How long did I Love Lucy run?
25459516#4
At the end of the war, his childhood friend Desi Arnaz asked Rizo to join him as the pianist and orchestrator for his band, the Desi Arnaz Orchestra. He toured the U.S. with the band until 1950. When Arnaz started production of "I Love Lucy", he once again turned to Rizo, hiring him to be the pianist and orchestrator for the show between 1951 and 1957. Rizo also made several on-camera appearances on the show throughout its run on television.
Contrary to popular belief he did not write the I Love Lucy theme by himself which had music by Rizo, Eliot Daniel and Desi Arnaz with lyrics by Harold Adamson. The lyrics were only heard once on the series in the Season three episode 'Lucy's Last Birthday' made in 1953.
After the "I Love Lucy" show ended, he remained with CBS and was the pianist-arranger for the “Bob Hope Radio Show.”
Marco Rizo
144832#0
I Love Lucy is a popular 1950s American television sitcom that originally ran on CBS from October 15, 1951, to May 6, 1957, with a total of 180 half-hour episodes spanning 6 seasons (including the 'lost' original pilot and Christmas episode). The show starred Lucille Ball, her real-life husband Desi Arnaz, Vivian Vance, and William Frawley. It followed the life of Lucy Ricardo (Ball), a middle class housewife in New York City, who either concocted plans with her best friends (Vance & Frawley) to appear alongside her bandleader husband Ricky Ricardo (Arnaz) in his nightclub, or tried numerous schemes to mingle with, or be a part of show business. After the series ended in 1957, a modified version continued for three more seasons with 13 one-hour specials; it ran from 1957 to 1960. It was first known as "The Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show" and later in reruns as "The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour". Following the end of that, Ball divorced Arnaz and appeared in three other sitcoms into 1986.
I Love Lucy
4299615#1
In total 180 episodes of "I Love Lucy" were produced, plus a pilot episode. The pilot, which was not made for broadcast and did not air as part of the show's original run, is generally not counted as one of the episodes and therefore is not listed below. It is, however, included on DVD and Blu-ray releases of the first season. Following "I Love Lucy", a further 13 hour-long episodes were produced under the title of "The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour".
After season six, the series was renamed "The Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show" for its original broadcast run and rather than airing as weekly half hour series, hour-long episodes were produced to run occasionally during the year. There were thirteen hour-long shows. The first five were broadcast as specials during the 1957-58 television season. The other eight episodes were broadcast as part of the "Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse" from October 6, 1958, to April 1, 1960. The series was subsequently broadcast in syndication as "The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour" and "We Love Lucy". This show had the same cast as "I Love Lucy", employed many of the other same actors, and featured many famous guest stars. Of the original "I Love Lucy" cast, besides the principals, only Lucy's mother appeared in any "Comedy Hour" episode. She appears in season 3, episode 2 'The Ricardos Go To Japan' as Little Ricky's babysitter.
List of I Love Lucy episodes
4319219#10
Critics have generally regarded the series as a rather pallid continuation of "I Love Lucy", with not enough of the original show's brisk pace and memorable sketchwork, and an excessive use of celebrity guest-stars. Still, many fans enjoy the series because of the cast, which remained intact from the original. "The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour" is occasionally seen on nostalgia outlets like TV Land in its original hour-long format, or in edited thirty-minute installments (beginning in 1987) as "We Love Lucy" and run directly after the sixth season of "I Love Lucy" the additional 'episodes' broadcast as a 7th season of "I Love Lucy". Me-TV broadcast the program in the original one-hour format during the summer of 2012. The Decades Channel ran a weekend binge marathon of "Lucy-Desi" in August 2015. With just 13 episodes produced and broadcast during its 3-year run the series was released as one DVD box collection separate from the "I Love Lucy" sets.
The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour
144832#35
In 1957, "I Love Lucy" was re-tailored into an hour-long show originally titled "The Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show" that was to be part of an anthology series called the "Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse". The hour-long "Lucy-Desi" show was to alternate on a monthly basis with other hour long "Playhouse" shows. The new series put a much heavier emphasis on big name guest stars as being part of the plot and although the Mertz characters continued into the new series, their roles became somewhat diminished. Although a lighter workload was welcomed by Frawley, Vance came to somewhat resent the change. Arnaz, in an effort to please Vance, for whom he had much respect, proposed doing a spin-off from "I Love Lucy" called "The Mertzes". Seeing a lucrative opportunity and the chance to star in his own show, Frawley was enthused. Vance, however, declined for a number of reasons, the biggest factor being that she felt she and Frawley could barely work together on the ensemble show they were doing at the time, so it would be much less likely the two could work together on their "own" series. Vance also felt that the Mertz characters would not be as successful without the Ricardos to play off of, and despite being her biggest success, she was becoming interested in playing more glamorous roles rather than Ethel. In fact, during the thirteen-episode run of the "Lucy-Desi" hour-long shows, Vance was given a lot more latitude to look more attractive as Ethel Mertz, something she was denied during the run of the "I Love Lucy" episodes. Frawley's resentment of Vance intensified after she declined to do the spin-off show and the two rarely talked to each other outside of their characters' dialogue with one another.
