I knew right then and there that this summer fling just had to end!

There were other issues, of course, but that was a moment where it dawned on me that this would never work!

Carole King is only one of the greatest songwriters to ever sit behind a piano (Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow, Locomotion, One Fine Day, You’ve Got a Friend and on and on and on), she also had one of the biggest selling albums in history: Tapestry.

I want to honor Miss King, on her 70th birthday, by sharing with you some of my favorite songs of hers. I had trouble narrowing it down but here are four of my faves: So Far Away, I Feel The Earth Move, One Fine Day and It’s Too Late.

Thank you Carole for all the great tunes that span my entire life.

Madonna still has it and the largest Super Bowl audience in history saw proof of it during an outstanding half-time show.

It was pretty terrific and I loved every single moment it.

Madonna’s show was so ambitious and had gladiators and acrobats and the Material Girl was in excellent form.

But was it as good as Diana Ross in 1996? [Click HERE to see that] That one’s still my personal fave because I like Ross’s music more and love the helicopter exit.

Which one did you prefer?

Anyway, right after the show went to commercial, I just konked out and when I woke up, Chris Matthews as on and it was 6 a.m.! So, it’s off to Hulu I go to check out some of the sketches. Word has it Channing takes his shirt off at least a couple more times!

It’s from summer 2010 when two of the soaps hottest hunks – Tuc Watkins and David Gregory – wore patriotic speedos to a Fourth of July barbecue.

They have a bit of a catfight over who is fitter with Watkins, as David Vickers, says to his younger rival: “When did you stop working out? You look kind of spongy.”

Enjoy!

But somewhere along the line, Victoria Jackson decided to stop making people laugh and start bashing gays.

She is among the folks featured on this video uploaded by Lambda Legal today who say some very outrageous things about gays. Among the others are Michele and Marcus Bachmann, Rick Perry and Ann Coulter.

Check it out and let me know what you think.

David Vickers has been such a hoot – a handsome soap hunk played by an actor with superb comic chops.

The actor just posted this video of Vickers doing a commercial for a product called “Have a Seat” which includes plenty of his trademark deadpan looks.

Enjoy!

The I Love Lucy Christmas Show, originally aired on Christmas Eve in 1956, and it’s actually a themed clip show.

As Lucy, Ricky, Fred and Ethyl get things ready for Little Ricky’s Christmas, they share memories (and clips) about the events that led up to his birth, from the classic episode where Lucy told Ricky she was pregnant (not that they could use the word “pregnant” on TV in 1956) to the episode where he’s born.

The framing sequence is where all the Christmas content is, and it’s really good, with Fred struggling with the Christmas tree and Lucy struggling to defend her singing ability… then we get a surprise guest-star at the end.

Here is the episode – colorized – in its entirety:

Lucy and Ethel (with a little help from Fred) stole John Wayne’s cement footprints from Grauman’s Chinese Theatre and she doesn’t want Ricky to read about it in the morning newspaper.

Here she is trying to keep the paper away from Ricky by tossing it off the balcony. The neighbor below keeps tossing it back up. Lucy throws it back downstairs and yells: “Well mind your own business!”

Of course Ethel then runs into the room carrying her own copy and in front of Ricky says: “Have you SEEN the morning paper?”

Lucy’s reaction is priceless!

So, without telling Ricky, she sets up a meeting with a studio exec and shows up pretending to be his agent. When she tells the exec that Ricky has a big Broadway offer, they release him from his contract!

Today’s scene is Lucy telling Ricky about what she’s done and we see him lose his temper in an unprecedented way by destroying the living room.

My favorite line is when Lucy is reaching under the couch to clean things up and Ethel walks in and says: “He killed her and tried to hide her body under the couch!”

Among those we watched was the one when Lucy and Ethel, who were feeling frumpy after being ignored by their husbands at a party, go to charm school and undergo quite a transformation.

They are taught how to walk, they buy new gowns, and apply dramatic make-up before surprising Ricky and Fred.

I think Lucy looks amazing actually. Ethel? Well, her gown is most unfortunate.

Anyway, this clip is the big reveal.

In today’s clip, Lucille Ball talks to Dick Cavett about doing the classic scene with Harpo Marx where she is dressed like him and tries to convince him he’s looking into a mirror by matching his every move.

What a treat to watch two comedy geniuses go toe to toe.

In this clip, she is pretending to be royalty with Ethel as her cohort.

The best line in this entire episode is Lucy, masquerading as the The Maharincess of Franistan, answering a series of questions from a reporter this way: “Yes. No. Yes. Yes. Yes. No. And yes.”

Lucy’s women’s club wants to stage an operetta, but they’re completely broke. (Lucy, the treasurer, seems to have spent it all to pay her own bills.) Thus, Lucy and Ethel write and star in the musical, but when their postdated check bounces for the costumes and scenery, the rental company repossesses everything in mid-performance.

But before the rental company steps in, we get to enjoy the great Vivian Vance as Lilly of the Valley then Lucille Ball as Queen of the Gypsies. One can sing like a dream and, well, the other can’t.

Enjoy these two musical numbers from this wonderful episode.

I’ve seen this breakfast scene countless times and still marvel at how she consistently cracks the eggs, throws the shells into the trash can, and slams the lid to the drum beat.

This is why, 60 years and one week after I Love Lucy first premiered, we are still watching with wonder and with laughter.

“Speeeeeed it up a little!”

The line is still hilarious and so is this great, great show – the best sitcom ever.

I Love Lucy had its premiere 60 years ago tomorrow. Who knew then that this sitcom about zany red-headed housewife Lucy Ricardo (Lucille Ball), her bandleader Ricky (Desi Arnaz) and their best friends and neighbors Fred and Ethel Mertz (William Frawley and Vivian Vance) would just go on and on and on?

