"I Love Lucy" fans rejoice! Fox Home Entertainment is releasing the series of 13 hour-long "i Love Lucy" specials that aired from 1957 to 1960. These shows followed the successful six-year run of the half-hour "I Love Lucy" shows and have never before been released on DVD. I've seen all the episodes and I gotta say, they are not on par with the classic half-hour episodes. For one thing, and this is a big thing, the specials always featured a guest star and this took away from the wonderful chemistry of Ricky, Lucy, Fred and Ethel. For example, in the "Lucy's Summer Vacation" episode, Fred and Ethel are nothing more than glorified extras while Lucy's hijinks are all with guest star Ida Lupino instead of best pal Ethel.
But there are a handful of shows from these later years that I do like, especially "The Celebrity Next Door" with Tahllulah Bankhead who is laugh-out-loud funny in her episode. It is funny and Bankhead is a riot.
Also like "Lucy Makes Room for Danny" with guest star Danny Thomas, "Milton Berle Hides Out At the Ricardos," and the last show ever, "Lucy Meets a Mustache" with guest stars Ernie Kovaks and Edie Adams. When Edie sings "That's All" at the Ricardos after dinner, the song takes on great poignency knowing that Lucy and Desi are divorcing and will never appear together on screemn again.
"I Love Lucy: Seasons 7,8 and 9" will be released on March 12. There is some rare footage on each disc that was trimmed from various episodes and just found recently but the best bonus feature is color footage taken by an audience member during the taping of the pilot episode in 1951. It the only chance we'll ever get to see exactly how red that hair really was!