ethel mertz was lucy's best friend on i love lucy.
ethel mertz was lucy's best friend on i love lucy.
lucy's best friend on i love lucy?
ethel mertz
in 1957, "i love lucy" was re-tailored into an hour-long show originally titled "the lucille ball-desi arnaz show" that was to be part of an anthology series called the "westinghouse desilu playhouse". the hour-long "lucy-desi" show was to alternate on a monthly basis with other hour long "playhouse" shows. the new series put a much heavier emphasis on big name guest stars as being part of the plot and although the mertz characters continued into the new series, their roles became somewhat diminished. although a lighter workload was welcomed by frawley, vance came to somewhat resent the change. arnaz, in an effort to please vance, for whom he had much respect, proposed doing a spin-off from "i love lucy" called "the mertzes". seeing a lucrative opportunity and the chance to star in his own show, frawley was enthused. vance, however, declined for a number of reasons, the biggest factor being that she felt she and frawley could barely work together on the ensemble show they were doing at the time, so it would be much less likely the two could work together on their "own" series. vance also felt that the mertz characters would not be as successful without the ricardos to play off of, and despite being her biggest success, she was becoming interested in playing more glamorous roles rather than ethel. in fact, during the thirteen-episode run of the "lucy-desi" hour-long shows, vance was given a lot more latitude to look more attractive as ethel mertz, something she was denied during the run of the "i love lucy" episodes. frawley's resentment of vance intensified after she declined to do the spin-off show and the two rarely talked to each other outside of their characters' dialogue with one another.
i love lucy
"comedy hour" episodes focused on lucy's interaction with the celebrity guest stars. although still a key character, ricky isn't a major part of the episodes and has less interaction with lucy. nearly every episode features his not allowing her to do something, which allows lucy to interact with the guest stars to confound ricky. ricky's 'manic' personality has changed as well, and by the last episode (filmed in april 1960) he's more subtle, almost depressed, and appears tired. his contributions are generally low-key (with the exception of the 'berle' episode). fred and ethel are featured in fewer plot themes after the move to connecticut, although ethel does help lucy carry out her schemes. although noted in "i love lucy" as the main reason they were able to afford moving to connecticut, the joint ricardo-mertz egg business is only mentioned once. fred assumes his role as ricky's band manager. as noted arnaz had each episode written to 'stand alone' in order to expand themes and plots using celebrity guests. he also expected those guest stars to have significant screen time. arnaz, vance, and frawley all had their dialog and screen time reduced a great deal compared to "i love lucy". this reduction was not well received by vance, who considered leaving. frawley, however, was happy with the reduction which gave him more time to attend to his other interests. new friends from the "i love lucy" connecticut episodes, the ramseys (or the mortons), were not in the comedy hour cast and are only mentioned twice, each as babysitters for little ricky. besides the mertzes the only two characters from the "i love lucy" show to appear on the comedy hour were lucy's mother (who appeared briefly in the 'japan' episode) as little ricky's babysitter, and hedda hopper (who previously had appeared on 'the hedda hopper story' and interviewed the ricardos on 'lucy takes a cruise to havana'). little ricky is used more but is still a minor character. most feature him playing the drums, coming and going (examples include the celebrity next door and, in several, off to school or some other function); he has no friends, unlike the 6th season of "i love lucy", where a few are noted (little ricky gets stage fright, little ricky learns to play the drums, several of the connecticut episodes, etc.); and no plot theme centers on him. also the ricardos do not interact with any neighbors in westport (the celebrity next door is the exception, although bankhead appears in only that episode and features lucy's only work with the pta); and the town, a major plot theme in season 6 of "i love lucy", is hardly mentioned except in passing.
the lucy–desi comedy hour