The Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show
| The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Created by |
Jess Oppenheimer Madelyn Davis Bob Carroll Jr. |
| Written by |
Madelyn Davis Bob Carroll Jr. Bob Schiller Bob Weiskopf |
| Directed by |
Jerry Thorpe Desi Arnaz |
| Starring |
Lucille Ball Desi Arnaz Vivian Vance William Frawley Little Ricky |
| Composer(s) | Wilbur Hatch |
| Country of origin | United States |
| No. of episodes | 13 (list of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | Desi Arnaz |
| Producer(s) | Bert Granet |
| Running time | 60 minutes |
| Production company(s) | Desilu Productions |
| Distributor | CBS Television Distribution |
| Release | |
| Original network | CBS |
| Original release | November 6, 1957 – April 1, 1960 |
| Chronology | |
| Preceded by | I Love Lucy (1951–1957) |
The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour is a collection of thirteen black-and-white one-hour specials airing occasionally from 1957 to 1960 (as opposed to a thirty-minute regular series). The first five were shown as specials during the 1957–58 television season. The remaining eight were originally shown as part of Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse. Its original network title was The Ford Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show for the first season, and The Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse Presents The Lucille Ball–Desi Arnaz Show for the following seasons. The successor to the classic comedy, I Love Lucy, the programs featured the same cast members: Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Vivian Vance, William Frawley, and Little Ricky (billed as Richard Keith in his post-Lucy–Desi acting assignments). The production schedule avoided the grind of a regular weekly series.
Desilu produced the show, which was mostly filmed at their Los Angeles studios with occasional on-location shoots at Lake Arrowhead, Las Vegas, and Sun Valley, Idaho. CBS reran these thirteen specials under the "Lucy–Desi" title as five prime time summer replacements, from 1962 to 1965, with a final run in 1967. 1966–67 was the first TV season in which all first-run prime time network shows were in color. These "Lucy–Desi" repeats were the only black and white series aired that year, after which it, and I Love Lucy, went into syndication.
Arnaz was often questioned why he changed the format of I Love Lucy, a weekly, 30-minute program produced at 25 new episodes a season very successfully, to the Comedy Hour format of one-hour specials shown weeks or months apart. He noted at the time: "You've got to change in this business. Lucy is my favorite character ever and I love "I love Lucy" it's my favorite show. I'd rather make a big change while we are still ahead. It would be ridiculous for us to wait until people got sick and tired of the regular half-hour every Monday night. We have been the luckiest show on the air, but we've worked for it. I have never worked so hard in my life. And while I suppose it's not really for me to say, I think I can honestly say that we have never done a really bad show in six years." He also noted the high stakes involved in the cost per episode ($350,000): "They not only have to be good, they have to be great. We're going to be in an awful spot with these shows; they've got to be good."
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Wikipedia