I Love Lucy | The Complete Series | Lucille Ball | Desi Arnaz
'I Love Lucy' - the complete series, all 6 seasons, all 180 episodes, starring Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, William Frawley and Vivian Vance. Many special features as well, including documentaries, biographies of guest stars, episodes of 'My Favorite Husband' - Lucille Ball's radio series that inspired 'I Love Lucy' - and much more.
I Love Lucy the Complete Series is what every I Love Lucy fan has been looking for - this includes all 6 seasons of the landmark TV sitcom, starring Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, William Frawley and Vivian Vance. In addition to all six seasons (on 30 DVDs), there are lots of special features, including deleted footage, behind the scenes documentaries, radio episodes of My Favorite Husband (the CBS radio show starring Lucille Ball that was the inspiration for I Love Lucy), guest cast information, and much more.
DVD Features of I Love Lucy, the complete series:
- Available Audio Tracks: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono), Spanish (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono)
- All six seasons on 30 discs
- Deleted footage, flubs, and lost scenes
- Behind-the-scenes featurettes
- Original series openings and animated sequences
- Script excerpts
- Guest cast information
- Production notes
- Restored music
- Episodes of Lucy’s radio show: My Favorite Husband
- Commentary on certain episodes by Keith Thibodeaux ("Little Ricky"), Barbara Eden, Doris Singleton ("Caroline Appleby"), and writers Madelyn Pugh Davis and Bob Schiller
- 1956 Christmas Show
- “Bob Hope Chevy Show” sketch highlights
- Original cast commercials
- Promotional spot
- Colorized Christmas show scenes
- English closed-captions and Spanish subtitles
- Spanish audio on most episodes
Trivia for I Love Lucy (1951)
- The “valentine” opening credits seen in syndication were *not* the original opening credits. When the series originally aired on CBS, the credits featured animated stick figures of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz along with the sponsor’s product--Phillip Morris cigarettes, for instance. The “valentine” credits were added when CBS began rerunning the series in 1958.
- References to the series’ original sponsor, Phillip Morris, can still be seen in some episodes today. Most notable is the scene in “Lucy Does a TV Commercial” in which Lucy dresses up as Johnny the Bellhop, the Phillip Morris icon.
- Bea Benaderet and Gale Gordon were Lucy and Desi’s first choice to play the Mertzes.
- Gale Gordon was the first choice to play Fred Mertz, but he was unavailable. When they came across William Frawley, Desi Arnaz wanted him, but he was told that Frawley would be a poor choice because he was a womanizer, a gambler, and a drunk. Arnaz said, “He’s perfect!”
- Desi Arnaz invented the rerun during the pregnancy episodes of this series by re-airing some episodes from the first season to give Lucy some rest.
- When Lucy was pregnant with Little Ricky, network censors wouldn’t permit her to say “pregnant.” She had to say “expectant”.
- You won’t hear the word “lucky” on this show. Phillip Morris, the sponsor, forbade it because they did not want their audience thinking of their main cigarette rival, “Lucky Strikes”.
- This was one of the first TV shows to be filmed in Hollywood, at a time when many shows were done live in New York. It pioneered the use of three cameras simultaneously, and the results were high-quality prints of a classic comedy series preserved for future TV audiences.
- The full names of Fred and Ethel are Fredrick Hobart Mertz and Ethel Louise Roberta Mae Potter Mertz
- Because of limited space on the sound stage, the Ricardo’s bedroom and the Mertz’s living room is the same set with different furniture.
- Desi Arnaz Jr. appears in the final first-run episode of the series. Although his sister, Lucie Arnaz, for some reason, doesn’t.
- The Ricardos’ address was 623 E. 68th Street. However, E. 68th Street in Manhattan only goes up to 600 - which means that the Ricardos’ building was in the middle of the East River.
- Three “flashback” episodes were shown during the period when Lucille Ball was recovering after giving birth to Desi Arnaz Jr.. These episodes were filmed in advance after Ball found out she was pregnant.
- Ethel was from Albuquerque, New Mexico and her father ran the candy store. Also, one of her neighbors was Betty Ramsey, who would later become a neighbor of Ethel’s and Lucy’s when they moved to Connecticut in the final season.
- Frank Nelson appeared on the show in various roles, including that of game show host Freddy Filmore. During the final season he took on the occasional role of Betty Ramsey’s husband Ralph.
- Lucille Ball decided to go ahead with the series after having a dream in which Carole Lombard - the screwball comedy actress who died in a plane crash and who was a close friend of Ball’s - recommended she take a shot at the risky idea of entering television.
- Lucy and Ricky’s comic foils were initially going to be Ricky’s agent and an out-of-work clown, but the parts were dropped when they did not prove successful in the series pilot.
- In 1990, a 16mm print of the original pilot episode was found. The opening titles and first few seconds of the opening narration was damaged beyond repair. This scene was reconstructed for DVD in 2002 with a re-recorded narration by Bob LeMond, 50 years after he originally recorded it.
- The series was partially based on “My Favorite Husband”, a radio comedy series with a similar storyline in which Lucille Ball had starred for several years.
- The Mertzes’ dog, Butch features in one episode only #1.03 “The Diet”.
- In the episode wherein Ricky has a week off from the club (due to its need for a repainting job), he decides to take on all of Lucy’s daily chores regarding Little Ricky. His first task is to tell Little Ricky his bedtime story, “Little Red Riding Hood”. If you look closely at Little Ricky’s bedspread, it has cartoon images (often used in advertising for the show) of his mom and pop on the side.
- In the episodes when the Ricardos and the Mertzes are in Hollywood, the backdrop of Hollywood outside of the Ricardo’s hotel suite replicates the view as it would be have been seen from the top of the stages at the Desilu lot on Cahuenga Boulevard (now Ren-Mar Studios), where most of the “I Love Lucy” episodes were shot. Most of the landmarks at Hollywood and Vine that are on the backdrop (except for the Brown Derby Restaurant) may still be seen at that location today, over fifty years later.
- During the course of living in their New York apartment the Ricardo’s had three different telephone numbers. The first was MUrray-hill 5-9975, the second was CIrcle-7-2099, and the third was MUrray-hill 5-9099. In actuality these numbers were unused telephone numbers of the New York Bell Telephone Company. When the numbers were entered in to service the Bell company would advice the shows producers and give them a new number to use. Murray Hill and Circle were also actual call names used in Manhattan at the time.
- Although they slept in twin beds throughout the entire run of the series, during the first two seasons of the show, 1951-1953, Ricky and Lucy slept in twin beds that were pushed together in the same box spring. Once little Ricky was born CBS suggested that the beds be pushed apart to diminish the impact of the suggested sexual history of Lucy and Ricky. The only time we see the Ricardo’s in two bed pushed together again is when they first move to the bigger apartment in the Mertz building, however, subsequently after that the beds are pushed apart again.
- The back door so much used in both the Ricardo’s and Mertz’s apartments were in actuality a common trait of older buildings in Los Angeles and not of those in New York.
- The show started out as a radio program in 1948 called, “My Favorite Husband”. And during the program, it was Dick Denning who played Lucy’s husband. When CBS decided to take the show to television, it was Ball’s idea to bring her real life husband, Desi Arnaz.
- In March of 1977 a Disco version of the I Love Lucy theme became a hit single. It stayed on the dance charts for three months and on the pop charts for seven weeks.
Posted by Tom Raymond, aka Raynbow on 08/22 at 10:08 PM
Hi i love the Lucy show its great
Posted by on 07/12 at 02:50 PM
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