CBS/Paramount May Consider Airing Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour with ILL

[lucyandethel]

It is rumored that CBS/Paramount is considering adding the 13 "Lucy-Desi Comedy Hours' to the the 179 I Love Lucy episodes in syndication. The packages would be offered to stations that air I Love Lucy. They can purchase the 13 Lucy-Desi hour episodes edited down to 26 half-hour shows. This would increase the number of "I Love Lucy" syndicated episodes from 179 to 205. KTTV & KCOP in Los Angeles have been doing this for a few years now with success.

What do you think about this? As for me, it would be interesting. Some of the hour shows are good, others not so good. But I would like to see them more often on TV anyway.

[Zoneboy]

Rumored from where? Provide a link.

[LittleRickyII]

It is rumored that CBS/Paramount is considering adding the 13 "Lucy-Desi Comedy Hours' to the the 179 I Love Lucy episodes in syndication. The packages would be offered to stations that air I Love Lucy. They can purchase the 13 Lucy-Desi hour episodes edited down to 26 half-hour shows. This would increase the number of "I Love Lucy" syndicated episodes from 179 to 205. KTTV & KCOP in Los Angeles have been doing this for a few years now with success.

What do you think about this? As for me, it would be interesting. Some of the hour shows are good, others not so good. But I would like to see them more often on TV anyway.

Where did you find this? This sounds like old information because they've been doing this for years. My local station was also airing this half-hour format at least five years ago, with those 26 episodes airing under the title We Love Lucy, immediately following the final I Love Lucy segment, "The Ricardos Dedicate a Statue." Awhile back, I came across a Paramount website targeting local broadcasters with their syndicated offerings, and I'm pretty sure it included this package as well as one that tacks those 26 We Love Lucy episodes onto I Love Lucy as well as the first-season episodes of The Lucy Show, which I think is kind of strange. Then again, Telepictures used to offer Mayberry R.F.D. and The New Dick Van Dyke Show as a single package, and those two series have zero in common. One thing that bothered me about the 26 We Love Lucy episodes: they didn't run them in broadcast order. Like the two "Lucy Takes a Cruise to Havana" episodes from 1957 might be followed by "Milton Berle Hides Out at the Ricardos" from 1959. There may have been a strategy behind the order they were running those episodes, but I prefer that they run them in the original production and broadcast order.

Other than that, I think these half-our We Love Lucys are an improvement over the hour-long Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour version. The main reason I feel this way -- and it's odd to say -- is because they're more heavily edited than The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour. Normally, I hate when shows are edited, but in this case, I think it's a good thing because the hour format did not work so well compared to the half-hour I Love Lucys. There's too much filler material in most of those episodes as it was needed just to fill hour the hour format. But it results in a slower, less entertaining pace. With the half-hour We Love Lucy version, they had to do a lot more editing because 1) you end up with twice as many opening and closing credits; and 2) the second part of each episode begins with a recap of what happened in the first part. So the extra openings and closings and the recap all force extra minutes to be edited out of the show. But I think CBS/Paramount, at least from what I saw, used good judgment in what they edited out. They seemed to have removed the least vital and least entertaining material. So what's left is a faster paced show. And, of course, it's only a half-hour anyway. So even with a lesser episode like "Lucy's Summer Vacation" that has little redeeming qualities, before you even get a chance to get bored, the show is already over. So I'm a fan of this half-hour We Love Lucy format. I just wish they would run them in the original broadcast order.

[LittleRickyII]

Following up on my last message, I found the link to CBS/Paramounts page where they're marketing the 26 We Love Lucy episodes to local broadcasters:
http://syndicationbible.cbstvd.com/series/i_love_lucy/i_love_lucy_we_love_lucy.htm

Note that this page was last updated in January 24, 2008, so this option has been available at least since then. If you scroll down to the bottom, you can see that they have the six seasons of I Love Lucy followed by the 26 We Love Lucy episodes. And if you click on "The Complete Lucy" link, you will find that they also offer, in one package, the 179 I Love Lucy episodes, plus the 26 We Love Lucy episodes, plus the 30 first season The Lucy Show episodes. In other words, all of Lucille Ball's black and white sitcom episodes in one package.