Life with Lucy
| ♥ | This article is dedicated to Lucille Ball (August 6, 1911-April 26, 1989), may she rest in peace. |
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 Congratulations, ABC and Aaron Spelling! You not only almost made an old woman die by doing stunts because "she used to do it", but you even killed her career!
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Life with Lucy is a 1986 short-lived American sitcom from ABC, created by I Love Lucy writers, Bob Carroll Jr. and Madelyn Pugh, that attempted to revive the extremely popular 1951 sitcom I Love Lucy to the 1980s. This show was notably TV actress Lucille Ball's last time she ever appeared on a prime-time TV show and fittingly, she was in her seventies when this show began production.
ABC hoped this show would be a big hit, but instead would become one of the biggest TV failures of the 1980s, partly because ABC decided to have Lucille Ball write the episodes herself (which involved her getting into pratfalls and stunts as she did in her previous show; read the section to find out why it didn't work) and scheduling it on a poor time slot on Fridays. Reportedly, when news of the show's cancellation came to Ball, she was so saddened by the show's failure that she was convinced that television no longer wanted her.
Ever since the show's quick cancellation, it has been listed on several worst TV shows of all time lists; in particular, TV Guide ranked this show 26th on their "Worst Shows of All Time" list in 2002. It was finally released on DVD in September 2018 by Time-Life when they released four episodes of this show on Lucy: The Ultimate Collection, which also features various episodes from Lucille Ball's previous shows she starred in. The complete series was later released on DVD by CBS/Paramount on October 8, 2019, with the final five produced episodes that were never aired on TV.
Plot
Ball played a widowed grandmother who had inherited her husband's half-interest in a hardware store in South Pasadena, California, the other half being owned by his partner, widower Curtis McGibbon. Lucy's character insisted on "helping" in the store, even though when her husband was alive she had taken no part in the business and hence knew nothing about it. The unlikely partners were also in-laws, her daughter being married to her son, and all of them, along with their young grandchildren, lived together.
Why It Isn’t a Lovely Life
- It completely lacks the impressive charm of I Love Lucy, especially since the original show is considered to be one of the best sitcoms ever made in television history. To make matters worse, it almost killed the reputation of I Love Lucy.
- To add salt to the injury, the series wasn't going to be a poor version of I Love Lucy as turned out, since it was originally developed to resemble The Golden Girls as Bob Carroll Jr. and Madelyn Pugh originally wanted to make and Lucille had offered to do something different from her previous series, but because of executive meddling from ABC, who wanted the show in the vein of Ball's previous series, made the series unfortunately ended up being as a pale imitation of her previous shows.
- The decision to have Lucille Ball perform stunts in her seventies was ill-advised, as it risked serious injury or even death due to her age. Rather than eliciting laughter, it caused viewers to worry about her safety. Tragically, it resulted in an injury that led to her death.
- The storylines of the series are boring and uninspired.
- Poor acting, especially for an 80s sitcom and from well-known actors like Gale Gordon and Lucille herself.
- It ultimately killed the late Lucille Ball's career, as she eventually retired from acting in 1986 and shut down her studio Lucille Ball Productions after the show's cancellation. According to biographies, Lucy was reportedly devastated by the show's failure, she never worked on another series or feature film again. She did however make her last public appearance as a presenter on the 61st Academy Awards one month before her death on April 26, 1989.
Redeeming Qualities
- The show's theme song, "Every Day is Better Than Before", sung by Eydie Gorme is very good.
- At least the actors/actresses reprise their roles in the show, despite doing poor acting.
Reception and cancellation
Fourteen episodes were written, thirteen videotaped, but only eight aired. On the day of the last filmed (but unaired) episode, producer Aaron Spelling learned of the show's cancellation by ABC; he decided to tell Ball's husband Gary Morton, who decided not to reveal the news to her until after taping ended. The last episode to be aired, "Mother of the Bride", featured Audrey Meadows, who was offered to be cast as a regular to give the show a new direction and Lucille's character a comic foil and partner, similar to the role previously played by Vivian Vance in Lucy's previous series, Meadows turned down the offer. This was the only "Lucy" sitcom in which Vance, who had died in 1979, never appeared.
Life with Lucy's premiere episode on September 20 made Nielsen's Top 25 (#23 for the week) for its week; however, subsequent episodes dropped steadily in viewership; the sitcom went against NBC's The Facts of Life on the same Saturday night lead-off timeslot and never gained ground against it. It ranked only 73rd out of 79 shows for the season (the seventh-lowest rated show on TV for the season), with a 9.0/16 rating/share. The show was never syndicated, it briefly aired on Nick at Nite as part of a Lucille Ball-themed marathon in 1996, but otherwise has never been rerun (although episodes can be found on YouTube and DVD, as well as the five unaired episodes and at The Paley Center For Media in New York City and Beverly Hills, California). Biographies of the actress revealed that she was reportedly devastated by the show's failure, and never again attempted another series or feature film; her subsequent interviews and other TV appearances were infrequent. Lucy's last public appearance was as a presenter on the 1989 Academy Awards telecast in which she and fellow presenter, Bob Hope, were given a standing ovation. She died a month later, on April 26, 1989. In a 1999 interview with the Archive of American Television, Aaron Spelling attributed the failure of the show entirely to Ball, only blaming himself for allowing her full creative control.
In July 2002, TV Guide named Life with Lucy the 26th worst TV series of all time, stating, in their words, that it was, "without a doubt, the saddest entry in [they're] list of bad TV shows of all time". In his book What Were They Thinking? In the 100 Dumbest Events in Television History, author David Hofstede ranked the series at No. 21 on the list.
Trivia
- Due to its failure, the series was not aired in other countries except Canada, which was aired on the Global Television Network in the same year as the series airing in the US in 1986[1] and Australia, when the complete series was released on DVD by Shock Entertainment in the country.
- An alternative theme song was written by Lucie Arnaz (Lucille Ball's daughter) with Cy Coleman, but was not used in the show.
Videos
References
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