Everyone has a favorite episode whether it be the chocolate factory, the grape stomping in Italy, Vitamitavegamin, the Hollywood episodes, Lucy doing the tango when her blouse was filled with eggs, Lucy having the baby and on and on.

Some of my favorites are Aunt Martha’s Old Fashioned Salad Dressing, when Lucy and Ethel hitched a ride to Florida with Elsa Lanchester (“I love buttered grass!), when the girls went to charm school (“I’m not wearing powder”), when Lucy was afraid of her mean maid Mrs. Porter, when Lucy danced with Van Johnson,  when Lucy got jealous of Ethel and Betty’s friendship, when the Ricardos and Mertzes bought a diner, and, of course, when Lucy and Ethel had a big fight over Ethel’s birthday present (cocktail pants to wear to smart dinner parties).

Oh! And let’s not forget The Operetta! (“MY song!”)

I’ll have more tomorrow – on the actual anniversary – but would love to hear from some of you. What are your favorite episodes???

October 15 marks the 60th anniversary of the airing of the first episode of I Love Lucy.

So you can count of a very heavy Lucy week here on Greg In Hollywood.

TV Guide magazine has a terrific interview with Lucille Ball’s daughter, Lucie Arnaz, and I want to share a portion of it with you:

TV Guide Magazine: Did your mom have a favorite episode?
Arnaz: She said she had two. The sweet one when Lucy has to tell Ricky she’s having a baby ["Lucy Is Enceinte," 12/8/52]. The emotion of the scene got the better of them and they started to tear up. They thought they’d have to redo that shot, but everyone on the set said, “No, no, no!” The wild and crazy [favorite episode] was when Lucy dresses up as the Queen of the Gypsies ["The Operetta," 10/13/52]. She said, “I loved getting into costumes with my teeth all blacked out. I thought I looked hysterical, and I never had such a good time as with that silly-ass song and trying to hit that note.”

TV Guide Magazine: Did your mother get a lot of pleasure from doing I Love Lucy?
Arnaz: It was her only pleasure! She and Viv [Vivian Vance], Dad and Bill [William Frawley] had so much fun at work they never wanted to go home. She loved the whole process.

TV Guide Magazine: Did she feel that joy with her other TV shows?
Arnaz: My mother absolutely loved going to the studio every day and being that Lucy character. Nothing in her life ever made her happier, and that’s why when it ended and she didn’t have it anymore, I watched her deteriorate emotionally.

TV Guide Magazine: Was your mom anything like her iconic on-screen character?
Arnaz: She was opinionated and professorial and not the person that you would expect. People thought she was like Lucy Ricardo. And she wasn’t at all.

TV Guide Magazine: You worked with your mom on Here’s Lucy for six years. What were the most special moments?
Arnaz: When we were doing a dance number or singing. That wasn’t her bailiwick, so I would be all excited and she would go, “I can’t do this!” We would help each other. When we got it right, we’d be, “Yay! We did a dance together!” It was a wonderful bonding experience.

TV Guide Magazine: Why do you think people are still laughing at Lucy 60 years later?
Arnaz: The brilliant writing and execution! None of the actors played it like it was funny. They played it for real and [the audience] bought into it. It’s the best medicine ever. My mom made a tonic that never had to be renewed. The date on it never expires. You can always drink it and feel better.

Well, in honor of the 35th anniversary of the original Charlie’s Angels and the debut of the new version, the south of the boarder hotties (Kay Sedia (the pretty one); Chita Parol (the smart one) and Frieda Laye (the “friendly” one) have released a new music video Ju Don’t Know My Life shot this spring by Kurt Koehler.

Hope you enjoy it!

LUCYPALOOZA: Happy I Love Lucy Friday everyone!

I’ve written about I Love Lucy: The Movie in the past but didn’t realize until recently that I had never seen it!

hen Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz were riding high in 1953 as the stars of I Love Lucy, they decided to capitalize on their show’s popularity by signing to do the movie The Long, Long Trailer.

What is not widely known is that the release of the movie in 1954 about a couple on a rocky honeymoon meant pulling the plug on I Love Lucy: The Movie, a feature film version of their sitcom that had already been completed.

MGM, the studio releasing Trailer, balked because they felt that having the “Lucy” movie in theaters would interfere with the film’s marketing.

I Love Lucy: The Movie had a successful test screening in Bakersfield before it was shelved, then lost for many years, before being located in a CBS vault by Dann Cahn, one of the handful of people who had been looking for it.

The movie was actually three episodes of the sitcom, The Ballet, The Benefit and Breaking the Lease, which were linked together with 12 minutes of specially shot footage featuring Ball, Arnaz, Vivian Vance and William Frawley — who made up the classic quartet of Lucy, Ricky, Fred and Ethel.

The movie was a behind-the-scenes look at I Love Lucy, which began with two audience members waiting in line for the show and then shows Arnaz warming up the studio audience and introducing the cast.

I present it to you today in its entirety. Enjoy!

But the television legend did keep working in situation comedy throughout the 60s and 70s with her follow-up sitcoms The Lucy Show and Here’s Lucy. What was most special about the latter series was that it also starred her and Desi’s children Lucie Arnaz and Desi Arnaz Jr.

Both kids are quite talented and had their share of showbiz success and it was clear how proud their mom was of them. Their love and affection for her was quite evident in this television tribute to Miss Ball in 1974 – a decade after Here’s Lucy had left the air.

They perform a ballad version of the I Love Lucy theme song with special lyrics written for the occasion. A tearful Miss Ball later tells the audience: “My eyelashes are floating.”