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Stu's Show Nov 7th Loving Lucy


Luvsbway
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LUCYMANIA! Join former Lucille Ball Productions Publicity Director TOM WATSON and actor JIMMY GARRETT on the LIVE show tomorrow (Wednesday 11/7) starting at 4 pm PT/7 pm ET as we take a fond look back at the conventions that celebrated Lucille Ball's life and career that we organized back in the 1990s. There will be tons of clips showcasing Lucy's professional family both on and off screen including Mary Jane Croft, Dick Martin, Shirley Mitchell, Janet Waldo, Ralph Hart, Candy Moore, Bob Carroll, Jr., Madelyn Davis, William Asher, and many more! You can watch us live right here on Facebook, on the stusshow.com web site, or on the Stu's Show Roku TV channel. Don't miss this one!

 

I'm really looking forward to this one. I made it to 97' and 99' and they are some of my best Lucy fan experiences. 

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Thanks for the heads up about this! It was really great to see clips from the conventions. I hope Stu does some additional shows featuring more convention clips, which it sounds like he will if he gets enough positive feedback. (Although they could have done without all the convo on the Lucy box sets -- a 4+ hour show ending at 11:15 pm was long for an east coaster like me!)

I had one question, though: they made much of why they don't do Lucy conventions anymore. Don't they have formal gatherings up in Jamestown every year? Are those not Lucy conventions? 

 

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Loving Lucy ran for 5 years and was put on by the Lucy Fan Club. When the JT festival really got Lucy focused around this time the conventions wrapped up in LA with much focus being put into the 2 JT Lucy festivals. These were first done with the Arts Council and after 96' ish, the museum that opened that year.

Holy crap, 4 hours. I had a long tap class last night so I'm happy paying the $2 for unlimited viewing from the archives. This sounds like I may break it up into a few watches.

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29 minutes ago, JessiLu said:

Thanks for the background! Yes, that was my first time watching the show live. The recordings that I’ve downloaded have always been two hours, so I was surprised that this was four. Made me wonder if perhaps Stu edits the recording down if the show runs over.

I haven't done a video one yet so this will be new to me. I know ones like Bernie W. were 2 parts 

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I downloaded this and I planned to watch the first few minutes today, but ended up watching the whole four hours in one sitting. There are so many great stories and priceless clips. I especially loved the story about Mary Jane going on stage at the convention for the first time. Also the Ralph Hart clips and the My Favorite Husband recreation. The biggest shock was the photos showing Dick Van Dyke doing the audience warm up for the first episode of The Lucy Show! 

I hope Stu and Tom do another episode or two about the conventions. 

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1 hour ago, HarryCarter said:

I downloaded this and I planned to watch the first few minutes today, but ended up watching the whole four hours in one sitting. There are so many great stories and priceless clips. I especially loved the story about Mary Jane going on stage at the convention for the first time. Also the Ralph Hart clips and the My Favorite Husband recreation. The biggest shock was the photos showing Dick Van Dyke doing the audience warm up for the first episode of The Lucy Show! 

I hope Stu and Tom do another episode or two about the conventions. 

I got through all 4 hours last night. I missed the MFH year so was happy to see that.

I was at 97' and saw Ralph give his speech. Luckily I video taped it, along with a lot of other stuff. I ran in to him and his family in the elevator the next day. Lovely people and I told him how much I enjoyed his speech.

Those panels were amazing and so fact filled. I had never read or heard anything from Keith Andes before, so that was nice to hear a Wildcat memory. 

They mentioned those autograph lines, and I waited in them all. They actually had photos there if you didn't have one, you could bring your own, or maybe get lucky in the vendor area and find something cool to get signed. 

I think they'll do this again. I'm curious to see what they have to say about Steve Allen and his infamous, "she's dead, get over it" comment to the audience right before Lucie (as a surprise guest) came out. And I want to know what feathers of Maury's were ruffled in the later panels.

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1 hour ago, Luvsbway said:

I think they'll do this again. I'm curious to see what they have to say about Steve Allen and his infamous, "she's dead, get over it" comment to the audience right before Lucie (as a surprise guest) came out. And I want to know what feathers of Maury's were ruffled in the later panels.

Speaking of Steve Allen: I remember shortly after this, I think Thanksgiving 1999, FOX News did some kind of Lucy panel discussion and Steve and Jayne were among the panelists (maybe Carole was too). Did anyone ever see this? I remember at the time people online were mad that Steve was included. I don't know if that was because of his comments at the Lucy convention or because he said something during this interview. I never saw this special. I only heard about it afterwards. 

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  • 11 months later...

