The Lucy Show: The Official Third Season

Less than 6 months after CBS/Paramount brought us the long-awaited Season Two (In Color!) of "The Lucy Show", they follow up with what looks to be another stellar release of Lucille Ball's 1960s television triumph!

We get all 26 episodes of Season Three, which aired during the 1964-65 TV season Monday nights at 9:00 on CBS. This marked the only time in the six-season run that the show did not occupy it's regular 8:30 time slot.

Nevertheless, ratings stayed high though this season was a time of transition for the series.

As with Season Two, this year's shows were lensed in beautiful vibrant color, though originally telecast in black-and-white.

Vivian Vance's tenure on the show is winding down, as per her wishes, as she did not enjoy the commute between the East and West coasts.

In her place, the wonderful Ann Sothern steps in as the bankrupt Countess Framboise. I've always liked Sothern and she manages to make a rather haughty character likeable, but her chemistry with Lucy is nowhere near as wonderful as Viv's and these episodes are average. Her best appearance is in the installment set at a fat farm ("Lucy and the Countess Lose Weight"), where she and Lucy drink cow's milk straight from the teat!

Like Vance, the kids are being phased out and will disappear altogether by season's end, though Vivian will make guest appearances in Seasons 5 and 6 and Jimmy Garrett makes a few more appearances in Season 4.

If there's one reason to spring for this set, it's because the season-opener "Lucy the Good Skate" is everything that last year's "Lucy Plays Cleopatra" wasn't.

"Lucy the Good Skate" is one of the best episodes of the entire series, with Lucy getting a pair of roller skates stuck on her feet, determined to attend a country club dance despite the fact she can't get them off!

This a wonderful script with a great scene in a sporting goods store where Lucy and Viv compete for the eligible owner's attention and make use of a giant moose head to avoid being seen by Mr. Mooney. It ends with Lucy performing a virtual ballet on rollerskates that must be seen to be appreciated.

While the remainder of the season is rather spotty, with some truly forgettable efforts, there are other above-average episodes such as "Lucy and the Ceramic Cat", "Lucy and the Missing Stamp", "Lucy Tries Winter Sports" and "Lucy Goes to Vegas". If the writers had forgone the obligatory physical comedy schtick more often and wrote the Lucy character as being more cunning and resourceful (as in "Lucy Goes to Vegas"), the series would stand even stronger today.

The bonus features include footage of Lucy at the 1964 World's Fair in New York during "Lucille Ball Day". The footage is black-and-white and mostly silent with narration. It's fascinating to see Lucy out of her element, though it's obvious that at this juncture she's Lucille Ball: The Star. What's most strange is that security seems minimal for a star of her magnitude, but the world was a different place back then. Watch for Lucy's Mom, DeDe, obviously relishing her time in the spotlight with her daughter.

There are more vintage cast commercials, and like the previous sets, the option of watching the show as it originally aired on CBS. The colors are as eye-popping as the Season Two release.

Those wanting to enjoy the final hilarious exploits of Lucy and Vivian Vance, or those who just love great Classic comedy should definitely add this one to their Amazon shopping cart!

The Lucy Show Season 3 is one that has three main changes taking place, starting with the writers. At the end of Season 2, Lucy began a disagreement with head writers Bob Carroll Jr. and Madelyn Martin over them turning in an inferior script for one of Lucy's episodes. When another inferior script was presented to Lucy in the beginning of Season 3 by Carroll Jr. and Martin, it was not accepted for the Lucy Show, resulting in Carroll Jr. and Martin leaving The Lucy Show followed by the other two writers for the show, Weiskopf and Schiller. With all four writers gone, Lucy replaced them all with Milt Josefsberg- Jack Benny's script consultant writer. Under Josefsberg supervision, no permanent writers would be replacing the team of Carroll Jr., Martin, Weiskopf and Schiller. Josefsberg thought it best to hire different writers each week, including the great Garry Marshall.

