Tony Maietta:
Hello, I'm film historian Tony Maietta.

Brad Shreve:
And I'm Brad Shreve, who's just a guy who likes movies.

Tony Maietta:
We discuss movies and television from Hollywood's golden age. We go behind the scenes and share our opinions, too.

Brad Shreve:
And of course, being the average guy, my opinions are the ones that matter.

Tony Maietta:
As does your self delusion. Welcome to Going Hollywood.

Tony Maietta:
You know, I was thinking, one of the hallmarks of the Going Hollywood podcast is our Lucy moment. There is always some link, some tie, some reason to reference Big Red, and we haven't had one in a while, so I thought it was, in order to even the score, we need to have one big Lucy moment this week. An entire episode. But wait, wait, wait, wait. Don't switch off the podcast, because this one is different. This is different. And I definitely think you'll want to listen to this because not only is it a very unique and interesting Lucy moment, but, I mean, aren't they all? But I have a very, very, very, very special guest joining us today to share it. So, without further ado, making his second appearance on the Going Hollywood podcast is my friend and my sometimes employer and Lucy expert, Thomas J.

Tony Maietta:
Watson. Welcome, Tom. Welcome to the podcast.

Tom Watson:
Thank you so much. And thank you for inviting me back.

Tony Maietta:
Oh, I am thrilled to have you here. Tom is. Tom was our very first guest way back last year. Remember, Tom? We talked about Lucy and the Red Scare.

Tom Watson:
I felt like we were charting new territory.

Tony Maietta:
What did they say at the beginning of Star Trek? I can't remember right now.

Tom Watson:
Like, when Lucy and Desi went into television, there wasn't a whole lot of that out there in those days, so they were charting new territory. And I felt like we were doing the same thing.

Tony Maietta:
We kind of were. We kind of were. You know, so when Tom was here before, we talked about Lucy and the Red Scare and what really happened back in that week in 1954 when Lucille had to answer accusations regarding her registration in the Communist Party. And that was a lot of fun, and it was good to set the record straight, I felt. But for those of you who didn't hear that episode, go listen to it by. By the way. But by way of refresher, Tom is a producer, an author, a writer, and a former employee of Lucille Balls. And friend and friend of mine as well.

Tony Maietta:
Would you just tell the people, Tom, a quick recap about your history with the redhead.

Tom Watson:
It started when I was almost when I was born, insofar as I was three years old when her TV series went on the air. Yeah, do the math. And.

Tom Watson:
You know, throughout my childhood, she was there. And I knew from the beginning my dad sold TVs, and so I was what part of what they called the television generation? It was my babysitter because I was back in Snow Country. And anyway, it was the number one show, and it was my favorite show as a child. And I knew I wanted to go into television in some way, shape or form. And I didn't know what I could do. But I wound up working at CBS in New York. And then they sent me out here to Los Angeles. And during that period of time, I also took over and rejuvenated the Lucille Ball Fan club.

Tom Watson:
And that sort of introduced me to her because she was impressed that an executive at CBS Television was running her fan club.

Tom Watson:
Anyway.

Tom Watson:
Anyway.

Tom Watson:
When she went back into television in the mid-80s after sort of semi retiring after here's Lucy.

Tom Watson:
She needed to put a staff together again. And I raised my hand and said, I'm ready, willing and able. And she hired me sort of on the spot. And I was with her for a few years. And then, unfortunately, she left us, but the fan club continued. And then we did some.

Tom Watson:
Lucy conventions where people came together from all over the world in Burbank, and we celebrated her various productions. And I had written a couple of books in the meantime where all this other stuff was going on. I had written a couple of books about her. And she was always very grateful that unlike the other authors at the time.

Tom Watson:
We didn't get into all the smut and all the. And all that. They were basically books that celebrated her career and her achievements and that sort of thing. So that basically been what I've been all about most of my life in one way, shape or form.

Tony Maietta:
I remember Loving Lucy in particular, the book Hero. Gorgeous, gorgeous book. Loving Lucy. So many, so many wonderful books. You've also written books with Betty White, right?

Tom Watson:
I wrote a book with Betty called Pet Love because she wanted to get into book writing and she was afraid. She needed somebody to take her by the hand and lead her in. And I did that. She and I worked on a book for almost a year and she loved it. And then she went back to work herself in first Mama's Family and then the Golden Girls. So she was right. From that point on, she didn't need a co author. And basically she wrote at home at night after working all day on one of these TV shows.

Tom Watson:
You know, I've got to admit, she, Betty White and Lucille Ball were both, in a way. I don't. There's no negativity here, but they were kind of workaholics. They love work. They love to be on. They loved to express themselves. They are both very creative in their way. And when they weren't working at the studio, they wanted to be doing something else.

Tom Watson:
So with Betty, it turned out to be books.

Tony Maietta:
That generation, there's A certain generation of actresses. I'm thinking of all those broads, Joan Crawford, Betty. And when I say broad, I mean broad lovingly and affectionately.

Tom Watson:
Right. No, I get it.

Tony Maietta:
Elaine Stritch even. I mean, though they wanted to work, it was all about the work, you know, and that's certainly true. God, that certainly true of Lucy. In fact, the special that we're going to talk about today happened because Lucy didn't want to go on vacation. Right. Isn't that right?

Tom Watson:
Yes and no. It also happened because.

Tom Watson:
She was, you know, she had done nine years of the Ricardos and the Mertzes through I Love Lucy and then what became a Lucy Dessi comedy hour or the Lucille Bold Essie Arnaz show, whatever title you want to give it, the hour long shows. And they had nine years of that. And then when that show ended, she took a couple of years off and wanted to get back into it. And that can be very dangerous for an actor because once you've had a big hit with something, you can basically count on two hands, or maybe even one. The number of really successful television stars who have come back in something different.

Tony Maietta:
Right.

Tom Watson:
You know.

Tom Watson:
It just has seldom worked. So anyway, when she came back to television in the Lucy show, it sort of was different, but it was also the same because it was her and Vivian Vance.

Tom Watson:
Basically doing this. They had basically the same characters, slightly altered as they had played for nine years in the earlier series. And that was planned and it worked beautifully and the audience welcomed them back. As the third season was starting, Vivian Vance announced to Lucy and the world that this is going to be my last year doing this, because since the I Love Lucy period, after it ended, she got married to a man who in the publishing business, speaking of books, and he was headquartered in New York and they had a lovely home out in Connecticut. Well, for three years she was flying back and forth every week while the Lucy show was in production.

Tony Maietta:
That's amazing.

Tom Watson:
She would fly out here on a Sunday night, you know.

Tom Watson:
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, while they worked on the show. They usually filmed on Thursday night, took a cab back to the airport and flew home to Connecticut for the weekend and then came back Sunday night. She did that for almost three years. And she said, lucy, I can't do it anymore. And Lucy accepted that. And there was a piece of Lucy that was.

Tom Watson:
All. Almost grateful in the sense that.

Tom Watson:
She too, as an actress, felt like they were still doing Lucy and Ethel, even though they're now Lucy and Vivienne. And as a creative actress, she was sort of Looking for other things to do as well. And she had done during the third season of the Lucy show as though she wasn't busy enough. She was a wife and mother and she was the star of a major television series and the president of the world's largest studio geared especially for television. But then on her time off, CBS asked her to do a special.