Part 2 is going to air Tomorrow, October 29 . If you can't watch live, (like me) you can download it for a small fee (absolutely a worthy cause) and watch it when you have time. I think last year's was 4 hours long. It also included a huge clip reel. 

 

Tomorrow - TUESDAY, October 29 - join me for another Lucille Ball celebration with a look back at our conventions from twenty years ago - the stars, the writers, the directors, the fans - and our memories of working on "Life With Lucy" (her last sitcom, now available on DVD). In-studio will be Lucy historian TOM WATSON and actor DONOVAN SCOTT. Remember - it's all LIVE tomorrow, TUESDAY 10/29 starting at 4 pm PT/7 pm ET right here on Facebook, on the web site - www.stusshow.com - and on the Stu's Show official Roku TV channel.

 

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Another stellar job on Stu’s Show last night recapping the 1999 and 2000 Loving Lucy Conventions. I caught most of the show via the Roku channel and audio streaming on my phone. Just missed an hour in the middle when I had dance class.

Tom Watson and Donavan Scott were the in-studio guests so they also talked about the colorized DVD, the Fathomevents showing, and Life With Lucy.  The new color episode for Dec. and its airdate are not finalized yet, should be in a week or 2.

I love listening to Life With Lucy stories from those that were there and worked on the show. They covered so much, which included the following. How and why Aaron and ABC got the show on the fall schedule so fast and some of the problems they had from that rapid development schedule. How cruel the critics were to Lucy. Donovan talked about how he was cast. Later in the evening they shared memories of the week John Ritter was on. What an incredibly nice guy he was and how Lucy was in heaven that week working with him. And a bunch more I’ve probably forgot or missed.

 I came into the convention reacp when they started with the banquet shows. They showed 2000 first where they did the continuing story of the movie Ricky made in Hollywood. Donavan played Fred and Janet Waldo, Eve Witney and Shirley Mitchell were also in the show. Second was 1999 and we were aboard the USS Constitution with Tab Hunter. I was at this one and I knew it was Tab before he turned around. Tab wasn’t too hard a guest to get and seemed to really enjoy himself.

Next they talked about how the trivia contest expanded into a real game show setup and showed the rounds leading up to the finals from 2000. Some current and former lounge members were in that winning group.

Panel discussion highlights from 1999 and 2000 were fantastic. Two themes that they edited together were how each panel member met Lucy as well as their memories of Desi. I had a lot of the panels from 1999 on home video but the ones from 2000 were just as good.  

There were also great in studio stories told by Stu, Tom and Donavan on lots of topics. Tom told 2 fantastic stories about Lucy and Desi that I had only heard small bits of before, so it was nice to get the full detailed stories on 2 events from 2 different post-divorce decades.

They closed out the 4 hours with the final question at the Sunday panel discussion in 1999. I was there, I was recording with my little video camera all those answers and I still got teary hearing them again. It was Lucy’s close friends and family saying what Lucy meant to them/the effect she had on them. Lucie gave one of the most lovely and introspective assessments of her relationship with her mother I ever heard her tell.

You can download the show when it gets posted for $2 and watch unlimited. Best $2 you’ll spend this week. I did this with the recap show from last year and I’m going to grab it just to listen to these wonderful stories again.  

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I watched all 4 hours and 40 minutes yesterday and I didn’t think it was long enough! It was great to hear Tom and Donovan’s comments and to see that great footage from the conventions. I want to see more! 
 

Yes, that was the best response I have ever heard from Lucie regarding her mother. I’ve heard her say some of those things before, but this captured all aspects of Lucy, both personally and professionally. I don’t recall her ever getting so emotional like that and I’m sure being surrounded by Frank, Wanda, and Carole had a lot to do with that. 
 

I could listen to Tom talk all day. He really talked about two stories involving Lucy and Desi that I don’t have ever been spoken about in depth: one being Lucy bringing in Desi to help deal with Joan Crawford on the set and the other was Desi’s late night calls to Lucy during production of Life with Lucy and how they were affecting her sleep. Those were enlightening. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

As always, thanks for the heads up about these Lucy-themed episodes.

I agree that the Lucy/Desi post-divorce stories that were shared are absolutely priceless. It's amazing how devoted they were to each other. I feel like Desi must have been pretty out of it at the end, to get so emotional over a talk show host making disparaging comments about ILL and to keep her up for hours while dealing with his own insomnia. He was dying and his wife had already passed, so I bet Lucy felt she had to play the role of a surrogate wife so he wouldn't feel so alone. I feel like some of the most touching stories (that we've heard about) from their love story happened after they were divorced. 

Any guesses on the identity of the "talk show host" who said "horrendous things" about ILL? I wonder if perhaps Desi stumbled across a re-run of Eddie Murphy's 1983 stand-up show "Delirious." He says some pretty raunchy things about ILL in that show. 

