Welcome to the last Sitcom Tuesday entry of 2025! This week, I thought it fitting to close out this monumental year with one more rerun in celebration of my recently released first book, Great American Sitcoms of the 1950s, which you can purchase here (or on Amazon here). You all know how this works by now — I’ll provide a link to a piece that I first published many seasons ago, and then I’ll share a bit of updated commentary that’s relevant for today.
Today, let’s revisit… The Five Best Episodes of THE LUCY-DESI COMEDY HOUR: https://jacksonupperco.com/2013/07/30/the-five-best-episodes-of-the-lucy-desi-comedy-hour/
When Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz decided to end I Love Lucy as a weekly series, they kept the characters and format going in five hour-long specials during the 1957-1958 season. These aired as The Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show and were sponsored by Ford. For the following season, the pair produced a dramatic anthology program called the Desilu Playhouse, sponsored by Westinghouse. Folded into that series was the continuing Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show, which included eight more specials over the next two seasons, concluding in spring 1960 upon the Playhouse’s cancellation and the divorce of its two stars. Eventually, these thirteen hour-long specials featuring the Ricardos and Mertzes were packaged together for network reruns and syndication as The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour, and then also offered in 26 separate half-hours as We Love Lucy. I discuss this history — the de facto continuation of the 1950s’ best sitcom — in my book, despite excluding the hour-long episodes from “best of” consideration. (It wouldn’t be fair; they’re not half-hour weekly samples.) However, more than a handful of them are good and/or interesting — particularly the five I cited in my 2013 post. I stand by those picks — although, if I was drafting my list of favorites today, I’d swap either “Lucy Hunts Uranium” or “The Ricardos Go To Japan” for the more character-revealing “Lucy Takes A Cruise To Havana,” as it’s more specific to the leads and their situation. Other than that, I remain quite partial to “The Celebrity Next Door” with Tallulah Bankhead, as it most feels like an episode of I Love Lucy, with a story that uses the main cast well, along with “Lucy Makes Room For Danny,” which boasts a crossover with the cast from The Danny Thomas Show, another great 1950s multi-cam. Also worth noting is “Lucy Wants A Career,” which essentially climaxes the original premise about Lucy hoping to get into show business — the métier of her husband — by giving her a version of what she’s always wanted and then having her realize that it actually doesn’t make her happier than her life at home. It’s an interesting notion — the fulfillment of what the original series purported to follow, giving closure to the characters that they never got on I Love Lucy proper. For that reason, I consider it — and all of these 13 specials, frankly — worthwhile, which is why you can read more about them in my book!
And that concludes 2025 on Sitcom Tuesdays! Come back tomorrow for a new Wildcard Wednesday! And stay tuned next week for more sitcom fun!