Tony Maietta:
Well, that's. That was my.

Tom Watson:
They asked to do a 10 minute daily radio show. That's. Yes, yes, yes, let's talk to Lucy. And it was sort of like a precursor to, you know, some of the talk shows that we have today where the women sit around and talk. Well, it was Lucy and a microphone and she was interviewing some of her Hollywood friends and whatever. And usually it was not the kind of thing that the modern shows are. Some of them are cake recipes, you know, she'll have them hardened on. And they talk about recipes.

Tom Watson:
I don't want to hear about recipes. I want to hear about what life is like on, you know, the TV show or the movies they made together. But no, no, no, no, they didn't do that anyway because there was a woman showing his son's Monday through Friday at like 10 o' clock in the morning, right at the end of the. They did a season of that, but not. It was very successful, but radio wasn't. And CBS was pulling back most of its radio shows. And so Lucy had hired her cousin, who's technically her cousin, but they were raised as sisters in the same house, Cleo Morgan Smith, to produce the radio show. Now the show was ending and it looked like the Lucy show was also going to be ending.

Tom Watson:
And so she hired Cleo to stay on at Desilu and basically be in charge of coming up with special projects for her to do.

Tom Watson:
And one of the things that was going on at that period. Well, now the thing is, part of her.

Tom Watson:
Assignment was to come up with things that are new and different because if the Lucy show was sort of a carbon copy of I Love Lucy, she wanted to do some specials that were different. That can be dangerous and strange sometimes. But anyway.

Tom Watson:
Also during this period of time, she was doing guest appearances on other people's shows and other specials. And at this point in time, when she was, the Lucy show was relying more and more on guest stars, the guest star of the week type of thing. And there was a policy here in Hollywood or in television where if I've got a series of my own and you've got a series of your own and I come up with a script that I think we could do wonderful things with. I would invite you to be on my show, but instead of paying you a gazillion dollars, part of the deal would be I would in turn appear on your show.

Tom Watson:
And one of the people that Lucy liked very much was a former tenant at Desilu with Danny Thomas. He was starting a new NBC series and doing specials. And he did one that fall called the Wonderful World of Burlesque. And Cleo and Lucy.

Tom Watson:
Backstage during that. The production of that film, when they were doing it, she was impressed by the script on that particular thing. And they met the writers and.

Tom Watson:
Alan Hadley, Handley. I'm sorry. And Bob Wynn were those guys. And they were sitting backstage and Cleo said, we're looking for some material for Lucy to do as specials, so would you folks be interested if we come up with some ideas? And they said, yes, fine. One of the things that was playing in Clio's mind was the fact that.

Tom Watson:
During the early 60s, a very popular style of show was.

Tom Watson:
Well, it was actually started by Jackie Kennedy. She did it. She was responsible for remodeling the White House after a post war period in the long Eisenhower period. And so when John Kennedy was elected, one of her duties as first lady was to remodel the White House. So she did a TV special that wound up on all three network sites for the White House with Jacqueline Kennedy. It was extremely successful. There was nothing else on. But on that, it was very well received.

Tom Watson:
And each of the networks were kind of into the idea of doing tours.

Tom Watson:
So they hired. One of them, hired Elizabeth Taylor to do a tour of London. One of them did Sophia Loren in Rome, and I think Princess Grace did a tour of Monaco. They were relatively successful, nowhere near what the Kennedy one was. But they also smacked, for lack of better word, boredom. They were gorgeous. They were photographed beautifully. And of course, the ladies who was the hostess were also, you know, well decked out and gorgeous.

Tom Watson:
The problem was it's sort of like going over to Aunt Frida's house and watching her home movies from her recent trip to wherever. It's like, oh, okay, after for an hour. So anyway, Cleo liked that idea. And so she was pitching the idea to these writers, Handley and Wynn, that we could do a show maybe where Lucy goes to some famous place. But instead of being the host, instead of like Liz Taylor did or.

Tom Watson:
Sophia Loren did in Rome, instead of having her there pointing out things, what if she was the person receiving the tour and we had a, you know, an actor from that area actually giving the Tour. They loved the idea and they came up with the, the, the group. There's a group decision and they hit on Paris. They wanted to do it in Paris, right? And.

Tom Watson:
A group of Desilu people got together and Cleo was one of them and Bernie Weitzman, who was a lawyer slash producer type, went with them and they went over there to check out the terrain to see if it's something they could do. And they were very disappointed because.

Tom Watson:
The biggest problem was language.

Tom Watson:
And very few people on the Desilu crew spoke fluent French and very few people that they met over there spoke fluent English. And so anyway, they thought that might be a real problem because this kind of thing can be very expensive under normal conditions, let alone if everything has to be translated, you know, move the camera. Five sure.

Tony Maietta:
Didn'T work out. Didn't work out.

Tom Watson:
So they flew home kind of disappointed and everybody went about their business. But Cleo hadn't given up and she and Lucy were kicking around at ideas and they said, well, why, why do we have to go someplace where it's a different language? I don't need to go to Spain, I don't need to go wherever. Let's just do it, you know, at an English. In an English speak. Well, even though Liz Taylor had already done London, since they were reversing it and she wouldn't, since she wasn't going to be hosting it, she was going to be the guest. They thought it would be fun if Lucy L U C Y went to London and not. They did not, they specifically did not want to repeat what happened on, you know, when the Ricardos and the Merxes went to London. Those had already been done.

Tom Watson:
She wanted to do something else. But the idea was they've latched on to that. And one of the, one of the.

Tom Watson:
Appealing part of this was 1965. No, Tony, you're probably not old enough to know.

Tony Maietta:
Well, no, actually I'm not. But anyway, I'm almost.

Tony Maietta:
But this is how, Let me just say this, this is how the whole Lucy in London, because that's what we're talking about. I should say that right now. I haven't said that yet. And we've been talking for about 20 minutes. This, the special is Lucy in London. That's, that's the special that we're talking about and it is very special. And what I was trying to. What I was saying to Tom was, was the fact that this happened smack dab in the middle of the Lucy show.

Tony Maietta:
It was season five of the Lucy show and she had, she had some time off. Right. And she didn't want to take the time off. She wanted to work on this special. Which you just told us the background about. That's correct. Right. And Cleo produced.

Tom Watson:
Was season four.

Tony Maietta:
Mm.

Tom Watson:
But it was season four that where all these. The material I just mentioned happened during season four.

Tony Maietta:
Right, right.

Tom Watson:
They wound up doing a season four, five and six of the Lucy show. Because even though Lucy. Even though Vivian had retired and was saying to the. Told the networks, you know, if Viv's leaving, why don't we just put big red ribbon around the show and we'll end it.

Tony Maietta:
Right.

Tom Watson:
Well, CBS did not want to end it, and the sponsors definitely didn't want to end it. And because it was like a top 10 show, you just don't walk away from something like. So, so anyway, they talked her into it. And.

Tom Watson:
So it was during that fifth. The fourth season. Well, she was. She and Mr. Mooney moved to Los Angeles. They did a whole. You know, the last. I call it the Lucy Show Part two was total because it's really different because she working.

