There is a certain, special relationship between those of us in the baby boomer generation and the comedian Lucille Ball. Her original television sit-com, ‘I Love Lucy’ was not only one of the first wildly popular TV series but for most of us boomers we have never known a time without Ms Ball in front of us on that ever glowing tube. She has been a fixture on TV during our childhood extending through our entry into adulthood. Many of us probably have more childhood memories involving her various shows than anything else. Lucy defined more than a decade she was the epitome of a cultural change in post World War II America. Lucy reinvented the then new format of the sit-com and became one of the first female television executives ever. Her show in the fifties was the first time a pregnant woman was seen on family entertainment; Lucy was a trailblazer in a new media on the verge of revolutionizing the entire entertainment industry as well as our culture. While most people immediately recall ‘I Love Lucy’ when Lucy’s name is brought up but the fact is this funniest if ladies had a TV career that kept her on screen through to the eighties. If some alien society is monitoring our television signals there is a good chance they consider Ms Ball as one of our leading citizens. Since this woman has been one of the most beloved television personalities in history it is should come as no surprise that there has been a continuing interest among the fans for DVD releases of her various shows. Paramount has just released the show Lucy stared in during the early to mid sixties; ‘The Lucy Show’. Although it is not considered as ground braking or funny as ‘I Love Lucy’ it still remains one on the best examples of sit-coms from that era.

‘I Love Lucy’ dominated the ratings from for most of the fifties and was expanded to ‘’The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour’ to finish out the decade. After split from her husband it didn’t take long for her to return to the country’s living room with ‘The Lucy Show. It would take her legion of fans pretty much through the next decade rubbing from 1962 through 1968 eventually join the other shows in syndication. Like many early television series quite a number of the episodes have entered into the public domain. This result in a plethora of DVD releases usually of dubious quality. Paramount CBS now has secured the home distribution rights and has released the first ‘official’ season. This adds this series to the growing list of classic television released through CBS Paramount. This catalog includes several other ‘official’ full season DVD sets. So forget those old videotapes or grainy grey market or off brand discs. Now you can have this portion of television and popular culture history better than you have ever seen it.

While ‘I Love Lucy’ was built around the traditional American nuclear family with two parent, a child and some wacky family friends. By the sixties this structure was undergoing change with divorce on the rise. This created a new demographic and a bit of a dilemma for the networks. They wanted to demonstrate strong family values but also provide characters that the new type of single parent households could identify with readily. Traditionally the only acceptable way for the networks to show a single parent home was to kill a parent off, usually neatly off screen and frequently prior to the start of the series. Here the studio split the difference; Lucy played Lucy Carmichael, a widow with two children, a boy Jerry (Jimmy Garrett), and his older sister, Chris (Candy Moore). This gave the potential for the boy to get into the usual mischief and a possible young romance for the girl. Living with the Carmichael family was mom’s old divorced friend Vivian Bagley (Vance) and her son, Sherman (Ralph Hart). It turns out that the late, unseen Mr. Carmichael left some nice provisions for his family. He created a trust fund administrated by a local bank. This afforded the writers the opportunity to create a character to serve as the comic foil of Lucy, Mr. Barnsdahl (Charles Lane). This actor was already well known to the audience for his many appearances typically as the crusty old man.

Although there were these ancillary cast members the majority of the stories centered on the antics of Lucy and Vivian. This was, after all, what the audience tuned in to see. This pair remains one of the best known female comedy duos in the history of entertainment. While the high jinks here was not up to the brilliance of the first series the pair still knew how to make people laugh. The stories were most about Lucy trying to cope with being on her own around Lucy and the banker trying his best to teach the widow fiscal responsibility. Other plot revolved around Lucy trying to balance being an independent woman starting to work and date again and rising two active kids. This set contains thirty episodes; seasons were longer back then, in a crisp, clear black and white. While there are some slight signs of age overall the quality here is very good. It is certainly better than the un-official sets you might already have; this is a funny series that does deserve a place in a serious collection.