The second big change in Season 3, would be Vivian Vance- Lucy's beloved side-kick, gradually leaving the show. Vivian's new husband John Dodds was a New York literary editor and Vivian would not permanently live on the west coast to do The Lucy Show, leaving her new husband on the east coast alone. Towards the middle of Season 3, Vivian commutes back and forth between New York and L.A., but it quickly becomes physically draining. By the time an exhausted Viv finishes episode 18, this opens the door for a new side-kick for Lucy, and this is where Ann Sothern steps in. Ann Sothern and Lucy were very close friends going way back. The Ann Sothern Show was produced at Desilu Studios. Ann guest starred on The Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Comedy Hour and Lucy returned the favor by guest starring on The Ann Sothern Show in an episode called The Lucy Story. Ann Sothern was written into The Lucy Show in Episode 19, as Countess Framboise, a once wealthy Countess now widowed and broke, who calls Mr. Mooney- Mr. Money. After Ann did four of The Lucy Show episodes, she wanted equal, top billing with Lucy. Lucy of course would not share her hard worked-for top billing with anyone, not even with her close friend Ann Sothern, who actually owned a piece of Desilu Studios, and so Ann's fourth appearance was her last in this season and the irreplacable Vivian Vance came back after Ann's fourth episode, in Lucy and Arthur Godfrey. Lucy, Arthur and Viv put on a spectacular southern show! Ann was used on occasion for future shows, but her character, the Countess was never made permanent to replace Vivian. Even though Vivian was newly married clear across the country, she amazingly did almost every show for this season, with the exception of 4 shows that starred Ann Sothern and a couple more. This season was the Lucy and Vivian season, as even the guest co-stars were a mere handful of only 7- Jack Benny, Bob Hope, Harvey Korman, Danny Kaye, Reta Shaw, Arthur Godfrey and Pat Harrington. Lucy and her beloved Vivian carried this entire season!

The third big change was the children fading out of the show. With Vivian's uncertain future with the show, that meant Sherman would be gone, which meant there would be no interaction for Lucy's son Jerry, and also Chris, her daughter was now older and going away to college. So, eventually Jerry was shipped off to military school leaving no more children on the show except for the occasional Christmas visit. Yet, even with all these changes- new writers, Vivian's uncertain future and the children fading out, The Lucy Show still turned out great shows every week, holding its own in the top ratings. This third season shows the children in only a handful of episodes.

Season 3 starts out with Lucy entertaining us with her always brilliant physical comedy skills in Lucy And The Good Skate. When Lucy wants to spend more time with Chris, who is growing up quickly, they go roller skating, only to have Lucy's feet swell to the point that she can't remove the skates. Of course, Lucy has a big date at the country club dance that evening, and you can imagine the physical comedy from Lucy dancing in skates- this performance is totally top notch! The next show, Lucy And The Plumber is classic Lucy with Jack Benny! Throw in Bob Hope and it's simply The Greatest! Lucy's performance with Danny Kaye is so fantastic- the two of them really dance so well together! One of my favorite episodes is Lucy The Stockholder, where Lucy, Viv and Mr. Mooney revert back into their childhoods- how darling they all are dressed up as 5 year olds! It's another wonderful season of Lucy and Viv with the great Ann Sothern featured in 4 episodes and a few great guest stars that you will thoroughly enjoy!

I spoke to a representative at CBS, and they are only a month and a half off schedule of releasing this Season 3. They had a date set for it's release in the middle of October, and it's release date is actually November 30th, so they are very close on schedule. CBS had to put some extra time in restoring a good film copy of the rare, mostly silent black and white Lucille Ball At The 1964 World's Fair for Lucille Ball Day! What a thrill this included extra will be to see!! They are also featuring rare promos and cast commercials and some other extras! CBS said the The Lucy Show Season 4 is tentatively scheduled for release on March 15, 2011! We are half way into the seasons and after March, we will only need 2 more Seasons to have our entire complete set of all 6 Seasons of The Lucy Show with all these fabulous extra's included!

After speaking with MPI, I found out the following: You can pre-order right now, The Lucille Ball Television Specials Happy Anniversary And Goodbye, along with What Now Catherine Curtis?! Both specials are on one dvd! This will leave us fans only needing 4 more Lucy specials- Carol Plus 2, Lucy Comes To Nashville, Lucy Moves To NBC and my favorite Lucy In London. I am still keeping my fingers crossed that CBS will include the special, Lucy in London in a future Lucy Show Season. I have heard it may just be in store for us fans, being included in the 1966 The Lucy Show! MPI also stated that they have a date set for releasing Here's Lucy Season 4 on March 29, 2011, which you can pre-order right now! It looks like March 2011 will be a Lucy month with both Seasons 4 being released for The Lucy Show and Here's Lucy! I can only finish this with a HUGE THANK YOU CBS AND MPI FOR CONTINUING TO BRING US EVERYTHING LUCY From all of us appreciative Lucy Fans!

