Customer Reviews

I Love Lucy

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I love, love, LOVE Lucy but this service is horrible therefore I am giving the one star rating. It took FOREVER to download using their device and I am on a high-speed connection! They have a great selection of shows and movies which I would love to purchase, but if one little half hour show like I Love Lucy takes over an hour to download I shutter to think of what an entire feature film would be like. Amazon needs to greatly improve this service.

The car that provides most of the "Car Trouble" to the "I Love Lucy" gang is, of course, the 1955 Pontiac that takes the Ricardos and the Mertzes to California in the fourth season of the classic television sit com. I would add that it is the car that appears in the famous photograph of the gang heading out to Hollywood singing "California, Here I Come" except that particular episode is not included on this volume of the "'I Love Lucy' Collector's Edition." However, you get the two episodes right before that one along with the final appearance of the car at the start of the return trip back East. The first two episodes were written by Jess Oppenheimer, Madelyn Pugh, and Bob Carroll, Jr., with Bob Schiller and Bob Weiskopf being added to the show's staff for the fifth season during which the final episode on this tape was culled.

Episode 108, "Getting Ready" (First aired December 13, 1954) is the order of the day after Ricky's Screen test (Episode 103) results in a contract to go to Hollywood and make "Don Juan" (Episode 106). Lucy gets to pick the mode of transportation and she decides that buying a car would be perfect since they will need one in California. Ricky invites the Mertzes to join them on the drive to California but makes the mistake of letting Fred get a car from his friend who runs a used car lot. Being frugal (read: "cheap"), Fred shows up with a 25-year-old Cadillac that does not look like it can make it around the block let along across the country. Besides the appearance of the old wreck, there is not much to recommend this one.

Episode 109, "Lucy Learns to Drive" (First aired January 3, 1955) begins with Ricky buying a brand new 1955 Pontiac convertible for the big trip to California. Of course, Lucy wants to learn to drive it and Ricky is forced to agree she should be able to help take her turn on the long drive. But as soon as Lucy completes her maiden drive, which included a U-turn in the Holland Tunnel and reduces Ricky to incoherency, she proceeds to teach Ethel to drive. Meanwhile, Fred is going to take the 1925 Cadillac back to the dealer, Lucy has forgotten to get the new car insured, and we have all the makings for another disaster and the best of the three episodes on this tape.

Episode 131, "Ricky Sells the Car" (First aired October 24, 1955) completes the circle as the start of the return home proves to be as mixed up as the beginning of the trip out to California. Ricky sells the Pontiac and the Mertzes assume they are being left behind in California. But Ricky has booked train tickets for the return trip, except that gets fouled up as well. First the Mertzes get mad, and then they get themselves a vintage Harley motorcycle, thereby providing one of the most memorable sights of Fred and Ethel in the entire history of the series and the best part of this average episode.

Hands down one of the best episodes of the series starting out one of the best story lines of the series. Probaby best because it's the begining of the Hollywood adventure though the not the actual beginig of the story arc. It's also nice to see, in the stock and out door shots, how L.A. looked back then as opposed to now. Those were the glory days of hollywood and that adds to the over-all depth and enjoyment of the show.

I hope you have as much fun watching it as I do.