Life With Lucy

Life with Lucy is an American sitcom starring television icon Lucille Ball. The show ran on the ABC network in 1986, and unlike Ball's previous hits on television, it was a critical and ratings flop.

Premise

Ball played a widowed grandmother who had inherited her husband's half-interest in a South Pasadena, California hardware store (the other half being owned by his partner, Curtis McGibbon, played by Gale Gordon). Lucy's character insisted on "helping" in the store, even though when her husband was alive she had taken no part in the business and hence knew nothing about it. The unlikely partners were also in-laws, her daughter being married to his son, and all of them, along with their young grandchildren, lived together.

Creative control and production

In order to get Ball to agree to a new series, ABC allowed her complete creative control, no requirement to make a pilot episode, and no requirement for testing before focus groups or other tryouts. As all of Ball's previous TV efforts had proven to be hugely successful, the network acquiesced to these demands, even though she was at the time 75 years old and her long-time co-star Gale Gordon was 80. Gordon's "slow burn" comic timing was reminiscent of his previous characters on The Lucy Show and Here's Lucy, and he was coaxed out of retirement in Palm Springs on the condition that he would be paid for a full season, regardless of whether the show was renewed.

Most of the episodes were written...
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