Lunch Break Video: See Totie Fields, Vivian Vance and others dish it out to Lucille Ball on a Dean Martin Celebrity Roast

If the Lunch Break Videos seem a little heavy on Lucille Ball lately it’s because my YouTube is always suggesting certain gems that I never would’ve thought to post but watch them and love them.

This one is from the 1975 Dean Martin Celebrity Roast – a long-running series of NBC specials – with the “honoree” being Lucille Ball shortly after she retired from series television.

It was a heady line-up of celebrities and was the last public appearance by Jack Benny. The show aired six weeks after his death from stomach cancer.

Others present were Phyllis Diller, Dan Rowan & Dick Martin, Ruth Buzzi, Bob Hope, Milton Berle, Gary Morton, Gale Gordon, Totie Fields, Rich Little, Henry Fonda, Ginger Rogers, Foster Brooks, Nipsey Russell, Vivian Vance and Don Rickles.

I may have been in elementary school but I was enough of a Lucy fanatic to tape the show with my tape recorder and you could hear my uncontrollable laughter on the tape. I loved Totie Fields who was wicked funny and, of course, Lucy and Viv.

Enjoy!