After headlining two successful sitcoms for CBS in I Love Lucy and The Lucy Show, Lucille Ball pulled off the hat trick with this series. This time around she stars as Lucy Carter, a widow who lives in Los Angeles with her teenaged children (Lucie Arnaz and Desi Arnaz Jr.) and works as a secretary for her brother-in-law (Gale Gordon).
The show also features Mary Jane Croft, Vivian Vance, Sid Gould, Vanda Barra, Mary Wickes, and Larry J Blake.
The show aired for six seasons from September 23, 1968 to March 18, 1974.
Tropes for the series:
- Alliterative Name:
- Craig Carter (Arnaz Jr.).
- Buzzy Brock in "A Home Is Not an Office".
- The Bus Came Back: After leaving the show following the third season, Desi Arnaz Jr. returned for one final appearance in season five’s “Lucy and Joe Namath”.
- Celebrity Paradox: Carol Burnett appears both as herself and Carol Krausmeyer, Lucy’s rival secretary from another office.
- Chaos Architecture: The design and layout for Harry’s house changed practically every time it appeared.
- Character Title: Here's Lucy.
- Commuting on a Bus: Happened to both Carter children. Desi Arnaz Jr. didn’t appear as much during the third season because of other film and TV projects, and would leave the show at the end of that season. Lucie Arnaz, meanwhile, cut back her appearances significantly during the final season due to stage commitments, only showing up in half of the season’s 24 episodes.
- Continuity Snarl: This series basically put zero effort into maintaining much continuity. A few of the more glaring examples include:
- Every time Jack Benny appeared As Himself, Lucy Carter was shown to be meeting him for the first time.
- Vivian Jones (Vivian Vance) originally lived in Santa Fe, New Mexico, but all subsequent appearances had her living on the East Coast.
- A Day in the Limelight:
- “Goodbye Mrs. Hips” features the most significant appearance of Vanda Barra, who usually only played bit parts.
- “Mary Jane’s Boyfriend” was the only episode to centre around Mary Jane Croft’s role of Mary Jane Lewis.
- Depending on the Writer: Much like later episodes of The Lucy Show, the degree of Lucy’s (lack of) intelligence and the extent of Harry’s anger and meanness varied script by script.
- Expy: The characters of Lucy Carter and Harrison Otis Carter are very similar to the later season incarnations of Lucy Carmichael and Theodore J. Mooney of The Lucy Show, right down to still being hot-heated boss and scatterbrained secretary.
- Hilarious Outtakes: Amazingly, a staggering amount of bloopers and outtakes survive from all six seasons. When compiled for MPI’s DVD sets, the total runtime was nearly an hour.
- Poorly Disguised Pilot: The season four finale, “Kim Finally Cuts You-Know-Who’s Apron Strings”, was a pilot for a proposed Kim Carter spinoff, where Kim moves into an apartment building managed by her uncle, Lucy’s never-before-mentioned brother Herb Hinkley (Alan Oppenheimer). Rounding out the cast were Susan Tolsky as Sue Ann Ditbenner, Kim’s kooky neighbor and friend, and Lloyd Battista as Ronnie Cumberland, a lecherous race car driver from England. Lucie Arnaz remained a regular on this show after the pilot wasn’t picked up to series.
- Put on a Bus: Desi Arnaz, Jr., left the show after the third season, resulting in Craig going off to college.
- Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: Carol Krausmeyer (Carol Burnett), a rival secretary, is this for Lucy Carter.
- Tagline:
- "Can Lucy close her own generation gap?" (Season 1).
- "Keep your eye on the bouncing Ball. With more bounce than ever. The kids, Desi Jr. and Lucie, compound the comic chaos". (Season 3)
- What Are You in For?: In one episode, Lucy goes undercover in a women's prison. When she is first asked this question, she replies:Lucy: Highway robbery.
Matron: Highway robbery?
Lucy: Yeah. I stole Route 66. - Whole-Plot Reference: “Lucy and Joan Rivers Do Jury Duty” was a parody of 12 Angry Men.