Tony Maietta:
So let me bring us into the special and then we'll talk from there. Okay. So I think that Tom produced the DVDs of the Lucy Show. That's how we know each other. And you put Those out like, what, 15 years ago? About 15 years ago. Which is unbelievable to me. So the special that we're going to talk about, Lucy in London, is on those DVD sets, Season 5. In fact, Tom has a wonderful documentary about the making of Lucy in London called Lucy in London Revisited.

Tony Maietta:
Right, Tom. That's the name of it. Right. Which is wonderful. And so it's a wonderful documentary, even though I'm not in it.

Tony Maietta:
No hard feelings.

Tom Watson:
New York, writing a book.

Tony Maietta:
I was in New York at the time, so I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it. But what I wanted to ask you is, is that. So this Lucy in London special that we're talking about that we just talked about, how it came together. It was really a change of pace for her. Right. That's kind of mythic. In the Lucy mythos, the different.

Tony Maietta:
It's not Lucy Carmichael. I mean, her name is Lucy Carmichael in the special, but it's not your usual special. Your usual Lucy. Right? Am I correct in that?

Tom Watson:
Yes.

Tom Watson:
She specifically did not want to do the same old.

Tom Watson:
Special like that. Like she. And When I Love Lucy ended. She and Dessie did three years of one hour specials, including Lucy Goes to Alaska and Lucy Goes to Mexico and that sort of thing. She did not want to do that. She wanted something new and different.

Tony Maietta:
Right.

Tom Watson:
And this was 1965, and one of the things that was going on in the world was.

Tom Watson:
What we called the British Invasion. And it was basically spearheaded by, you know, the four Moppets called the Beatles. The music took over the world, really. And.

Tom Watson:
They were extremely popular. And even the TV networks suddenly being young and youthful and all that, the whole style of everything sort of changed overnight. And the, you know, yes, we still had shows like Lawrence Welk, but we also had things like Hullabaloo and Shindig and things like that, which show teenagers on television dancing in ways that their parents had never dreamed of. And anyway, it was a whole. There's a whole culture thing happening. And Lucy sort of wanted to sample some of that. And they thought that with Life With Lucy in London, they could.

Tom Watson:
When she, she would go to London and witness some of that.

Tony Maietta:
Well, I think what's, it's. What's amazing is it's like it's a truly unique outing in her career because there's no studio audience, no laugh track, no Vivian Vance, no Gale Gordon. I mean, she is. It's really. I mean, the character, her character's name in the special is Lucy Carmichael. And in the show before this, the Lucy show episode before this, she go. They show her getting on the plane to go to London. But it's unlike anything else in the.

Tom Watson:
Lucy show that was intentional, but so.

Tony Maietta:
It could stand alone. So it could stand alone on its own. You don't have to know the history of the Lucy show to enjoy this special.

Tom Watson:
Right? And like I say that she wanted to try something new and totally different because again, the actress.

Tom Watson:
Loved the challenges and loved new creativity type of thing. And she felt like she didn't want to do the same old stuff, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, something different. And she wanted to expose the audience to something different.

Tony Maietta:
See, I love that. I love that about her. I love the fact that she was. People always think of her as doing the same thing over and over again.

Tom Watson:
As a matter of fact, that became, in some circles would say, part of her downfall, in a way, insofar as she. She tried. She tried things like in London, but the things the audience really glommed onto was.

Tony Maietta:
Was the Lucy character. Yeah, I get that. But what I love the fact it was that she was trying. She was always trying. She was always. She would go a certain amount of years and then she would try something and either worked or it didn't work.

Tom Watson:
And usually things for her worked from a critical point of view. But the audience was going, oh, I mentioned, for example, 20 years later, she did a TV movie called Stone Pillow where she played a bag lady on the streets of New York. It got extremely high ratings. It got well reviewed. But the audience was sort of, oh, I want Lucy back. It's sort of like.

Tony Maietta:
Well, that's. Yeah, that's. That's the problem. That's the problem is the audience. She's pigeonholed in that thing. But I love the fact that she tried and she put together. Now, this special, considering she was basically doing this on her summer vacation. They put together an incredible team of people here.

Tony Maietta:
I think I'm blown away by. So we've got Billy. We've got music by Billy Goldenberg. Irwin Costell, who just won or was about to win an Oscar for the Sound of Music.

Tom Watson:
Right.

Tony Maietta:
And if that's not enough, the song Lucy in London, written by. Who is it written by? Tom, Tell the people.

Tom Watson:
Phil Spector.

Tony Maietta:
Phil Spector. Phil Spectre, who at this time was. Was huge. Big, Big. I mean, huge.

Tom Watson:
Well, again, though, usually with the youth market or the younger people, I mean, Lawrence Welk wasn't near this show, thank God.

Tony Maietta:
I'm just.

Tom Watson:
Nothing against the gentleman. I'm just saying, you know, she was going for a different flavor.

Tony Maietta:
Her cinematographer. Fayette said he was a famous Hollywood cinematographer. He was shooting I Spy at the time. This is.

Tom Watson:
I Spy just happened to be headquartered at Desilu, too.

Tony Maietta:
Well, there you go. I mean, the woman knew where the talent was, obviously.

Tom Watson:
They had this remarkable remote truck where they loaded into a big van, and you could put that, you know, on a 747 or 777, whatever it had to be, and fly it all over the world, which they did for I Spy.

Tony Maietta:
Well, that's what I'm. Yeah, that's what I'm. What's amazing is in the time of technology, at this point that's happening, you couldn't have done that five years before. But because cameras were light and portable, you could put them in a VW bug. That's how the Maisel brothers did their films. That's how Greg Gardens was basically made, with a handheld camera and a VW bug in the driveway. And because of that, because the technology had. Had been at this point, they were able to get these.

Tony Maietta:
It's almost like guerrilla filmmaking to shoot the biggest star in Hollywood, the streets of London in a motorcycle sidecar. I mean, it's. When you think about it, it's astounding. So I guess my point is, is that the woman was always trying to stretch herself.

Tom Watson:
Definitely, definitely all the way from being.

Tony Maietta:
A three camera in a studio audience. And very by the book, I Love Lucy style. And then she does this special with one camera in London, no soundtrack. It's remarkable to me. I love that, I love that about her.

Tom Watson:
And that was. Their whole intent was to do something new and different. And trust me, you know, when the Lucy group gets together in the world, the audiences, new and different are not the first two adjectives that fall into the vocabulary. They like the old comfortable, whatever. And that's sad in a way because it held her back.

Tony Maietta:
It did, it did. And that's what's. But. But the actress, the artist inside her was longing to stretch. And once in a while she came out and stretched and see how the water was. And then she went back, which she did in this special. So this special, I want to say that this special aired in October of 1966, a great year, October 24, 1966. It preempted the Lucy show and the Andy Griffith show, which I think is great.

Tony Maietta:
She's preempting herself for this hour long special and it co. Starred. Go ahead.

Tom Watson:
It co starred Anthony Newley. Originally they wanted two of them to be part of it. It was going to be Anthony Newley and.

Tom Watson:
Lawrence Olivier.

Tony Maietta:
I was going to ask you that if it's true about Olivier.

