HISTORY'S Moments in Media: Launching a Legend With "I Love Lucy"

Ball had starred in a successful CBS radio show called My Favorite Husband starting in 1948amp160 When the network wanted to turn it into a television series the star had a few conditionsamp160 First she insisted that her reallife husband Desi Arnaz play her husband on the showamp160 Second she insisted that the show be filmed in Los Angeles where she and Arnaz lived with their baby daughterPreviously most TV series were shot in New York and broadcast live on the East Coast with lowquality kinescope recordings amp8212 basically films made by aiming a camera at a TV screen amp8212 sent to stations in the relatively unpopulated Westamp160 For I Love Lucy to be filmed in Los Angeles and broadcast nationwide Arnaz turned to the new technology of a multicamera shoot with each camera filming on 35millimeter filmamp160 That provided the necessary quality for national distributionamp160 But Ball was also the kind of comic actor who needed an audience to respond toamp160 So Arnaz brought in a live studio audienceI Love Lucy as the Academy of Television Arts ampamp Sciences puts it was the first scripted show to be shot on 35millimeter film in front of a studio audienceamp160 It39s how shows like The Big Bang Theory are shot even nowamp160 In other words Ball and Arnaz invented the sitcomOver its six seasons I Love Lucy amp8212 about bandleader Ricky Ricardo Arnaz his desperatetobreakintoshowbiz wifeamp160Lucy Ball and their neighbors and friends Fred and Ethel Mertz William Frawley and Vivian Vance amp8212 won five Emmy Awardsamp160 In four of its seasons it was the toprated show in the countryamp160 Even now it39s regularly named among the best TV series of all timeBeyond introducing the world to products like Vitameatavegamin the health tonic Lucy overconsumes in quotLucy Does a TV Commercialquot and risks like the perils of a speedy assembly line such as at a candy factory in quotJob Switchingquot I Love Lucy broke many other barriers and set many milestonesWhen Ball demanded that Arnaz play her husband CBS balked arguing that viewers would never accept an allAmerican wife married to a CubanAmerican manamp160 So she joined a nationwide tour of the Desi Arnaz Orchestra adding vaudeville material that audiences lovedamp160 The network relented and Arnaz was castWhen Ball became pregnant with their second child it was the first time that a visibly pregnant staramp160was permitted on a network TV series amp8212 except that CBS banned the apparently indelicate word quotpregnantquot preferring quotexpectingquotamp160amp160And when that baby Ricky Jr was born Ball and Arnaz scheduled the Csection to coincide with the broadcast of the I Love Lucy episode in which their TV baby was bornamp160 They knew better than to pass up the publicity Ricky Jr appeared on the cover of the very first TV Guideamp160in 1953Perhaps most notably though when CBS balked at the additional cost of shooting on film in LA Ball and Arnaz agreed to reduce their salaries but retain ownership of those filmsamp160 Because of the films39 high quality I Love Lucy created the rerun and syndication businessesamp160 The production company they created Desilu became a powerhouseIn the end that insistence on shooting in LA also made Ball and Arnaz the first millionaire TV starsClick the social buttons to share this story with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated writers

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HISTORY'S Moments in Media: Launching a Legend With "I Love Lucy"

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HISTORY'S Moments in Media: Launching a Legend With "I Love Lucy"

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