Following the release of "The Lucy Show-Season 2" a few months ago comes word that "The Lucy Show-Season 3" arrives in stores on November, 30, 2010. Being one of "The Lucy Show's" biggest fans this news makes me extremely excited and happy, especially when it was announced last year that future releases of this series depended on how good the sales were of season two's box sets, so obviously season two sold well enough to make it feasible for this release.

Season 3 of this dynamic season began in the fall of 1964 and it is heavily regarded as Vivian Vance's final year on a network televison sitcom in a regular basis. Although still billed as "co-starring", Vivian's screen time diminished somewhat as her appearances became less and less as the season wore on. Reports say the reason Vivian wanted off "The Lucy Show" was because she wanted more of a say in the scripts and the direction of her character, and when those demands were not met by producers, most notably Lucille Ball, Vance announced she would leave at the end of the season. Others state that Vivian wanted to spend more time with her husband back east and found the commute to Hollywood draining. Whatever Vance's reasons for leaving, "The Lucy Show" was left with a void at the beginning of season four, and instead of replacing her Lucy decided to have guest-stars pop up during the remainder of the show's run. So this box set of episodes really are something to treasure as we watch the final year of one of the greatest female acting duos in comedy history do their thing.

Also important to note this would be the final year for Ralph Hart who played Vivian's son Sherman as his character left town with his mother. Also gone at the end of the season were Lucy's two children Chris, palyed by Mandy Moore, and Jerry (Jimmy Garrett), although the latter would make a few guest appearances in future episodes. This was also the last year that "The Lucy Show's" locale would be Danfield as the show's new locality would be Los Angeles. The only cast member to make the move with Lucy out west would be Gale Gordon as Mr. Mooney.

In season three Ann Southern made many appearances as the Countess Framboise whose so-called rich husband left her in dire financial need, and she, like Lucy, would often battle heads with Mr. Mooney whom the Countess called Mr. Money. The producers were attempting to get Southern on the show as a replacement for Vivian Vance, but when Southern refused to take "co-star" status (she wanted to be top-billed with Lucille Ball), she left the show.

This box set includes all of season three's 26 episodes, and are presented uncut and in beautiful "living color". Bonuses include rare cast commercials and promos, and most interesting a featurette called "Lucille Ball At The 1964 World's Fair For Lucille Ball Day".

Season three finished at a whopping #8 in the national Nielsen Ratings making "The Lucy Show" a consistent Top 10 series, a title it would hold for its entire run.

The following is a list of Season 3's episodes along with their airdates:

1. "Lucy and The Good Skate", Sept. 21, 1964
2. "Lucy and the Plumber", Sept. 28, 1964
3. "Lucy Tries Winter Sports, Oct. 5, 1964
4. "Lucy Gets Amnesia", Oct. 12, 1964
5. "Lucy and the Great Bank Robbery", Oct. 19, 1964
6. "Lucy, The Camp Cook", Oct. 25, 1964
7. "Lucy, The Meter Maid", Nov. 2, 1964
8. "Lucy Makes A Pinch", Nov. 9, 1964
9. "Lucy Becomes A Father", Nov. 16, 1964
10. "Lucy's Contact Lenses", Nov. 23, 1964
11. "Lucy Gets Her Maid", Nov. 30, 1964
12. "Lucy Gets The Bird", Dec. 7, 1964
13. "Lucy, the Coin Collector", Dec. 14, 1964
14. "Lucy and The Missing Stamp", Dec. 21, 1964
15. "Lucy Meets Danny Kaye", Dec. 28, 1964
16. "Lucy and the Ceramic Cat", Jan. 11, 1965
17. "Lucy Goes To Vegas", Jan. 18, 1965
18. "Lucy and the Monsters", Jan. 25, 1965
19. "Lucy and the Countess", Feb. 1, 1965
20. "My Fair Lucy", Feb. 8, 1965
21. "Lucy and The Countess Lose Weight", Feb. 15, 1965
22. "Lucy and The Old Mansion", March 1, 1965
23. "Lucy and Arthur Godfrey", Mar. 8, 1965
24. "Lucy and the Beauty Doctor", Mar. 22, 1965
25. "Lucy the Stockholder", Mar. 29, 1965
26. "Lucy the Disc Jockey", April 12, 1965

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