Cheap I Love Lucy - Season One (Vol. 1) (DVD) (Ralph Levy, James V. Kern, William Asher) Price

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Customer Reviews of I Love Lucy - Season One (Vol. 1)

Still finding its way, but GREAT FUN nonetheless
The "Long Lost Pilot" of I LOVE LUCY makes for a better curiosity piece than anything. It is probably the least humorous episode of the show ever, and it features far too much of Ricky Ricardo singing. It does lay the groundwork for the running them of "Lucy trying to get into Ricky's show" but it offers little else. Watch it once to see the roots of this classic...then move on never to return. <
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>The other three episodes are all good, solid LUCY. I feel like the show still didn't quite have its tone. Ricky dressed a bit more "casual" than he did in later shows in which he looks impossibly dapper and handsome. Lucy's "around the house" wear is very frumpy. Fred's personality is a bit too gruff. <
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>But this is still essential viewing. Just think of it...a TV showed filmed "live" (in one take) nearly 55 years ago, and it's still hilarious. The moment when Ricky opens the door to check out his "blind dates" and there stands Lucy and Ethel in "hick" costumes is still priceless after all these viewings. The show boiled comedy down to its core...loveable people doing really silly things. There have certainly been a lot of great sitcoms since then, but while some may argue LUCY has been equaled, I don't think anyone has ever surpassed it. <
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>Also, the show is a great way to look back at the mores of the 1950's. In the first "real" episode, we get to see all four of them enjoying good, long smokes. It's clearly not a habit but a TREAT for them to smoke. And the idea of two women going alone to a nighclub, even the ritzy Copacabana, is unthinkable. Contrast that to some of the things we see in sitcoms today. True, sitcoms exagerrate reality to a great extent, but they also hold up a mirror to some degree as well. I find LUCY shows fascinating...but mostly, I find them hilarious. Check 'em all out!!

Against the Flow
Warning: this review contains heretical opinions! I will say up front that I was a HUGE Lucy fan as a kid. I remember laughing and laughing to the original episodes and then again to reruns years later. Truly, her comic timing was genius and the Desilu group assembled an original and historical entertainment. No doubt about that. I purchased several of the first DVDs to come out and savored the fun of introducing the hilarity of Lucy to my 7-year-old daughter. However, my hopes and memories were dashed. Yes, my daughter was really tickled by Lucy and her funny antics. But, as I watched with her, the veil fell from my eyes. This original show has not aged well. I'm not referring to the quality of the classic comedy itself, but the cultural mores of the time. The show was sponsored by Philip Morris and part of the Lucy cast contract was to huff down cigarettes at literally every opportunity. It was frankly gratuitous. Yes, I understand the deal and the times but I don't want my daughter to have that influence. Fair enough, you say, but surely you don't judge the work from this more enlightened era and through the eyes of a 21st century parent? No, there's more. I sat down with the shows to watch without my daughter, after my non-tv-watching wife griped at what I was showing our kid, and realized that there was a kind of mean-spirited and petty spirit that ran though the show, particularly from Lucy. She was vindictive, jealous, alternately seductive and infantile, materialistic, unstable, childish, and other things that perpetuate a historically nasty view of women. Yes, I know that this was all part of the humor (adult acts like a spoiled child), the incongruity of it all. And, yes, from the standpoint of the 50s, she was an opinionated woman and a trailblazer and, in real life, a successful businessperson. But, in seeing Lucy through the eyes of my free and strong daughter, I saw that my tastes have changed as well. This may also be colored by my knowledge of the subsequent Lucy vehicles (The Lucy Show, et al, which frankly ....) and by her famously bitter, unhappy personality, that tainted such failed comebacks as the ill-fated remake of Mame and Stone Pillow. Saddened at my "loss of innocence", I put my DVDs up for sale and they sold within 48 hours. Judging from the many "New and Used" available, maybe others have discovered what I did as well. I know that this new DVD series is a hot item. I say all this not to taint or hamper the Lucy legend; I still respect and "love" Lucy. But, I just have put a realistic spin on things so that other like-minded consumers may fully understand what they are buying before enthusiastically investing in all the new Lucy DVDs. So, in summary, adults: maybe no prob. With kids: think about what you are inputting. (Sigh) Life was so simple and fun back when we didn't know squat . . .