Lucy returned to TV after a Broadway break (she starred in the musical Wildcat in 1960-1961, until exhaustion forced her out of the show). Her show was a hit out of the box, proving that audiences still loved her, even without a Ricky/Desi figure to rein her in. The situation was helped inestimably by having Lucy’s friend and comedy pal (and the erstwhile Ethel Mertz), the inestimable Vivian Vance, playing opposite Lucy.

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Vivian (who’d had plastic surgery in between I Love Lucy and this series) looked dynamite, and insisted in her contract that her character be called “Vivian,” to help the audience forget her as Ethel. She played the first divorced woman who was a regular character on a prime time series.

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Based on the book Life Without George, and featuring three very likeable kids—Candy Moore as Chris Carmichael; Jimmy Garrett as Jerry Carmichael; and Ralph Hart as Sherman Bagley were not cookie-cutter TV offspring—as the gals’ children, The Lucy Show was a delight, especially as it found its footing in the first two seasons, which were aired in black-and-white (Ball, always looking ahead, filmed the series in color starting with the second season, believing color reruns would sell better in the syndicated market, and make the show appear more modern). Audiences obviously loved Ball and Vance as a team, and when the two of them worked their magic—on stilts, installing a TV antenna, trying to fix a broken shower and nearly drowning (my favorite epsiode; see picture), clowning on an electric mattress, looking for a lost contact lens through acres of cakes —they created classic comedy.

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The addition of Lucy staple Gale Gordon as president of Lucy’s bank in Season Two (replacing character actor Charles Lane from the first season) signaled a change in the direction of the show, and not necessarily a good one. The interplay between Lucy and Mooney (I always thought he and Vance’s character were on two different shows) was fun shtick, to a point. But as the series ran on, and especially after Vance departed (she left after the third season, tired of her weekly East-West Coast commute), the Lucy/ Mooney stuff became increasingly irritating and repetitive. Pictured is a costume sketch circa 1960 for the upcoming show, with Lucy in one of her soon-to-be trademark office suits.

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The show seemed to lose its heart with Vance’s departure in 1965. Lucy relied on guest stars for the remainder of the show’s long run (until 1968) to fill Vance’s place, but no one really could. Pal Ann Sothern stepped up to the plate for a half-dozen or so episodes, as a dissolute “Countess,” and she worked well with Lucy…but she was not Viv. The success of any particular episodes began to depend on how much viewers enjoyed the guest star of the week, and how well he/she fit in to the “Lucy” format.

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As an example, when the guest was pro Jack Benny, as in the season six episode “Lucy Gets Jack Benny’s Account,” and the plot involved Lucy scheming to get his bank account moved to her bank by building him a break-in-proof vault, the results were fine, clever and satisfying. But they were more often misfires, or, even worse, clichéd or stale overused plots.

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Regardless, the audiences were far from tired of Lucy, and kept the show in the Top Ten for all six of its seasons. In fact, in its final season, 1967-1968, The Lucy Show exited as the Number Two show on TV.

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Lucy had an end-of-season tradition: saying she wasn’t sure if she was coming back the following season. She always re-upped, but usually only after CBS came to the party with more money and compliments about how important she was to the network’s schedule (which she was). She might have had more incentive than usually to end The Lucy Show. It had begun life in 1962 a Desilu production, and remained one. Since Lucy had sold her (and ex-husband Desi’s) company to Paramount in 1967, she no got profits from the show as an owner. By ending it and creating Here’s Lucy (see below) under her own banner (Lucille Ball Productions) at Paramount, the ball (so to speak) was squarely back in her court.

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There was a French pop/new wave band called The Lucy Show, which recorded together for five years in the 1980s. As far as I know, except for the name, the band was not associated with Lucy or her series at all. Its second albumwas called Mania, certainly a word that has often been used to describe Lucy and her schemes.