Tom Watson:
She pitched it to him herself. He was traveling, he was here in this country in one of the plays that was touring. And she went, she went, she and Cleo went and they went backstage and Lucy pitched the idea to him. He loved the idea and he Said, when are you doing it? And they threw out the date. And he goes, oh, I can't. He was already committed. He was involved with, I think, the National Theater Group or something in Loyola.

Tony Maietta:
Sure.

Tom Watson:
Of course. There's just no way. I can't. I'm sorry. And rather than replace him, the writers just said, okay, let's. And they just made it. Anthony Newley.

Tony Maietta:
So basically, the basic premise of the special is that Lucy Carmichael wins a jingle contest, and the prize is one day. She has one day in London. She arrives, she has a day, and then she has to leave. So she has to see as much of London as she can in a day. And she just so happens to have this eccentric off the wall tour guide named Tony, a very good name, played by Anthony Newley. And Anthony Newley, at this point, I think it's pretty safe to say, was about as hot as he was ever gonna be. I mean, stop the world. I want to get off.

Tony Maietta:
Roar the grease paint. Do you know, how did she. I mean, obviously she loved Newly. Was she Very, very. There were some people she loved. Was Newly one of those people?

Tom Watson:
Do you know, not for her so much, But Cleo.

Tony Maietta:
Cleo cousin wants him.

Tom Watson:
And she had seen the. She seen him on Broadway and just thought he was wonderful. And unfortunately, he was also doing Dr. Dolittle, the movie Dr. Dolittle.

Tom Watson:
But fortunately, Cleo talked to the producers and there was a couple of weeks where they didn't really need him, that they could shoot around him. And she says, if he'll do it, that's when we'll take him. And so he was able to leave Dr. Dolittle, fly over, do this special with Lucy, and then go back. And so it all worked out. But it was, you know, one of those things of just trying to get people well.

Tony Maietta:
That was what was so great about the guerrilla filmmaking, is that they could grab the camera and shoot these things. Now, I know there was a second unit set. There was a second unit on the set that would film doubles from far away. But there are so many shots. I'm like, that's Lucille Ball in a motor car side and a motorcycle sidecar.

Tom Watson:
Oh, yeah, that's Lucille.

Tony Maietta:
That's Lucille Ball in a motor car. One more time. That's Lucille Ball in a motorcycle sidecar going through Piccadilly. That's Lucille Ball. That is incredible.

Tom Watson:
Yeah, definitely, definitely. And.

Tom Watson:
It'S just one of those things where it all seemed to come together and part of the filmography, if that's what you want to call it, of the period.

Tom Watson:
Young filmmakers were taking over the industry, you know, to a great extent, particularly for the young audience. And some of the movies being done by the Beatles and some of the other younger performers introduced the idea of things like still photography and also sped up photography where to get from point A to point B, you simply double or triple the speed of the film. And so you see them running real fast across the stage and they incorporated some of that stuff into this special. So not only was the flavor of the show different from a storyline point of view, but she'll get herself into a mess and suddenly the film speeds up and she just runs. And it's that, you know, like 50 miles an hour, which is not something we're normally used to seeing, you know, Lucy Ricardo or Lucy Carmichael or Lucy whoever doing.

Tony Maietta:
It's. No, not at all. That's. And that's the point. This, this special is so unique and I think it is, I think one of the reasons why. And we'll get to this. I don't want to get too far ahead of ourselves, but the reason why it was not well received at the time, but to me it seems so. It's.

Tony Maietta:
It's almost current now. It's almost of the moment now because it's so up to date. It's just nothing, nothing that she ever did before with that same kind of thing, that whole Help Beatles kind of energy to it. And it doesn't rely on any of the old Lucy tropes.

Tom Watson:
It's all exactly, exactly speaking. And unfortunately.

Tom Watson:
The audience wasn't ready somehow, quite honestly. Quite honestly, I blame some of the Desilu and CBS people who. I think when they saw what the crew came home with, they were a little astounded. And originally you had mentioned that the week before Lucy Carmichael wins the contest and we see her flying to London. That was never planned. That was planned after.

Tony Maietta:
Well, because the special was shot before. But yeah, that makes sense.

Tom Watson:
People at the network and at the studio was afraid Lucy in London was going to be too odd and too different.

Tom Watson:
They came up with this special episode of the Lucy show where it explains what's going on. And to me.

Tom Watson:
That was deadly because it put the regular Monday night audience in that groove where they were trying desperately to get out of that groove by doing these new and wonderful inventive things. I also think it did not do itself any favors by being scheduled Monday night at 8:30. If it had been on Friday night at 10 in some other totally different time period, it might have. But seeing it on Monday nights in The Lucy time period.

Tom Watson:
It got huge numbers because Lucy always got huge numbers. But the audience was like, huh?

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. Well, we're going to talk about the reception, but I want to talk about the special. Another thing that's very unique about this special, and we should probably. I. We don't do plot point by plot point on this podcast, but we need to give you an overview of exactly this special. What I also find so unusual about this special and so interesting is it's divided into three acts. Like a play, three separate acts. And you get that.

Tony Maietta:
Act one, and this is what happens. Act two, and this is what happens. So I want to talk a little bit about each of the acts and the crazy things that happen to our favorite redhead when she arrives in London. So she. Act one is Lucy arriving in London and getting off the plane. And here's. Okay, right off the bat, we know this is something unusual because there. It's still photography shots.

Tony Maietta:
It's not a filmed moment. It is actually a series of still photography shots shot by none other than Bob Willoughby, right. A mythic still photographer. He had just done this whole series of jazz artists, and here he is taking photos for Lucille Ball special. So it's a soundtrack. You know what it reminded me of?

Tom Watson:
It's going. But there are stills. And she's talking.

Tony Maietta:
There are a series of very fast, beautiful stills with the soundtrack. And I thought, okay, right out of the gate here, we're saying this is something totally new and different.

Tom Watson:
Yes. That was telegraphing like, this is not your normal Lucy special, folks.

Tony Maietta:
Exactly. She's not looking for her luggage again. And caught on the conveyor belt or getting, you know, getting her dress unraveled on the. Off the Runway of the plane. It's this wonderful series of beautiful still photography that gets us so fast into the plot where she meets her tour guide, played by Anthony Newley from Royal Luxury Tours. And she's expecting, of course, she gets in a Rolls Royce, right? She thinks she's going to be in this fabulous Rolls Royce and actually ends up being a motorcycle. A motorcycle. Sidecar.

Tom Watson:
Sidecar. Well, and to his point. And it's logical. She can see everything from there, you know? Absolutely.

Tony Maietta:
It's the best way to see London, I think. You know, he says that to her and she goes, I only have a day. And she has this big, long list. And he's like, don't worry, you'll see everything. And one of my favorite things is, he goes, we will not hurry. We will rush. He says, there's a difference. Hurry, hurry, hurry.

Tony Maietta:
Listen to the sound. Hurry, we're going to rush. And it's just, it's very, it's a very charming opening. It's a very charming.

Tom Watson:
Definitely. I, I, I can't disagree with that.

Tony Maietta:
So she gets in the, she gets in the sidecar of the motorcycle and they're touring, they're touring tooling all around London. And of course, because it's Lucy, there is one Lucy thing. She has to end up in the Thames.

