Studio 360′s “I Love Lucy” Quiz

On Monday, we started our Week of Lucy with a pop quiz. Here are the answers: Question #1: Which was not in the contract for the cast members? A. Desi Arnaz could only perform a song when it was deemed by the writers to be essential to the plot. B. Bill Frawley was allowed to [...]

Read Full Post »

Everybody Loves Lucy

Lucille Ball knew however big the star, TV was a writer’s medium.  There was just no time for lots of takes to figure it out.  Every gesture, every glance, and every step was written into the script – and that’s the way Lucy wanted it. Gregg Oppenheimer, the son of creator, producer, and head writer [...]

Read Full Post »

Dean Cain Has Some Splainin to Do

Pity the television writer. If 30 Rock is to be believed (and why wouldn’t it be?), TV writers are creatures fueled by bad food and the always-looming deadline. Every week, a new show must be written and it must be funny…or funny enough. For I Love Lucy, three to five people churned out a whopping [...]

Read Full Post »

I Love Lucy: Notes on a Scandal

Long before US Weekly had us guessing if Angelina Jolie was pregnant, not pregnant, insane, evil, sainted … there was Confidential Magazine, a scandal rag big in the 1950s that was hell-bent on exposing Hollywood’s dirt. In 1955, Desi Arnaz’s supposed philandering became front-page fodder for Confidential. Dartmouth Film and TV professor Mary Desjardins explores [...]

Read Full Post »

I Love Lucy: Mindy Hearts Ricky

Mindy Kaling — writer, producer, and star of The Office — grew up thinking that I Love Lucy was “square … one of the many black and white things that people keep telling you is so great and then you watch it and you’re just sort of bored and annoyed by it.” Then her Office [...]

Read Full Post »

Everything’s Coming Up Lucy

This weekend, we continue our American Icons series by lobbing a giant cream pie your way: an hour about how I Love Lucy wrote the rules of American TV.  Kurt talks to comedians, academics, a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, a famous rapper, and a couple’s therapist – all to explore how this sitcom about a Cuban [...]

Read Full Post »