Lucille Ball TV specials among DVD releases
A pair of Lucille Ball prime-time specials lead off this collection of television programs that are new to DVD.
"The Lucille Ball Specials: Lucy Gets Lucky/Three for Two" (MPI, 1975, $19.98). Lucy fans (and Dino and Gleason fans) will enjoy this pair of mid-'70s TV specials, hourlong comedies (sans laugh tracks) that followed the cancellation of her third sitcom, "Here's Lucy."
The first show, "Lucy Gets Lucky," has Ball as a small-town woman who travels by bus to Las Vegas to see her idol, Dean Martin. When she can't get into the show, she gets a job in the MGM Grand hotel, where Dino has planned a late-night performance for employees. Martin has some funny bits, but mostly it's Lucy getting in and out of predictable jams.
The second, "Three For Two," has Ball and Jackie Gleason playing three couples in three shorts that mix humor and sentiment. First, they are bickering middle-class marrieds visiting Europe, then they are married to others but having a clandestine meeting, and the third and longest story has them as a long-married couple at odds with their son and daughter about how to spend New Year's Eve.
The shows are rather dated, especially in their '70s chauvinistic attitudes, and though Ball is in her mid-60s, she is identified in one of the Gleason stories as being 45 years old! But fans won't care, and both programs are excellent transfers.
Personally, I enjoyed the bonus features more than the specials, in particular a pair of off-the-cuff radio interviews between Lucy and Dino, and an excerpt from Art Linkletter's variety show with Lucy doing a funny radio sound-effects skit.
Extras: full frame, segment from "Art Linkletter's House Party" (1965) with Ball as guest, two radio programs with Ball interviewing Martin, bloopers (with Ball and Martin), featurette, trailers
"The IT Crowd: The Complete Season Two" (MPI, 2007, $24.98). Of course, a "complete season" of this English sitcom is just six shows — and they go by all too quickly in this romp about two nerdy tech-support trouble-shooters and their tech-illiterate boss in a corporation that barely knows they're alive.
The best is the first, a screamingly hilarious (and politically incorrect) episode that has the trio at a musical that isn't quite what they expect. Every bit as funny (and occasionally naughty) as the first season, with many laugh-out-loud moments.
Extras: widescreen, six episodes, audio commentary, featurette, bloopers
Comments
- Visit to paradise nightmarish for Ags 12:32 a.m.
- Utes struggling to shake starts 12:31 a.m.
- Cougars' execution flawless 12:30 a.m.
- Utah Jazz fall apart against Kings 12:17 a.m.
- 3A football: Tigers pull away 12:12 a.m.
- Editorial: 'Immigrant' children needy 12:12 a.m.
- Reagan, Thatcher and the pope 12:12 a.m.
- Cougars come up short of title 12:11 a.m.
- Colorful observations on ethics, more 12:11 a.m.
- Elections offered few new themes 12:11 a.m.
- Gay advocates trek to LDS office
207 - Dirk does dirty work in Dallas
190 - Lobo suspended
171 - Speed has never been BYU's game
136 - Cougars crush hapless Cowboys
128 - House passes health care bill
111 - RSL rallies to advance
102 - Prep football: San Juan vs. S. Sevier
102 - Thousands protest health bill
100 - Provo company innovating engines
98
f you don't have an Xbox 360 and always wanted one, Saturday is your day.
Nothing proposed would keep young adults from learning of the reality of sex,...
the only "decent" team we played we lost to? I guess that Air Force isn't a...
I am watching the game again, and it is awesome!!!
I can't help but laugh inside when I read comments from YBU/TCU fans who...
(from the independant) I like Dennis Miller.... and Bill Maher, although I...
As a BYU alumnus, I can't justify to myself ever donating another dollar to...
Not a chance. Don't get me wrong they are both studs, but if Asiata wasn't...
Titan Fan, sorry that some of your best players got hurt. I hope they...
So sad how fear based so many are.
Will the Jazz even make the playoffs this year. The way they are playing it...




You can be the first to comment on this story.