richard and ronald lee simmons played little ricky on the lucille ball show starting in season 6.
richard and ronald lee simmons played little ricky on the lucille ball show starting in season 6.
who played little ricky on the lucille ball show starting in season 6?
richard and ronald lee simmons
the lucy–desi comedy hour is a collection of thirteen black-and-white one-hour specials airing occasionally from 1957 to 1960 (as opposed to a thirty-minute regular series). the first five were shown as specials during the 1957–58 television season. the remaining eight were originally shown as part of "westinghouse desilu playhouse". its original network title was the ford lucille ball-desi arnaz show for the first season, and the westinghouse desilu playhouse presents the lucille ball–desi arnaz show for the following seasons. the successor to the classic comedy, "i love lucy", the programs featured the same cast members: lucille ball, desi arnaz, vivian vance, william frawley, and little ricky (billed as richard keith in his post-"lucy–desi" acting assignments). the production schedule avoided the grind of a regular weekly series.
the lucy–desi comedy hour
"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