Life With Lucy

From Wikipedia:

Life with Lucy is an American sitcom starring television icon Lucille Ball. The show ran on the ABC network in 1986, and unlike Lucy's previous smash hits on television, it was a critical and ratings flop.

Premise

Ball played a widowed grandmother who had inherited her husband's half-interest in a South Pasadena, California hardware store (the other half being owned by his partner, Curtis McGibbon, played by Gale Gordon). Lucy's character insisted on "helping" in the store, even though when her husband was alive she had taken no part in the business and hence knew nothing about it. The unlikely partners were also in-laws, her daughter being married to his son, and all of them, along with their young grandchildren, lived together.

[edit] Creative control and production

In order to get Ball to agree to a new series, ABC allowed her complete creative control, no requirement to make a pilot episode, and no requirement for testing before focus groups or other tryouts. As all of Ball's previous TV efforts had proven to be hugely successful, the network acquiesced to these demands, even though she was at the time 75 years old and her long-time co-star Gale Gordon was 80. Gordon's "slow burn" comic timing was reminiscent of his previous character in The Lucy Show and Here's Lucy, and he was coaxed out of retirement in Palm Springs on the condition that he would be paid for a full season, regardless of whether the show was renewed.

Most of the episodes were written and supervised by longtime Lucy writers Bob Carroll Jr. and Madelyn Davis, who had previously worked on I Love Lucy in the 1950s, The Lucy Show in the 1960s, and Here's Lucy in the 1970s. Ball did agree to network concerns about the need to avoid physical comedy, such as the pratfalls and other stunts she had done in her previous shows, because of insurance and injury concerns due to her age. Those stunts were instead handled by actor Donovan Scott, who played her co-worker in the hardware store, though Lucy did participate in low-risk physical scenes, such as one where a room completely filled to the ceiling with soapsuds, or an electronic rocking chair went berserk and knocked her back and forth.

[edit] Cancellation

Fourteen episodes were written, thirteen filmed, but only eight actually aired. On the day of the last filmed (but unaired) episode, producer Aaron Spelling learned of the show's cancellation by ABC; he decided to tell Lucille's husband Gary Morton, who decided not to reveal the news to her until after filming had ended. The last episode to be aired, "Mother of the Bride", featured Audrey Meadows, who was going to be cast as a regular to give the show a new direction and Lucille's character a comic foil and partner, similar to the role previously played by Vivian Vance in Lucy's previous series.

Life With Lucy's premiere episode on September 20 made the Nielsen's Top 25 (#23 for the week) for its week; however, subsequent episodes dropped steadily in viewership. It ranked only 73rd out of 79 shows for the season, with a 9.0/16 rating/share. The short-lived show was never syndicated, nor was it ever released on home video. Biographies of the actress reveal that she was reportedly devastated by the show's failure, and never again attempted another series or feature film; her subsequent interviews and other TV appearances were extremely infrequent. Lucy's last public appearance was as a presenter on the 1989 Academy Awards telecast in which she and fellow presenter, Bob Hope, were given a standing ovation. She died a month later, in April 1989.

CBS Television Studios currently owns the rights to this series as it owns the Aaron Spelling library; it also owns all the other series starring Lucille Ball (except Here's Lucy).

Cast

* Lucille Ball .... Lucy Barker

* Gale Gordon .... Curtis McGibbon

* Ann Dusenberry .... Margo Barker McGibbon

* Larry Anderson .... Ted McGibbon

* Jenny Lewis .... Becky McGibbon

* Philip J. Amelio II .... Kevin McGibbon

* Donovan Scott .... Leonard Stoner