Posted on 05/19/2015 4:37:26 PM PDT by SMGFan
Sunday night: Two reruns of “I Love Lucy” from the 1950s, colorized (objectionable, but ok whatever) scored the highest total viewers of all scripted shows that night.
“Lucy” had 6.4 million total viewers. That’s almost twice the very high “Mad Men” score of 3.3 million viewers on Sunday. That’s shows with scripts. The Billboard Music Awards had 11 million, and “60 Minutes” had 9 million.
But of all the other shows on TV Sunday night– Dateline, The Simpsons, Battle Creek– Lucy prevailed.
“Lucy” scored twice as many total viewers as Andy Samberg in “Brooklyn Nine Nine.”
(Excerpt) Read more at showbiz411.com ...
If they were making the show today all of the stars would pretty much just be sitting around, a la Weekend at Bernies.
I recall seeing that film (The Long, Long Trailer) quite randomly one night on TCM. I enjoyed it, even though I never really enjoyed I Love Lucy. I don’t recall that it was a color film, though. I guess that the movie trailer you posted is colorized.
Awhile back I read a story written by an old-time newspaper woman. Her job was to interview Hollywood stars for entertainment articles. She said that her interview with Lucy was one of the best ever. Lucy was gracious and helpful, an all-around nice person.
But I also read that while she was on the set, Lucy was very demanding, as far as quality went. She wanted to put out the best possible product. Nothing wrong with that, of course.
It was a color film.
It was probably one of the first coloured movies I’d seen. It came to the interior of B.C. about ‘55.
That and a Martin & Lewis comedy involving a road trip and Jerry’s attempt to milk a bull in a farmer’s field.
https://archive.org/details/MyFavoriteHusband_866
CBS. They colorized the episodes and ran them in prime time. Production costs were absorbed 60+ years ago; all of the actors are dead (except for Little Ricky), and their residual payments ended years ago. Probably the cheapest prime time program aired in years; I wonder what sort of audience CBS promised and if they charged their usual ad rates for a Sunday evening, when viewership is higher than most weeknights.
I personally thought the Lucy episodes would flop—only because everyone over 40 has seen them dozens of time. But when you compare it to the junk that’s on other channels, it’s little wonder that a lot of people turned to Lucy.
That doesn’t surprise me about that lady. I’ve read that she was a very strong businesswoman too. I am 66, so she was much older than me, but I still had/have a crush on her. LOL
Before I retired in 2002, I was thought of as “very demanding” for quality and professionalism, in a very demanding and life & death job.
I have noticed that ME-TV seems to be doing very well. I now get it on two different over the air channels and a third if the weather is just right.
Except for some of the history type shows and old Roy Rogers and Lone Ranger which I get on “Dish”, ME-TV is all I watch.
I like “The Rifleman” and usually it is good but it does seem to have a bit of PC which is surprising for that era. Also Daniel Boone is just crap full of PC nonsense.
My favorite is becoming Superman despite it’s poor costumes and special effects. You got to love Perry, Jimmy, Lois and Superman. The stories are always very good too.
Ok... I was close. Now if I could just remember where I put my car keys. ;>)
We own the movie. We bought it at Camping World shortly after we bought our Airstream trailer. While there are no Airstreams in the movie, it seemed to be a thing for Airstream owners to buy. ;>) I am very much in to nostalgia, so I surround myself with things from that wonderful time.
Desi was the same way and was actually the driving force behind the show.
As he negotiated with the network to get the show on the air, CBS proposed recording it kinescopes. The quality of kinescopes was terrible, making the episodes virtually worthless in terms of re-runs or syndication—something CBS hadn’t considered.
But Desi had other ideas. He and Lucy agreed to take a lower paycheck if CBS would record the show on 35mm film, and persuaded the network to let him retain the rights to the finished episodes. CBS agreed, believing there would be little value beyond the first airing and network repeats.
Desi also hired legendary cinematographer Karl Freund to develop the “flat” lighting system that eliminated the long shadows you see in a lot of early TV shows. The even lighting gave “Lucy” a much better look. Desi also had a hand (along with Freund and director Marc Daniels) in developing the “three camera” system that allowed them to continuously record the action from different angles, in front of a live audience.
The rest, as they say, is TV history. CBS wound up paying Desi Arnaz millions for the finished episodes they gave to him, in exchange for less salary.
Except, unfortunately, The Big Bang Theory is the number one show on broadcast tv and Game of Thrones is the number one show on cable TV.
Neither qualifies as wholesome.
There’s definately a difference between 1950s and 1960s tv programming, in terms of what we’d call little PC-oriented messaging. But the 1970s were a thousandfold worse than the 1960s. I’m constantly on guard when it comes to anything from the 1970s. Lib writers would constantly be on a soapbox, in the most ham-fisted manner imagineable.
The 1960s stuff was relatively mild for the most part, like little western tales really condemning any kind of remotely vigilante-type activity, as in people taking the law into their own hands. Or, the common sitcom tale of some white guy bringing his Japanese bride to town, confronting smirks of disapproval from the townswomen (telegraphing to audiences: the war’s over! don’t hate the Japs!). Little things like that. There was even a “Fugitive” episode which involved kids ordering a mail-order rifle, which the script delivered in a heavy, preachy manner. Mostly inoffensive, although I still tend to hate the sort of innately condescending messaging and manipulation that this sort of thing nonetheless maintains.
1950s shows are almost completely no-nonsense, and seemed to really eschew any kind of ‘hidden messaging’ in its fare. That’s one of the reasons I find them so extremely refreshing, despite their relative primitivism.
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I always try to watch The Rifleman on METV. When I was young it didn’t appeal to me but now I find it great viewing.
I saw an article that CBS still makes $20 million a year for the reruns.
Little Ricky became a Christian in his teen-age years.
He became the drummer of the Christian band “David and the Giants.”
He witnessed to Lucy to try and get her saved but she rejected the gospel. I hope she changed her mind before it was too late.
IIRC, they were promoted before hand in news articles.
You should see the Bonanza with a Chinese mail order bride. Get a load of who played the bride... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ppu6OKQhNmA
Is that the one with Marlo Thomas? It’s pretty notorious! Actually, “Bonanza” was often pretty bad in terms of that early, soft semi-PC nature. I still basically like the series, but sometimes the scripts annoy me.
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