February 28, 2006

Google Video offers I Love Lucy for download!

First there was television, then cable, then TV shows on Laser Disc and VHS, then Satellite TV and now TV Shows and Movies on DVD. The latest, is yet another new medium, digital downloads. I Love Lucy TV Shows are being offered by Google for downloading on their new service!

You can now download 16 selected episodes from I Love Lucy Season Two, for $1.99 each and enjoy them on your home computer.

Included in this first batch are such classics as "Lucy Goes to the Hospital," "Job Switching," "The Operetta," "Sales Resistance,". The shows are being offered by CBS and Google Video and are currently available only to US-based addresses.

Because Google and Apple are competitors, these Lucy downloads cannot be accessed on a mac or transferred to an ipod.

February 27, 2006

Dick Cavett Show released on DVD

Before there was Dick Cavett the talk show host, there was Dick Cavett the comedian. Cavett’s early career as a writer for Jack Paar and Johnny Carson naturally led him into the world of stand-up comedy, where his contemporaries were the likes of Woody Allen and Bill Cosby. Cavett would later welcome both to The Dick Cavett Show. But Cavett’s comedian guests were by no means limited to his contemporaries. Cavett developed warm personal relationships with people like Groucho Marx, Bob Hope and Jack Benny. These great raconteurs and storytellers had some of their finest moments in Cavett’s studio, where they found a unique forum that didn’t necessarily require them to be funny. But of course they simply couldn’t be anything else.

12 Episodes Featuring:

Woody Allen
Lucille Ball
Jack Benny
Carol Burnett
Mel Brooks
George Burns
Bill Cosby
Bob Hope
Jerry Lewis
Groucho Marx
The Smothers Brothers

With New Episode Introductions and an All-New Interview with Dick Cavett. This new DVD collection was released February 21st.

Lucy's March 7, 1974 appearance on "The Dick Cavett Show" will be included on Disc 4 from this collection.

The DVD retails for $39.98 but you can get this DVD at Amazon.com for $27.99.

February 22, 2006

New 2006 Mattel Lucy Doll Announced



Announced last week, the 10th Lucille Ball doll in the series from Mattel, "Lucy Gets in Pictures" features Lucy as a Hollywood showgirl with a too-heavy headdress from Episode 116 of I Love Lucy! Lucy finally gets into pictures with the help of Ricky, but it may be 'bigger' then she realizes!

The doll will retail for $39.95 and will be released sometime this summer!

February 20, 2006

Little Ricky writes about I Love Lucy

With his distinguished receding gray hairline, no one would recognize Keith Thibodeaux as the black-haired tyke who played the role of Little Ricky on the old I Love Lucy sitcom from the 1950s.


But although just 6 years old when he captured the coveted role of the son of America’s sweethearts, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, his memories are vivid. Keith wrote his autobiogaphy, "Life After Lucy" which was published in 1994.

"This is my story about how I started playing the drums at age 2 and turned professional at 3 1/2. By 4 1/2 I joined the Horace Heidt Band, who was a big band leader and actually had a show on television the year before "I Love Lucy."

"Art Carney and Gordon McCray made their debuts on that show. I toured for a year and half with the band and when we were on hiatus in California - my mother, brother and sister had moved to L.A. - we heard there were auditions for I Love Lucy and I auditioned for the part of Little Ricky. I got the part and expanded it and was on the show the last four years it was on the air. Lucy and Desi got a divorce and the show ended."

Thibodeaux went on to play the role of Johnny Paul Jason, best friend to Ron Howard's character , Opie Taylor, on "The Andy Griffith Show. "He then became a drummer for the contemporary Christian band, "David and the Giants."

"The book chronicles my own father and mother's divorce, our move back to Louisiana, and back to high school where I got into rock music and drugs," said Thibodeaux. "As I became part of the drug culture, I went further and further down into clinical depression. My story is how I got free of that in finding Jesus Christ. I was born again when I was 24 years old and met my wife, a famous ballerina."

Thibodeaux is married to Kathy Thibodeaux, the founder of Ballet Magnificat! The couple has a 26-year-old daughter, Tara Drew.

Over the years, Thibodeaux stayed in contact with Desi Arnaz Jr. and Luci Arnaz, the real son and daughter of the famous couple, but he said the relationship has become more distant in recent years because he is on tour for 10 months out of the year.

February 02, 2006

Lucille Ball's First Film Contract Donated to Lucy-Desi Museum

A signed contract by Lucille Ball for her first film, Romans Scandals was found in California by major donors to the Lucy-Desi Museum in Jamestown.




William and Mary Rapaport, where Mary is also a member of the board of the museum wanted to donate the signed contract to the museum instead of the possiblity that the contract ending up in a private collection.

This contract, signed July 11, 1933 helped launch Lucille Ball's career from modeling to film, radio and finally to TV. Lucy spanning over 60 years of entertainment from her beginning with the Hollywood studio of Samuel Goldwyn, signed the contact at age 22 which landed her a role as a chorus girl in her first film.

The contract stated Lucy would receive "railroad transportation including lower berth from New York to Los Angeles" and be paid $60 per week with the option to extend the contract for up to 7 years with a final salary of $500 per week.

You will be able to see this contract at the Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Center in Jamestown, Lucy's hometown.

February 01, 2006

The Lucy and Desi Collection DVD Debut

The Lucy and Desi Collection: "The Long, Long Trailer," "Forever, Darling," "Too Many Girls"; popular motion pictures, the only ones America's beloved comedy couple made together, finally get their DVD debut on May 9th!

Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz--America's quintessential comic couple best known for their long-running hit TV series "I Love Lucy"--made only three feature films together. Those films make their long-awaited DVD debut, as Warner Home Video introduces The Lucy and Desi Collection on May 9th. Included are "The Long, Long Trailer," "Forever, Darling" and "Too Many Girls," available as a boxed set for $29.92 SRP. "The Long, Long Trailer" and "Forever, Darling" will be available individually for $14.97 SRP each; "Too Many Girls" is exclusive to the collection. DVD extra content includes vintage MGM and WB shorts, cartoons and a 1956 excerpt from the MGM Parade television series.

"Too Many Girls" (1940)

Its lighter-than-air plot has spoiled heiress Connie Casey (Lucille Ball) traipsing off to college while her over-protective father secretly sends four Ivy League football stars to act as her bodyguards. In no time, the football players manage to turn tiny Pottawatomie U. into a gridiron powerhouse!

"The Long, Long Trailer" (1954)

Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz live happily ever after as newlyweds honeymooning in "The Long, Long Trailer," directed by Vincente Minnelli. They quickly find that the interior of a moving trailer is ideal for tossing a salad--and everything else. That backing up their 40-foot, three-ton home is only a little more difficult than threading a needle wearing boxing gloves. And, that trailer-park folks are neighborly sorts who turn the lovebirds' rig into the wrong, wrong trailer by crashing the wedding night.

"Forever, Darling" (1955)

TV's "I Love Lucy" was in its fifth season when this romp gave fans more reasons to love its stars. Desi Arnaz plays Lorenzo, who heads for wide-open spaces, along with wife Susan (Lucille Ball), to test his chemical company's new product. Of course, comedy chaos ensues built on tent-raising, forest critters, inflatable rafts and other typical elements of roughing it. There is one atypical element: the angel (James Mason) who wants to rescue their troubled union.

(Thanks to bweir from The Lucy Lounge for the information and for the artwork he posted on the forum!)