Monday, July 28, 2008 - Jamestown, NY

Jamestown is the hometown of Lucille Ball. The first stop was downtown Jamestown to see the various Lucille Ball/Desi Arnaz attractions. I visited the Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Center first. This is a museum which focuses on the life of both Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. There are clips of interviews with various friends. There was also a clip of The Lucy Show from the 1960s being played on a large screen. See the photos from Jamestown.

About a block away from the museum is the Desilu Playhouse. This is a museum devoted exclusively to the I Love Lucy show. I found this more interesting. There was a recreated set from the 1953 apartment (which was the second apartment the Ricardos lived in). A television hang overhead looping on clips where this apartment set was visible. I compared the details in the rerun with the apartment set. It was interesting to see the set in color since we're all used to seeing it in black and white. The couch was blue. The colors on the door did not seem like colors that would be used in real life but these may have been needed due to lighting. And of course, with the general public seeing it in black and white, who would know?

There were also costumes on display from various episodes such as the "Enchanted Forest" episode. Another recreated set came from the later years when the Ricardos and the Mertzes went to California.

A recreation of the Veta-Vita-Vegemin booth was available. Visitors can stand behind it and pretend to be Lucy, complete with a bottle and a spoon. Their friends can watch it live on a 1950s style television.

The original editing machine, called the "Three headed monster," was on display. Desi Arnaz came up with the three-camera approach for television shows. But, this required post production staff to edit the scenes, mixing and matching shots from the various cameras. The "Three Headed Monster" allowed them to watch all three loops from a scene simultaneously and choose which pieces they wanted to use.

Each attraction had a gift shop attached. But if that was not enough, there is a completely separate storefront that is also a gift shop, selling many of the same things as the two attractions.

Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz's pictures are on various buildings (including the post office, a parking garage, etc.). There are also banners advertising a festival related to them in early August.

Lucille Ball died in 1989. She was originally interred in California. In 2002, her family had her moved to Jamestown to her family plot. The cemetery in Jamestown has arrows directing visitors right to the grave. A special walkway was built to take people from the cemetery road to the headstone. A heart is in the walkway. The headstone itself has a heart with the name Ball in it. The headstone lists Lucille's parents first. Her name is at the end. Here are the photos.

I admire Lucille Ball for her willingness to take risks and go against conventional wisdom. Originally, CBS did not want Desi Arnaz to play Lucy's on-screen husband. At the time, we did not have hundreds of cable networks. There were only a handful of networks. Yet, Lucy stood her ground. She did not have too many options if it flopped. If CBS dug in, there was limited air time elsewhere. Yet she went ahead and took the risk anyway. It paid off well. Desi Arnaz played the part of Ricky Ricardo perfectly. Behind the scenes, he came up with a number of innovations that have had a lasting impact on television (such as the three-camera approach).

Because the couple refused to move to NYC to film the show, the rerun was born. They (Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz) retained the rights to the show, which of course was quite lucrative.

There were no guarantees or safety nets at the time so what Lucy did was risky. She could have just gone with conventional wisdom and played it safe. In that case, her show (maybe it wouldn't have even been called "I Love Lucy") may have just been one of the forgotten shows of the 1950s. Instead, she had vision and went out on a limb to see it through. Because of this, she had a dramatic impact on television for decades. The show brought us numerous technical innovations and comedic innovations.