Tom Watson:
I mean, it's just exactly.

Tony Maietta:
You can't have a Lucy special in which she doesn't end up in a river or a lake or something like that. It gets her messed up. So what amazed me was now this wasn't too long after Katharine Hepburn fell into the Venice canals and came away with a lifelong eye infection in summertime. And Lucy still did. I mean, I know the Thames was not nearly as polluted as the Venice canals, but she still did it. She still went in the Thames herself. Wasn't that a surprise to people?

Tom Watson:
It was to the people working on the thing. They didn't expect it that they would find a, either a swimming pool or some kind of a substitute and do cut ins. I mean, they would film it separate and then edit it in so that it looked like she was still with Tony on the Thames. And she said, no, no, no, no, no, you can't do it like that. Hold the camera back and I'll go in and you'll see the whole kit and caboodle. And it was like, okay, this is.

Tony Maietta:
What is so amazing about this woman. I mean, I mean, you know, at.

Tom Watson:
This point in her career, she just said, go for it.

Tony Maietta:
You know, she didn't have to do any of this stuff. She had a top five rated sitcom, she was running the biggest television studio in Hollywood. She was the most powerful woman in Hollywood at this time. And she's going, I hate, pardon my French, she's going ass up in the Thames. I mean, it's astounding to me that she would take these chances at this point. And that's one of the reasons why I love her so much an actress, is because she was fearless with this kind of stuff.

Tom Watson:
Exactly.

Tony Maietta:
And she doesn't get enough credit for that. People go, oh, she does the same thing. No, she doesn't. She's fearless with this stuff. So she goes. So she gets, of course they get soaked in the Thames, so Tony has to take her shopping. And where would they go, of course, but to Carnaby Street. Now, having just been in London earlier this year, I love Carnaby Street.

Tony Maietta:
But Carnaby street now is. Was much different than Carnaby street was. Then again, it was.

Tom Watson:
The youth generation had taken over London and, you know, everything was very mod.

Tony Maietta:
Mod, closed, swinging 60s. And did you. Now, I don't think she was Twiggy yet, but did you see Twiggy when. You obviously have seen this a million times. I'm sure, but Twiggy's in it. Twiggy has a cameo in this part?

Tom Watson:
Yeah, I think so. Yeah. In that scene.

Tony Maietta:
My mind is blown. Here it ain't Milton Berle, it ain't Red Skelton. It's Twiggy in a Lucille Ball special. It's just so wonderful. So Lucy goes shopping and this is really my favorite part. This is where they decide to plop down a music video basically, of Lucy. The song Lucy in London that was written by. Yes.

Tony Maietta:
You don't believe this. Phil Spector. Oh, my God, that's incredible. What do you think of that? Can you tell us a little bit about that little sequence?

Tom Watson:
Well, I. It's just that again, they wanted to talk to the youth market as well as the older people. And they did it that way, you know, by having a quote, production number. But have like, I, you know, like the. Some of the more youthful dancers, you know, they had the TV shows like Hullabaloo and Jim, things like that. Well, they wanted to kind of get into that just a little bit by having her dance with some of the young. You know, a young chorus.

Tony Maietta:
Incredible. And it's a series of stills. But as Tom said earlier, they also do. You know, they do. They slow down the film, they speed up the film. There's jump cuts, there's double in double exposure. It's a fascinating. It's a music video.

Tony Maietta:
It's a music video. It's basically MTV in 1966 right in.

Tom Watson:
The middle of a show. Right. You know, it's not right smack dab.

Tony Maietta:
And she, you know, she usually parodied 60s fashions on her sitcoms, but she's not parodying. She's not parodying them here. And she looks fantastic.

Tony Maietta:
She looks wonderful in those. It's a. It's a high fashion photo shoot. It's such a fun, fun little sequence. I love that with all the trick photography. And so that takes us to the end of Act 1. That's the end of Act 1 and then Act 2. And this is really my least favorite part is when she goes to Madame Tussauds.

Tony Maietta:
And just because I think it is. I think this part of the special. And please, if you have a different opinion, please jump in. Is really kind of like the Lucy's Jo special stuff. It's not nearly as unique. It's her being a little too manic in Madame Tussauds and going a little crazy. Pardon me.

Tom Watson:
Part of it is to me.

Tom Watson:
I don't know, I've just never personally been all that turned on by the whole idea of wax figures.

Tom Watson:
Wax reproductions of human beings. Somehow I love to go to a museum and see paintings and that sort of thing. To me, like I say wax models. So that in and of itself starts out a little weird for me.

Tony Maietta:
Anyway, I just think it's kind of cheesy the whole Madame Tussauds thing. And it's. I just feel like you lift it right out. So. Because we've seen what we've seen so far is so groundbreaking and so out of the ordinary for Lucille Ball and for this character that to go kind of to this very Air Quotes Lucy situation.

Tom Watson:
Well, they kind of. They kind of save it in a way insofar as again they do sped up. They do and whatnot to get him out of there.

Tony Maietta:
I think they just wanted to get the hell out of him. Tussauds. They only had to date a night to film it. Right?

Tom Watson:
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Tom Watson:
Anyway, yeah, it's. But there's something for everyone because I'm sure there are people who look at the show and say, oh, I really like that scene.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah, I wonder how many people went to Madame Tussauds after seeing that. So Lucy goes to Madame Tussauds, she sees some wax figurine, she gets freaked out and she runs out and that's, that's the end of Act 2. Act 2 is just Madame Tussauds. And then there's Act 3. And as again these are all divided. This show is divided into three acts. So act three is astounding. It's.

Tony Maietta:
It's just an amazing, amazing portion of this show. Tony Newley takes her to Great Fosters and she goes, Great Fosters. Grace Foster, Great Fosters. And what Great Fosters is, is it's now a fabulous hotel. And by the way, Tom, I look this, this up, you know, you can stay there now for about 350 per night. That's not too bad.

Tom Watson:
Yeah, it's sort of a Downton Abbeys type.

Tony Maietta:
Yes, exactly.

Tom Watson:
Where the people that used to live there were family. And it got to the very expensive obviously to maintain. And so it became accessible to the public. But it was one of those old estates.

Tony Maietta:
Yes, exactly. It was a 16th century Tudor estate, a grand English manor house at the time and with an amazing maze garden. That maze garden is phenomenal. It's unbelievable. And so Lucy's at this incredible estate and she goes, she goes exploring through the maze garden and she comes upon someone she thinks is a gardener, Peter Winegard. But he's not a gardener, he's an actor. Of course he is. Of course he is.

Tom Watson:
Wouldn't you be?

Tony Maietta:
Yes, I'm like, of course you are, you're a Shakespearean actor. I love how she always has to give Shakespearean actors tips. She'll do the same thing with Richard Burton when he's on here. She'll tell him, you might want to try saying it this way, it's so funny. But of course. And is what happens with Lucy is, you know, he invites her to a. Is it a rehearsal of the Taming of the Shrew they're doing?

Tom Watson:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
And I just love the fact that he invites her, this total stranger to do. To join him, a gardener slash actor, in a rehearsal for the Taming of the Shrew in full Elizabethan attire.

