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Marc De Bruyn (emdebe@village.uunet.be), August 23, 2003
The "I Love Lucy" TV show ran from October 15, 1951, through September 24, 1961 (for a total 180 episodes). Cuban Bandleader Ricky Ricardo (Desi Arnaz) would be happy if his wife Lucy MacGillicuddy (Lucille Ball) would just be a housewife; instead she tried constantly to perform at the Tropicana where he worked, and made life comically frantic in the apartment building they shared with landlords Fred (William Frawley) and Ethel Mertz (Vivian Vance). The first major show to be put on film rather than kinescope. The series was produced by Jess Oppenheimer, directed by Marc Daniels, and written by Jess Oppenheimer, Madelyn Pugh, and Bob Carroll, Jr.
During the first season, CBS-TV broadcasts opened with a custom animation incorporating sponsor Phillip Morris's graphics and "stick figure" cartoons of Desi and Lucy. It was scored with Ferde Grofé's Jr. "The Grand Canyon Suite" theme (a composition from 1931) used for Phillip Morris cigarette advertising on radio/TV, and a voice-over by midget bellboy "Johnny" with his familiar cry in which he drawled, "Call for Phil-lip Mor-ray-iss". During the 2nd part of the animation, the Grofé theme segued into the famous "I Love Lucy" (Signature) theme.
>From the second season onwards, the "I Love Lucy" (signature) theme composed by composer-arranger-pianist Eliot Daniel in 1951 (lyrics added later by Harold Adamson), became the main theme, and one of the most recognizable pieces of music on the planet.
Daniel is said to have written the theme for the untested TV show secretly and "as a favor to his old Coast Guard buddy" Oppenheimer, according to Oppenheimer's memoir "Laughs, Luck... and Lucy" (1996, Syracuse University Press). Since Daniel still had another year under his exclusive contract to Fox, he asked Oppenheimer to keep his "name out of it". Consequently his name does not appear on first or the second season TV credits for what became one of the most popular TV themes.
"There's a certain couple that I know, they're strictly lovebirds, a pair of turtle dove birds. He's a guy who wants the world to know, so ev'ry day you'll hear him say: I Love Lucy and she loves me, we're as happy as two can be, sometimes we quarrel but then again, how we love making up again. Lucy kisses like no one can, she's my missus and I'm her man; and life is heaven you see, 'cause I Love Lucy, yes I Love Lucy and Lucy loves me."
Daniel wrote the Oscar-nominated song "Lavender Blue (DillyDilly)" for the Disney Studios, and the lyrics for the also Oscar-nominated song "Never" (for the Fox film "Golden Girl" in 1951). Eliot's film credits included serving as vocal director for Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" (Twentieth Century-Fox, 1953). His other TV work included the theme song for the comedy series "December Bride" (1954-1959).
A partial list of "I Love Lucy" quotations, compiled by Charles Ulrich
10/9/70 Tallahassee (Diptheria Blues, edited out of Playground Psychotics)
2/9/80 rehearsal (I Don't Wanna Get Drafted)
2/10/80 rehearsal (I Don't Wanna Get Drafted)
4/12/80 Omaha (stand-alone)
4/18/80 (late) Sunrise (Pound For A Brown)
6/4/80 Hamburg (Pound For A Brown)
6/30/80 Vienne (stand-alone)
80/10/28 Albany: The Torture Never Stops
11/30/80 Des Moines (medley)
12/8/80 Santa Barbara (The Torture Never Stops)
1980-1988 (Tinsel Town Rebellion, as heard on Tinsel Town Rebellion, Does Humor Belong In Music?, and Have I Offended Someone?)
88/02/16 Hartford: King Kong
1988 (32 performances of The Torture Never Stops)Any more?