I Love Lucy
144832#56
After the conclusion of the sixth season of "I Love Lucy", the Arnazes decided to cut down on the number of episodes that were filmed. Instead, they extended "I Love Lucy" to 60 minutes, with a guest star each episode. They renamed the show "The Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show", also known as "The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour". Thirteen hour-long episodes aired from 1957 to 1960. The main cast, Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Vivian Vance, William Frawley and Little Ricky/Richard Keith (birth name Keith Thibodeaux) were all in the show. "The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour" is available on DVD, released as "I Love Lucy: The Final Seasons 7, 8, & 9". On March 2, Desi's birthday, 1960, the day after the last hour-long episode was filmed, Lucille Ball filed for divorce from Desi Arnaz. It made that playful, yet passionate kiss at the end of the final episode, which aired April 1, "Lucy Meets the Moustache", all the more poignant, as the world already knew that this storied Hollywood marriage was all but over, and also lent extra meaning to the use of the song "That's All" (performed by guest star Edie Adams) in that episode.
I Love Lucy
346303#7
In 1957, after the highly successful half-hour "I Love Lucy" episodes had ended, Vance continued playing Ethel Mertz on a series of hour-long specials titled "The Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show" (later retitled "The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour"). In 1959, she divorced her third husband, Philip Ober, who allegedly physically abused her. When "I Love Lucy" was reformatted into the hour-long "Lucy-Desi" shows in 1957, Desi Arnaz offered Vance and Frawley the opportunity to star in their own "Fred and Ethel" spin-off show. Although Frawley was very interested, Vance declined, mainly because she did not want to work on a one-on-one basis with Frawley as they already did not get along. Also, she felt the Mertz characters would be unsuccessful in a show without the Ricardos. Vance's choice to decline the would-be show intensified the animosity between her and Frawley. Instead, Vance was interested in doing a series based on the life of Babs Hooten, a New York socialite who moves to New Mexico to run a hotel and ranch. Desi Arnaz financed a pilot starring Vance as Hooten titled "Guestward, Ho!", which was shot in 1958 by Desilu; however, the show was rejected by CBS and Vance continued playing Ethel Mertz. Arnaz would later retool the show with model and actress Joanne Dru taking the lead role, selling the series to ABC, where it was subsequently cancelled after one season.
Vivian Vance
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"I Love Lucy: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Sitcom", a comedy about how Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz battled to get their sitcom on the air, had its world premiere in Los Angeles on July 12, 2018, starring Sarah Drew as Lucy, Oscar Nuñez as Desi, and Seamus Dever as series creator-producer-head writer Jess Oppenheimer. The play, from Gregg Oppenheimer (son of Jess Oppenheimer), was recorded in front of a live audience for nationwide public radio broadcast and online distribution.
Several classic episodes of "I Love Lucy" have been colorized. Star and producer Desi Arnaz had expressed interest in airing the show in color as early as 1955, but the cost of such a presentation was prohibitive at the time.
I Love Lucy
3331466#7
Writers Carroll, Pugh and Oppenheimer all agreed to continue with "I Love Lucy". They subsequently reworked numerous "My Favorite Husband" episodes into "I Love Lucy" episodes early in the TV show's run. For example, the March 18, 1949 radio episode entitled "Giveaway Program" inspired the November 24, 1952 "I Love Lucy" episode "Redecorating". Many of the actors who appeared on "My Favorite Husband" on radio later appeared on "I Love Lucy", often in episodes where they reprised their original roles from a reworked "My Favorite Husband" script. During the first season of "I Love Lucy" Gale Gordon twice played the role of the boss, and the May 26, 1952 episode entitled "Lucy's Schedule" was a rewrite of the April 22, 1949 "My Favorite Husband" episode "Time Schedule" (also called "Budgeting Time".)
My Favorite Husband
144832#41
"I Love Lucy" aired Mondays from 9:00 to 9:30 PM ET on CBS for its entire first run. Each year during its summer hiatus its timeslot was occupied by various summer replacement series. Beginning in April 1955 CBS added reruns from the show's early years to its early evening weekend schedule. This would be the first of several occasions when "I Love Lucy" reruns would become part of CBS's evening, prime time, and (later on) daytime schedules.
I Love Lucy
24191364#30
A scene in which Lucy and Ricky practice the tango, in the episode "Lucy Does The Tango", evoked the longest recorded studio audience laugh in the history of the show — so long that the sound editor had to cut that section of the soundtrack in half. During the show's production breaks, Lucy and Desi starred together in two feature films: "The Long, Long Trailer" (1954) and "Forever, Darling" (1956). After "I Love Lucy" ended its run in 1957, the main cast continued to appear in occasional hour-long specials under the title "The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour" until 1960.
Lucille Ball