Tom Watson:
Why not?

Tony Maietta:
Why not? I mean it's gorgeous Anne Boleyn type gown. Her hair is done with wig. I mean she looks fabulous. She looks fabulous. And this is a really funny, this is a really interesting thing. So she looks like this and I want you to tell the story. She looks, she looks wonderful. I mean she really, she's in this Elizabethan gown.

Tony Maietta:
She looks like Anne Boleyn. And wasn't. Didn't Cleo tell a story at one of your Lucy fan fests about when Lucy was, was, was resting in the manor and when the guests saw her.

Tom Watson:
She was, she was, she was. Had full makeup, had the hair and everything and they weren't quite ready. So she was sitting in the hallway and one of the. Either the owner of the estate or a guest, someone else who was using the estate came out and saw her sitting there and it was like, you know, five o' clock in the morning because they were getting an early start and he was like, oh my. He was about 85.

Tom Watson:
You know, he did not understand that she was an actress waiting for her cue or waiting for her to be called to the set. She was. And he just thought, oh my God, that is Ando Lynn. And again the lights weren't on or anything. So she's sort of sitting over there.

Tony Maietta:
And it's, you know, I always thought it'd be funny. They said don't worry sir, don't worry, sir, it's not Anne Boleyn. And he goes, oh, thank God. They go, it's Lucille Ball.

Tom Watson:
No, I don't think so. So.

Tony Maietta:
So that's okay. Wasn't freaked out because he thought it was Lucille Ball. He was freaked out because he thought it was Anne Boleyn. It's very funny. Don't worry, sir. It's not Anne Boleyn. It's Lucille Ball. So they do this crazy reenactment of Taming of the Shrew.

Tony Maietta:
The scene where all Lucy says is she only has one line to say. And I can't think of what the line is, which she says. Do you remember that by any chance?

Tom Watson:
I don't remember either.

Tony Maietta:
Okay, we'll cut that. So they do this wonderful little recreation of a scene from Taming of the Shrew. And Peter Wingard gets a very, very physical with her. Now, in 2025, you're kind of like. But again, that's Shakespeare, you know, that's in the play.

Tom Watson:
On the physical side.

Tony Maietta:
Yes, a bit on the physical side. She gets freaked out. She runs away. And this is where the film gets sped up. Jumps in the sidecar and Anthony takes her to London Bridge. And she's still in her Anne Boleyn attire. Now, I wonder what happened to that mod outfit she bought on Carnaby Street. And also what happened to her real clothes she wore when she came to London.

Tony Maietta:
I don't know. That must be a pretty big sidecar to carry on.

Tom Watson:
Yeah, there's no. Where's the room for the suitcase? But. So they go ahead, they run into another guest.

Tony Maietta:
Yes, I was gonna say. Well, he. He invites her to take a bowl of chalk. And she says, a bowl of chalk? She says, a bowl of chalk. It's a stroll. That's what the Brits do. They take a stroll along the English. Along the London Bridge.

Tony Maietta:
And as they do, they begin to sing Pop Goes the Weasel. Okay. And also, who else is on that bridge that begins to sing?

Tom Watson:
The Dave Clark Five.

Tony Maietta:
The Dave Clark Five. Now, I knew nothing about the Dave Clark Five.

Tom Watson:
They were a very popular group back in the 60s, right along with the Beatles and all that. They were part of that.

Tom Watson:
Beatles or the English Invasion.

Tony Maietta:
British Invasion.

Tom Watson:
English Invasion. Where?

Tony Maietta:
Well, apparently they knocked the Beatles out of. They knocked. I want to hold. You'd hand out of the number one spot at one point.

Tom Watson:
No, they were very, very popular at the time.

Tony Maietta:
So that's very cute because, you know, she has her little musical sequence. She and Tony Newley are singing Pop Goes the weasel and the Dave Clark Five are singing London Bridge. And they blend really well together. And I just think, you know, she looks so, so happy in that little section. The woman loved to do musical numbers.

Tom Watson:
You know, and indeed, the character is supposed to be very happy because this is her dream come true to see London like this.

Tony Maietta:
So, yeah, it's a sweet. It's a sweet. It's a very, very, very sweet sequence. And then we get to Act 3, and she's lost the Anne villain costume. She's back in her original outfit. She arrived in London and it must have been. Have dried by now. And we think he's.

Tony Maietta:
I. We think that Tony Newley, whose character's name is also Tony, is going to take her to the Palladium. But he doesn't. He takes her to this little theater called the Scarlet Theater, where, of course, he's Anthony Newley. Hello. He's gonna put on a show, right?

Tom Watson:
And see. And he sings a couple of his own.

Tony Maietta:
Exactly. He's got a plug of songs. He sings. He sings a Look at that face, he says. Sings it once in a lifetime Gonna build a mountain. But this is another thing I love about this special is it's just the two of them in this empty theater, right? And he's up there and suddenly he's in a tuxedo and he's performing for her. She's the only one in the audience. And then she does a very Lucille Ball thing and she starts to play other characters who are watching.

Tony Maietta:
It's so surreal. What are your thoughts on that exactly?

Tom Watson:
It's so off the wall, but it's wonderful in its own way, you know.

Tony Maietta:
It really is. You know, he's like. I think there's a. I think they called him the British Al Jolson. And I've always felt that Anthony Newley is definitely an acquired taste, you know, because he is very. He's very singular and he's very unique in his presentation, like Jolson. But people loved him. People loved Tony Newley, Lucy's cousin loved Tony.

Tom Watson:
Cleo loved it.

Tony Maietta:
Cleo loved him. And what I love about Lucy in this is that in this first part is that when she plays the Queen, they have different shots of her in the audience. She's the Queen. She is an apple, like an Apple Annie type character. And of course, she's the conductor, you know.

Tony Maietta:
And I mean, just these little shots of her. And I thought it's just so interesting. It's. Again, I've said this word five times during this podcast. It's so unique. It's so unlike anything we've ever seen.

Tom Watson:
Right. Or even today. You know, no one's doing this type of thing, so it's not.

Tony Maietta:
And then finally, the show ends with.

Tom Watson:
Sort of a one woman special where she plays all the parts.

Tony Maietta:
Well, exactly, exactly. And that's what's so. It's so wonderful because they're just little snippets. Oh, there's the queen. Oh, she's the Queen now. Oh, she's Appalani now. Oh, she's the conductor now. It's just.

Tony Maietta:
It's a beautiful, beautiful thing. And then at the end, it's her turn to go on stage and she kind of does. You want to tell people what she does at the end for her, the last little bit of this special.

Tom Watson:
Well, she is again, in sort of like the tramp outfit from I Love Lucy, if you will.

Tom Watson:
From, you know, when she.

Tony Maietta:
Brit Skelton skin thing.

Tom Watson:
Yeah, yeah.

Tom Watson:
She's up on the stage and she basically is.

Tom Watson:
Singing. And it ends with her singing it all in one day type of thing. And it's all.

Tom Watson:
It's very personal. It's almost like she's talking directly to each one of us.

Tony Maietta:
Right, right. Well, didn't.

Tony Maietta:
Is it Dan Wingate? Is that your friend's name, Dan?

Tom Watson:
Right.

