"We Love Lucy" redirects here; this article is not to be confused with I Love Lucy.

The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour
I Love Lucy Season 7, 8, 9 (The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour) DVD.
Format	Situation comedy
Created by	Desilu Productions
Starring	Lucille Ball Desi Arnaz Vivian Vance William Frawley Richard Keith
Country of origin	United States
No. of episodes	13 (List of episodes)
Production
Running time	60 minutes per episode
Distributor	Paramount Television
Broadcast
Original channel	CBS
Original run	November 6, 1957 – April 1, 1960
Chronology
Preceded by	I Love Lucy (1951-1957)
Followed by	The Lucy Show

The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour is a 1957-60 CBS television situation comedy. The show was more a collection of occasional specials than a regular series. 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. It was the successor to the classic comedy, I Love Lucy, and featured the same major cast members. The production schedule avoided the grind of a regular weekly series.^[1] 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 the show under the "Lucy-Desi" title during the summers of 1962-67, after which it went into syndication.

Contents 1 Description and evaluation 2 Regular cast 3 Episodes 4 Notes 5 External links

[edit] Description and evaluation

During the final season of I Love Lucy, the Ricardos and Mertzes moved to Westport, Connecticut, which reflected the growth of the suburbs throughout America. The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour was also set in the new suburban locale, only at a one-hour length (note: the first episode, "Lucy Takes a Cruise to Havana," originally ran 75 minutes), and with guest stars such as Ann Sothern, Rudy Vallee, Tallulah Bankhead, Fred MacMurray and June Haver, Betty Grable and Harry James, Fernando Lamas, Maurice Chevalier, Danny Thomas and his Make Room for Daddy family, Red Skelton, Paul Douglas, Ida Lupino and Howard Duff, Milton Berle, Robert Cummings, and (in the final episode, called "Lucy Meets the Moustache") Ernie Kovacs and Edie Adams.

The show ended almost at the same time as the marriage of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. In fact, there were many episodes in which constant bickering between Lucy and Desi was noted. Because of their personal problems (and Desi spending more time trying to maintain the Desilu "empire"), the live studio audience was replaced with a laugh track by the final season. In the penultimate episode of the series, titled "The Ricardos Go to Japan", Lucy appeared on screen red-eyed due to her crying during the arguments between herself and Desi. In the making of the last episode, Lucy and Desi did not speak directly to each other except when their characters were required to do so. The series ended April 1, 1960, and their marriage ended May 10, 1960. (Actually, the final episode was filmed March 2, with the divorce proceedings starting the next day.)

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 due to the cast, which remained intact from the original. The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour was occasionally seen on nostalgia outlets like the TV Land cable network or in edited thirty-minute installments (beginning in 1987) under the title We Love Lucy, where stations run it directly after the sixth season of I Love Lucy. This allows them to have 26 additional "episodes" that run like a seventh season.

The series was released on DVD on March 13, 2007, as a complete set. The show is memorialized in the Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Center in Jamestown, New York. (See also SaveLucyDesiCenter.org.)

[edit] Regular cast

Actor/Character
Lucille Ball	Lucy Ricardo
Desi Arnaz	Ricky Ricardo
Vivian Vance	Ethel Mertz
William Frawley	Fred Mertz
Keith Thibodeaux credited as "Richard Keith"	Little Ricky Ricardo

[edit] Episodes

• List of The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour episodes

[edit] Notes

[edit] External links

• The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour at the Internet Movie Database
• The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour at TV.com
• Episode guide and descriptions for The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour
• The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour at TVLand.com