More Great I Love Lucy Stuff!

Who can forget The infamous Wednesday Afternoon Fine Arts League that Lucy and Ethel belonged to? It was for them that Lucy wrote her famous operetta and gave us that great gypsy queen image we'll never forget as well as Ethel's famous number "Lilly of the Valley". It was for the Wednesday Afternoon Fine Arts League that the girls fought over who would be president and wound up being co-presidents, where Lucy cajoled Ricky into emceeing benefit shows and where they had many of their famous "breakups" only to cry, hug and be best friends again.

Some more facts about I Love Lucy

Did you know that the beautiful face of Lucy has been seen by more people and more often than any other face of any other person who ever lived!

Did you also know that to this day "I Love Lucy" is still shown in more than 70 countries and is dubbed in more than 22 different languages!

It would seen that there are very intelligent people all over the world!

I LOVE LUCY APRON FOR SALE

Hi folks,

Just to let you know I have a couple of adorable I LOVE LUCY aprons for sale over on EBAY made out of the LUCY liscensed fabric. Here's the link to one of them if you feel like checking it out.

Give me an idea what you think of it! Be honest fellow Lucy lover!

MY LUCY APRON

Funny Quotes from I LOVE LUCY

Here's one of my favorites between Ricky and Fred from "JOB SWITCHING" When Ricky and Fred are discussing cooking dinner for the girls:

Ricky: What do you know about rice?
Fred: Well, I had it thrown at me on one of the darkest days in my life!


And here's a real great one from when the foursome is in England wanting to meet the Queen. I love this one.

Ethel : Imagine me meeting a Queen face to face, I'm scared.
Fred : You're scared? Think of the Queen!

A little trivia about Lucy's radio show

Prior to I LOVE LUCY, Lucy starred in a radio show with Richard Denning which was called "My Favorite Husband". In fact, I LOVE LUCY was originally based on that radio show. At the time, Ozzie and Harriet was a successful Television series so the network borrowed their writers, Fox & Davenport, to write the first 10 episodes of the radio show. When they had to return to Ozzie and Harriet, they were replaced by Madelyn Pugh and Bob Carrol Jr. and history, as we know it, was made!

Co-stars for My Favorite Husband, playing the best friends, (most of the time)were Gale Gordon and Bea Benaderet who were both good friends of Lucy and whom were her first choices to play Fred and Ethel Mertz. Due to previous contract conflicts, they were unable to accept her offers which cleared the way for Vivian Vance and William Frawly (Whew!) to come on board. Gale and Bea did appear on I LOVE LUCY in several episodes though, enjoying acting with their dear friend.

Don't you love trivia~

Lots of fan mail over little Ricky!

After Lucy gave birth to her baby Desi in real life and little Ricky Ricardo in television land, she received over 30,000 letters of congratulation. WOW! Unfortuneatly, she also received about 2 dozen from cranky, nasty people who had nothing better to do but complain about her showing up pregnant on TV! Some people just can't ever be happy!

Lucy and Desi's Lost Christmas Episode

**The Following Great Information is taken from a wonderful website, TVPARTY.COM which has great information about some wonderful old TV shows. Be sure to take the time to check them out.

On Christmas Day, 1959, The Desilu Playhouse (1958-1960) presented a special Christmas broadcast starring the whole I Love Lucy gang, in addition to the Desilu Players and numerous stars of other popular Desilu productions like George Murphy, Spring Byington, Lassie, Danny Thomas, Hugh O'Brien and Ann Sothern. Even Hollywood hag Hedda Hopper made an appearance!

The wrap-around plot had Hollywood gossip queen Hedda Hopper interviewing Lucy and Desi about the Desilu Players and the show they recently staged. This led to flashbacks of Lucy (who was directing the stage show) creating chaos backstage between the musical numbers.

This Desilu Christmas special was produced and (essentially) directed by Lucille Ball herself. This is the only Desilu production I can think of that features the I Love Lucy cast members playing "themselves."

The juxtaposition of the 'real' Lucy with the Lucy character is slightly confusing and, though Vivian Vance is referred to as "Vivian" here, her personality is basically Ethel's with more attitude.

If you ever get the opportunity to watch this hour-long special, look for the scene where William Frawley (as himself?) tries to pick up one of the young girls in the show. How's this for a come-on: "Miss Lovell, do you feel about older men the way I feel about younger women?"

This program is significant because it's one of the last appearances of the four I Love Lucy cast members together, Lucy and Desi filed for divorce just a few months after this special was filmed. They only appeared together in one more Lucille Ball Desi Arnaz Show; they never again acted together on any another TV show.

The Desilu Players was a pet project of Lucille Ball's, who hand-picked each of the versatile performers as her protégés (they actually were appearing in a stage revue that she produced in LA around the time of this broadcast). The musical and comedy numbers from the live show were filmed almost exactly as originally staged, but only the musical numbers ended up in the Christmas special's final edit.

One of those musical numbers ('I'm Only Happy When I'm Singin' the Blues') featured some wild art direction and garnered excellent revues for the sterling performances by Carole Cook and Dick Kallman as singing/dancing coffeehouse beatniks.

Carole Cook went on to become a life-long friend of Lucy's, appearing on Broadway and several times on The Lucy Show and Here's Lucy. Dick Kallman starred in the fondly remembered TV series Hank in 1965. He also embarked on a promising Broadway career before being tragically murdered in his New York apartment in 1980.

Also in the Desilu Playhouse cast: Majel Barrett (Nurse Chappell on Star Trek another Desilu show) and Robert Osborne (the Classic Movie Channel host and erstwhile writer for the Hollywood Reporter