Tony Maietta:
Didn't Dan Wingate say in your. In your special on this. On your documentary on this special, that it's almost like she's breaking the fourth wall? She's not Lucy Carmichael.

Tom Watson:
Yes. Almost like Lucille Ball herself is.

Tom Watson:
Talking.

Tony Maietta:
To the audience, just telling about. Well, I love that the pantomime is so sweet. It's just a sweet little pantomime. It's not. It's like a minute if that. You know, she's this cute, sweet little pantomime.

Tom Watson:
And.

Tony Maietta:
And then a la Judy Garland, she sits on the side of the stage at the, you know, not the Palladium, but it might as well be the Palladium, and does this little, little monologue, a little bit of a song. And she looks beautiful. Absolutely gorgeously shot. Sayed Faid. Thank you very much. Beautiful. Beautiful in this. And that's where it ends.

Tony Maietta:
The best day of my life. It's. It's. It's the best day of my whole life, she says as they're leaving. And that's the end of the special. It's done. It's incredible.

Tom Watson:
And. Well, then they show.

Tom Watson:
Probably other people, I don't know, but they're on a motorcycle going through the. To the airport.

Tony Maietta:
Right.

Tom Watson:
As the credits roll.

Tony Maietta:
Yes. And that's when she says, best day in my whole life. That's when she says that. Yeah.

Tom Watson:
Talking to each other, Tony and Lucy.

Tony Maietta:
He'S taking her back to Heathrow to get. To get this crazy redhead out of here. It is. It's such a unique. I just can't. Can't stress enough how unusual and what a change of pace this is. And that's why I love this so much. And what makes me sad is the fact that, yes, as you said now, it was broadcast on October 24, 1966, and it was very high viewership.

Tony Maietta:
It finished as the most watched telecast of that week. I looked it up and the problem was, was that the critics didn't get it.

Tom Watson:
Well, neither did the audience. The audience was expecting, like Lucy goes to Alaska and Lucy goes to Mexico. They were saying, Lucy's going to London and, you know. You know, she's going to get. They expected the I Love Lucy type. Prat falls. And while there's a little bit hint of that, it's a tour. It's almost, you know, Lucille Ball tour of London.

Tom Watson:
But it's ever more entertaining than those other specials that had been done over the years that were, you know.

Tony Maietta:
Well, it's so much. It's so much. It's got so much entertainment in it and it's so much unusual entertainment. And that's what I think. I really believe it was ahead of.

Tom Watson:
Itself time and it was new and different and therefore frightening to part of the audience, including the critics.

Tony Maietta:
I know it's. I see. That's. That's. And what makes me sad is it that she let that. And, you know, God bless her, she let that affect her.

Tom Watson:
She let that because when she was doing all of this, she had, in the back of her mind, actually, she had.

Tom Watson:
Contract for this show and there'd be a second one in the spring, there'd be something else totally. But anyway, it would be another.

Tom Watson:
Special. And when the. The critics and the audience response was so, if not negative, then certainly lukewarm, she said, well, why bother?

Tony Maietta:
Weren't they going to be directed by Steve Binder, who directed this?

Tom Watson:
Not necessarily. They. No, not necessarily. And there was nothing specific. But anyway.

Tom Watson:
She wanted to do things. I think one of the. She wanted to do a whole series of these, if they work. One of them, I know, was.

Tom Watson:
Like doing something in Nashville again, incorporating country music instead of the British music and things like that. Anyway, they just put it all away and said, forget it. And she went back to being Lucy Carmichael. Now, the one thing she did do as a result of this though was to try to.

Tom Watson:
Incorporate as much different as possible into the Lucy show. And to this day there are many fans who don't like that because it's not just, just, you know, Lucy and Viv in Connecticut or Lucy and Ethel in, you know, the Mertz apartment building. You know, she. And like they do a. Various episodes of the Lucy show are totally weird. Like there's one a two parter with Mel Torme, Main street usa one, yeah, things like that. It was again a result of if I'm stuck in this sitcom every Monday night for the rest of my life, I'm going to make it as different and challenging as we possibly can. And so a lot of the shows are not, again, what the audience would necessarily have expected.

Tony Maietta:
Right. Well, you know, it's funny because we've been on this season of Going Hollywood, we've been posing a lot of what ifs with Lucy. Like you and I talked about the Manchurian Candidate. What if she had done that? Valley of the Dolls, Helen Lawson. And it seems like every once in a while she would get this urge to stretch herself and she would consider doing these things which would totally change her Persona and her just would totally change TV history actually. And she would try them and she'd test the waters and then she would retreat back into Lucy Carmichael, into Lucy Carter.

Tom Watson:
Well, it has happened to a lot of actors, actresses over the years. I remember when I was at CBS when Carol Burnett ended a Carol Burnett show. And one of the things she did was a made for TV movie called Friendly Fire.

Tony Maietta:
Right, right.

Tom Watson:
A very serious, sad story about, you know, one of her children was shot by, was in the army and got shot by his own man. You know, Friendly fire is when somebody in your unit.

Tom Watson:
Accidentally shoots you.

Tom Watson:
Anyway.

Tom Watson:
It was, it's a totally change of pace and when the audience, a lot of the audience treated Carol the same way and I guess I think her attitude was tough.

Tony Maietta:
Good. That's Corbin. That's why she's still with us. That's why she's still with us.

Tom Watson:
She wasn't going to go back to doing the Saturday night variety forever.

Tony Maietta:
I think that, yeah, I think that, I think old times were different. It was later time, people.

Tom Watson:
Yes.

Tony Maietta:
It was more accepting of somebody taking a risk. And I think, I think Carol was probably more successful than Lucy was because we even talked about the fact that she was trying to do it all the way up to 85, all the way up to Stone Pillow. She was still trying to stretch herself as an actress. It's amazing to me. And people weren't. They just weren't accepting of it. It's so sad. It's so sad.

Tom Watson:
Right? Well, part of it. Part of it, I've always thought, is because.

Tom Watson:
The world fell so heavily, madly in love with the Ricardos and the Mertzes from the dawn of television. And these things all happened in our own living rooms week after week after week for a generation, you know, and the show never went off the air. It's not off the air today because it reruns someplace even as we speak. And that puts her in a different. Somewhat different category, I think, unfortunately. And it's a golden cage. Oh, my God.

Tony Maietta:
I was just gonna say that, Tom. I was literally thinking that it's a golden cage.

Tom Watson:
It really is one hand. It's lovely because, my God, Lucille Ball, the world knew her. The world loved her. But at the same time, that meant she had certain. There were certain expectations attached to all that.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah, that's so true. Well, but despite the fact that this show was not as successful as they would have liked, in 66 was A. Still a pretty good year for Lucille Ball and Desi. Desi Little. I mean, she won an Emmy, her first EMMY since when, 1953?

Tom Watson:
Yeah.

Tony Maietta:
Do you think maybe that Emmy she won for Air Quotes, the Lucy show, could have possibly had something to do with the special, too? I don't know. I like to think maybe.

Tom Watson:
No, not really.

Tony Maietta:
Not really, no.

Tom Watson:
It had to do with the fact that she reminded people, I'm still here.

Tom Watson:
And that she had other things to do.

