Lucille Ball Born This Day in 1911

[SoDesuKa]

A ground breaking Sitcom from the husband-and-wife creative team of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, under the auspices of their studio, Desilu Productions. I Love Lucy followed a young married couple through a series of wacky misadventures.

The show's plot often hinged on Lucy trying to convince her bandleader husband Ricky Ricardo (played by Arnaz) to let her appear in his mambo-centric variety show. Ricky insisted on his wife remaining home to do wife things because he didn't have the heart to tell her she had no talent. Lucy would come up with a Zany Scheme to subvert his authority, by either making her own money or sneaking into the show. Hilarity Ensues (and this time, it really means it), and a lot of the humor in the episodes' last acts were built around Lucille Ball being a gifted physical comedian.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Series/ILoveLucy?from=Main.ILoveLucy

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[HeiressofBickworth]

1. I liked some of the early movies Lucy did

and, when she went to TV, I initially liked her show. However, now that I am older and the feminist revolution has already taken place, when I see re-runs, I'm drawn to the conclusion that her humor didn't age well. We worked long and hard to rid ourselves of the child/wife image and the type of emotional manipulation she worked on her husband is no longer amusing. IMHO, she was right for her time, but her humor wasn't ageless.

[JI7]

3. i disagree, first off it's always important to remember the times, but even then

she wasn't the "perfect wife" that was expected back then. one of the reasons many people like her is that even with the expectations she woudl always try to break out of it and do what she wanted.

if anything she was ahead of her time.

[HeiressofBickworth]

4. As I said, she was right for her time

She did not play the perfect wife but she played into the old stereotype child/wife frame where men saw women as somewhat goofy and incompetent. Like the old jokes about women's cooking or driving. If she wanted to portray a woman breaking out of society's expectations, she would have been shown as being successful at something, anything.

On a personal side, I agree with you -- in business, she was ahead of her time, but the "humor" expressed in her TV show wasn't.

[JI7]

5. i didn't see her as incompetent, it was a comedy show

with her as the star which is why she was shown as goofy.

[Kaleva]

7. I think the humor is timeless as it's mostly physical comedy with some slapstick.

I loved watching "All in the Family" when it was on the air but today, it just doesn't seem that funny while shows like "I Love Lucy", "The Honeymooners" and "The Dick Van Dyke Show" remain funny to me to this day even though I have seen the episode many times before.

[Odin2005]

2. Happy Birthday, Lucy!

[woo me with science]

6. That picture is so wrong.

This is Lucy:




Thanks for the tribute, though. She was brilliant.

[Rhiannon12866]

8. I didn't think that was Lucy, either.

I read a book on "I Love Lucy" and it was fascinating, a truly groundbreaking show, and Desi was just brilliant, something that's not well known. She was quite a knock out in her earlier movies.

[woo me with science]

9. You are the second person who has

recommended to me what I assume is the same book about the show.

I think I'll look for it.

Yes...She really was as beautiful as she was brilliant. We watched a movie recently with her and very young Desi together a full decade before the show.

Thanks!

[Rhiannon12866]

10. It's a fascinating book, tells a lot about early television

And also about Lucy and Desi. They really were a perfect match, made an amazing team of talents. I used to work with the networks, mainly CBS, was responsible for the descriptions in the newspapers, and so much we see now started with "I Love Lucy." And the book made me appreciate their movies, too...

[WiffenPoof]

11. Not A Fan

Don't get me wrong, some of the work she did was iconic and timeless. I suppose that I appreciated her professional life more than her personal life. Her treatment of Desi (in public no less) was unforgivable. It's a little like the way Paul Simon treats Art...shameful.

-P

[LeftinOH]

12. She was in lots of films in the 1940s (some of them in Technicolor). See them

if you want to see another side of Lucy. Specifically, "Best Foot Forward" and DuBarry was a Lady".