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11 hours ago, JessiLu said:



Any guesses on the identity of the "talk show host" who said "horrendous things" about ILL? I wonder if perhaps Desi stumbled across a re-run of Eddie Murphy's 1983 stand-up show "Delirious." He says some pretty raunchy things about ILL in that show. 

No idea but I didn't know that about Murphy's act.  I did recently find this about him though.

Here is what Lucy thought about Eddie back in the 80s and what he thought of Lucy.  “America’s favorite redhead doesn’t favor Eddie Murphy much because of the ‘cruel and explicit language’ he used on his recent HBO special, in which the comedian cracked jokes about AIDS. ‘It’s not going to hurt his career, but it hurt my feelings,” she says. – newspaper article July 1984

Murphy said he thinks Ball’s show is ‘one of the funniest and most entertaining that has ever been on television. But Lucy and Gleason are from the old school of comedy. In terms of Lucy being hurt, I understand, I don’t expect a 70-year old woman to be into my show. We have different values.” 

 

 

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It’s a bit odd that jokes about AIDS hurt Lucy’s feelings, but not the ILL jokes. (Not that she can’t have empathy for those suffering from AIDS, but you’d think she’d take more personal offense to the latter.)

I do find her comment about it not hurting Eddie Murphy’s career interesting. Tom Watson said that she told Desi, when he was upset about the comedian, that he was just a punk trying to make a name for himself. Very similar.

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Do you think some of the reason those comments upset Desi so much wasn't so much a bruised ego about the show but more of a sense that it was something that they created together, their showbiz baby. Instead of being angry it was sadness. 

Maybe he felt bad for her. This was after the famous quote from the 70s that give her 90% of the credit. The show was Lucy. So he calls her up sad that she's being attacked by some jerk. And factor in the bad LWL press that personally attacked Lucy and maybe it was a sense of, stop knocking this girl I still deeply love.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 11/22/2019 at 11:26 PM, Luvsbway said:

Do you think some of the reason those comments upset Desi so much wasn't so much a bruised ego about the show but more of a sense that it was something that they created together, their showbiz baby. Instead of being angry it was sadness. 

Maybe he felt bad for her. This was after the famous quote from the 70s that give her 90% of the credit. The show was Lucy. So he calls her up sad that she's being attacked by some jerk. And factor in the bad LWL press that personally attacked Lucy and maybe it was a sense of, stop knocking this girl I still deeply love.

 

I think it was probably a mixture of a bruised ego and sadness. Totally agree about ILL being their showbiz baby, and Desi was probably more sentimental about it in later years. Plus ILL was the only thing most people remembered him for career-wise, so he may have been even more protective of it for that reason. 

Regarding feeling bad for her, Eddie's bit mostly made fun of Desi, finishing with saying something extremely raunchy.  So, Desi probably felt personally attacked. (I can PM you the clip if you're interested, but don't want to post a link to something that crass here.)

Found another quote from Lucy in which she expresses her disapproval:

She was insulted by the recent Eddie Murphy and Buddy Hackett specials on HBO: ''Inexcusable. Why should we glorify that by watching it. How can we stop it? It's making money, and as long as they're making a buck they don't seem to care. Nobody cares anymore!'' She throws up her arms in mock surrender.

https://www.csmonitor.com/1984/0516/051606.html
 

So really, I'll bet Lucy is speaking out against Eddie's special because of how it hurt Desi, rather than the other way around. 

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2 hours ago, HarryCarter said:

The Lincoln Center Library has the audio recording of this Lucy interview. Lucy never mentions Eddie Murphy mentioning her. Lucy’s over the top retelling of coming across the Eddie Murphy special on HBO and calling Gary into the room is hilarious, but I don’t think she was trying to be funny. 

Now I'm intrigued. What was Gary supposed to do about all of that? Did she need further backed up on her point or something? Or was she out of cigarettes and after that rant needed 2?

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51 minutes ago, Luvsbway said:

Now I'm intrigued. What was Gary supposed to do about all of that? Did she need further backed up on her point or something? Or was she out of cigarettes and after that rant needed 2?

She said she stumbled upon the special on HBO and couldn’t believe her ears. She called out, “Gary! Gary! Is that Eddie Murphy?!” Her shock was very dramatic. LOL

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33 minutes ago, HarryCarter said:

She said she stumbled upon the special on HBO and couldn’t believe her ears. She called out, “Gary! Gary! Is that Eddie Murphy?!” Her shock was very dramatic. LOL

Ah, gotcha. Wonder how up on the stand-up comics Gary remained through the decades and what he thought of them. 

Do we know if Gary's Ed Sullivan appearance exists anywhere? 

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