Tom Watson:
I don't know.

Tony Maietta:
Well, I think that. I mean, that she won the Emmy, the first Emmy she'd won in 13 years, and. And then. Oh, yeah, she greenlit a little show called Star Trek. I mean, you know, so not a terrible year there for.

Tom Watson:
Well, no, and they also were doing Mission Impossible and all those kinds of things, too, which helped put the studio back on the map. And anyway, it was.

Tom Watson:
Very challenging but very creative time. And just after this, then, you know, in 67, I think, is when she went. She and Henry Fonda got together and did Yours, Mine and Ours, which was again, oh, I've got Vacation coming up from the series.

Tony Maietta:
Which was, you know, which was. Which is a very much more of a Lucy project, though.

Tom Watson:
Yes.

Tony Maietta:
Huge hit.

Tom Watson:
Going back to what you were saying earlier, some people, when.

Tom Watson:
They have a vacation from work coming up, let's see, I'll go lay in the sun someplace in Hawaii. I'll go to New York and watch them show, See the shows and whatnot. Not that lady. It was sort of like, what? What will he do?

Tony Maietta:
What are we gonna do? Let's do it.

Tom Watson:
Movie with Henry Fonda, you know. Hello. Who thinks that way?

Tony Maietta:
She did these, these, these women. It's, it's. Yeah, they were amazing. So the special was only seen once? Once. And it never aired again?

Tom Watson:
No.

Tony Maietta:
How did it come about that you ended up including it on Season 5 DVD of the Lucy show and then doing the document?

Tom Watson:
One of the things that I was involved with was called bonus material or added value material because some people, some of the companies, some of the studios were just putting out exactly what the label said. If you're putting out Bewitched or Leave it to Beaver or I Dream a Genie or whatever, they put out the season one or just the episodes while cbs.

Tom Watson:
No, I'll give credit where credit's due. When. When they first started doing the VHS tapes, that's what they did. When they, when DVDs started, no one in the industry was sure that people were going to give up their DVD, their.

Tom Watson:
VCRs, VRs, VHS things to embrace a new technology. And so CBS engaged Greg Oppenheimer, Chess Oppenheimer's son, to be an advisor as they're putting the shows, I Love Lucy shows on dvd. And one of the things while VHS were being done here in Hollywood of movies, they were also bringing a lot of their movies out on LaserDisc. Now, LaserDisc had more capacity than the jazz tapes. And so one of the things the studios like MGM and whatnot were doing were they would put out, you know, a big movie on laserdisc. But hey, you know what we also have in the vault are the trailers and all types of the material for the movies that no one's seen those in 30 years. Why don't we fill up our laser disc with those? And people bought the laserdisc and loved the value added, what they called valued added material. Consequently, when.

Tom Watson:
Greg pitched the idea to do that on the I Love Lucy DVDs and they bought it, they bought the idea. They said, fine, if it doesn't, if it's not going to be exorbitant to expensive to do that, let's try it. And the audience loved them. And he did the first five seasons because his dad was involved in those first five seasons. And I helped him along the way and he was going to bow out after that. And he recommended me to CBS management and they said fine, if he's willing. So anyway, I got on board to do season six. And then.

Tom Watson:
A young gentleman named Jonathan Angus wanted to help, and he was. He came up with some material and we talked them into doing.

Tom Watson:
The Lucy Desi comedy hours as well. And anyway, they were successful, so we started pitching right away, can we just continue doing.

Tom Watson:
The Lucy Show? And finally, after they took a year off and then they brought the Lucy show back on to dvd and Jonathan and I were going to be working on.

Tom Watson:
The value added material. And then you walked into my office.

Tony Maietta:
And I am eternally grateful to you too, because I've been working off that for years.

Tom Watson:
Was the part that I was involved with was the. The value added material. And you and I came up with the idea of interviewing people because you had been doing some of that type of work. Yeah, Warner's, I believe.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah, Warner's and Turner Classic Movies. I. I think I'd done. I'd done mo. You saw me in Moguls and Movie Stars. That's. Yeah, but. But we knew each other because I was in the We Love Lucy fan club, so we hadn't actually met.

Tony Maietta:
But you knew of my work and I knew of your work, and that's how. That's how that all came together.

Tom Watson:
There was a point too where you put up a bunch of.

Tom Watson:
Stills and one of the ebay sites and I bought them and you said, well, instead of mailing them, why don't I just deliver them? I'm just over the hill. And we had lunch and it went from there.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah, an amazing lunch. A lunch that changed my life. And I want to thank you for that. I hope I bought lunch that. That day.

Tony Maietta:
If not, I owe you a lunch or two.

Tom Watson:
But anyway, no, the thing was, what's wonderful about the Lucy material, the entire.

Tom Watson:
Library, is that it's known almost the world over. And you can sit down next to a stranger in a bus terminal and if there's nothing else to say, talk about.

Tom Watson:
Somehow she comes up in conversation. Everybody can participate because a lot of people experienced her through one of her series or another. And again, it's in the privacy of your own home. And it's a very personal relationship people have.

Tony Maietta:
It is. That's very true. That's very true of her. And you know, what a gift. What a gift. Those DVDs, not just for the people who actually. Who got to work them, but the people who got to watch them. What a gift those DVDs are.

Tony Maietta:
And that you included this special, which people hadn't seen in the 30 years.

Tom Watson:
Jonathan and I did a big sales pitch on that. Originally, they didn't want to do it. And because it was going to take up too much space because usually the value added material was a minute of this or two minutes of that or three minutes. This is going to add 60 minutes to the. This package. And finally we convinced them that just what you said, people had not seen this. This is a Lucille Ball performance that people hadn't seen since it aired. And it's.

Tom Watson:
It's a. It's a sales. It's a real additive.

Tony Maietta:
It is. And so unique and so different work.

Tom Watson:
Product for that season.

Tony Maietta:
Yeah. So unique. So different. So unlike anything she ever did before or since. So as a fan, I thank you for putting it on. I'm so grateful that you did. People go by if I'm. I'm sure people still have DVD players.

Tony Maietta:
You can see it. I'm sure it's on some platforms. I'm not going to tell you where to find it. I want you to go buy the DVDs. I want you to go to Amazon and buy the DVDs. And because Tom also has a fabulous documentary on the DVD about Lucy in London, and he talks about other things that we talked about today, too, which is fascinating.

Tom Watson:
The reason we did that was the reason you're doing this show was the special was so whackadoo different.

Tony Maietta:
We wanted to explain it.

Tom Watson:
Yes. We wanted to explain what it was and why she was doing it and why you've never seen it before.

Tony Maietta:
Well, I think it's wonderful. I think it's special and unique. And thank you for coming on and talking about it with me.

Tom Watson:
Yeah, it's been fun. Thank you for thinking of it. Because of all the reasons to do a Lucy episode of your series. Even I hadn't thought of this. No, really, it's like you come up with some really fabulous topics.

Tony Maietta:
Oh, thank you. Thank you.

Tom Watson:
As a member of your own audience, I thank you for that.

Tony Maietta:
Well, thanks. Well, you know, you're welcome anytime to come back anytime. And we'll think of something else we'll talk about. So thanks so much, Tom.