advertisements for shows would often carry this tag line: "Mondays at 8:30 on MOST OF THESE STATIONS"---which meant nothing to us kids in the sticks. Locally, we only had the three networks and one independent so "most of these stations" to me meant the show was carried on MOST of the channels we received. What they were trying to say is that the show would be on Mondays 8:30 on most of the CBS affiliates, but the wording was baffling. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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