PRE-, EARLY-, AND LATE-LUCY

July 2, 1967

When the one great broadcaster in the sky someday chronicles the history of television, it will be divided in three parts pre-Lucy, early-Lucy and late-Lucy. 

There will never be a period known as post-Lucy because Lucy is without end. 

Wars have come and gone. Generations have been born, reared and procreated, but Lucy continues. Lucy’s march through video history reached a landmark recently when CBS decided to relinquish its grip on the “I Love Lucy” series after sixteen years. 

This doesn’t mean “I Love Lucy” will disappear from your living room. Rather, it’s a rebirth of the ancient series, since it now will be sold station-by-station across the country. 

Of course, CBS has Lucille Ball headed for a sixth season in her sequel show, “The Lucy Show,” which also appears destined to run practically forever. 

More than one third of all Americans living today weren’t yet born when “I Love Lucy” made its debut in the fall of 1951 as the star of the CBS line-up. 

The show, filmed in a Hollywood studio, turned the TV industry inside out. Until Lucy, television operated with electronic cameras transmitting live programs to a few select cities, with kinescope duplicates for the hinterlands. 

After Lucy showed the way, the TV industry moved to Hollywood and film. Today, you can count the non-film TV programs on your fingers. In the beginning, “I Love Lucy” had four stars. Lucille Ball, of course, was the pivotal character. Alongside her was her husband, Desi Arnaz. 

And down the hall in their mythical apartment were the Mertzes the late William Frawley and Vivian Vance, who retired from Lucy’s new show two years ago to go home to Connecticut. 

Desi became a Hollywood tycoon off the “I Love Lucy” show, founded the Desilu Studio complex, then sold out and left Hollywood. Now, he’s back and starting a second time around. 

Desi Arnaz, Jr., now of the Dino, Desi and Billy rock trio, was virtually born before millions of Lucy fans as Miss Ball played one season enceinte. (And in those days, pregnancy on the screen was unheard of.) 

“I Love Lucy” also made history in the advertising business. Although it was the highest rated show on the air in its prime, it didn’t do a thing for the sponsor’s cigarettes. 

When “I Love Lucy” ceased to have new episodes, it never left the air. CBS continued with reruns. The Ricardos and the Mertzes were in a sort of time-lock, never aging, never changing. 

Lucy and Desi divorced and both remarried, but on CBS in the morning, they remained in love for another decade. 

The 179 episodes kept replaying until the audience lost track of how many shows it had committed to rote. When CBS hit the bottom of the stack, it started over, and over, over again. 

This routine might have gone on forever except for an incident in February, 1966, which alerted everyone to the Lucy situation. The network chose to broadcast a fifth rerun of an “I Love Lucy” episode in preference to live testimony from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s Vietnam hearing. The network’s news chief stomped out in a huff. 

Last September, CBS retired “I Love Lucy” from daily duty and put it on reserve status.

Then in late March, the decision was made to release “I Love Lucy” from the network and the old episodes were released for sale in syndication to individual stations. 

But even before the ink was dry on the contract, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists called a strike. The network was caught without its live soap operas. 

To fill the emergency, naturally, CBS reached up on the shelf and pulled down some battered reels of “I Love You-know-what." 

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This article was part of TV Week, a supplement to the Sunday Baltimore (MD) Sun, on July 2, 1967.  

That same day (July 2, 1967) Baltimore’s Channel 13 showed The Affairs of Annabel (1938), Lucille Ball’s 39th movie. 

On Thursday, July 6, 1967, Baltimore area viewers saw Miss Grant Takes Richmond  (1949) on Channel 9.  It was Ball’s 72nd film. 

Later that same night, “Milton Berle Hides Out at the Ricardo’s” (LDCH S3;E1), originally aired in September 1959, was on their CBS affiliate.  Curiously, there is a small © next to the title, which indicates color.  This show was not filmed in color.  

Interestingly, as the article states, there are no re-runs of “I Love Lucy” on the schedule!  But the Ricardos and Mertzes are still visible via “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour.”  

The headlines that day talked about Canada’s centennial, tensions in the Suez, President Johnson’s relationship with Democratic governors, and America’s precarious financial relationship with Germany. 

When Shull’s column was printed in other papers, it was often retitled. Headlines were written by the newspapers, not the columnists. Here (The Indianapolis News) they decided on “Maybe It Should Be Renamed ‘Forever Lucy’”.  He also got his headshot with this byline.