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Originally Posted by GaylordWilshire
It reminds me that I read somewhere recently that CBS is colorizing some if not all of 'I Love Lucy'...supposed to be on this month. Wonder if the Hollywood episodes will get the treatment?
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Well, one of them is. On May 17th CBS is having another colorized I Love Lucy special with two episodes. One of them is the first in the Hollywood series, "L.A. AT LAST." (The William Holden episode.)
So this will be colorized:
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Originally Posted by tovangar2
"I Love Lucy" famously managed some coverage of the Brown Derby:
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(In the opening of the episode they are on a downtown freeway and drive by a gas-o-meter.)
The other episode being colorized for the airing is "LUCY AND SUPERMAN."
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Originally Posted by unihikid
I wonder how many ILL episodes they will be doing.
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I suppose my long answer is off topic, but here's the answer: It's my opinion that eventually CBS will be colorizing all of the I Love Lucy episodes. They were one of the first to colorize anything a bit when they released some I LOVE LUCY episodes mail order through "Columbia House" in 1985. They colorized the I Love Lucy characters (not the backgrounds) in an opening montage of the theme for the video releases. (Which, inexplicably, was never put on ANY of the dvd releases even once.)
Of course, then coloriztion was being stigmatized by many and any plans they might have had to colorize the series never happened. (I don't know that there were actual plans to do that.) In any case, they first aired the I Love Lucy Christmas episode again in 1989 or '90. It was never put into syndication so it hadn't been seen since 1956. It was in the Top Ten programs for the week. The following year CBS aired it again, but colorized it. (They didn't colorize the flashback segments of the episode.) Again it got huge ratings.
The next episode they colorized wasn't until 2007 when they released the entire series in a box set. They had a disk of extras and one was the colorized episode of "LUCY GOES TO SCOTLAND." It was explained that this episode had been designed to be shot in color. It was pesumably to be I Love Lucy's answer to NBC's Bell Telelphone Hour which was airing opposite I Love Lucy and in color. This episode was musical and had colorful costumes. There was a lot of behind the scenes home movie footage shot of it in color and so they knew what all the colors should look like. Ultimately, CBS decided they wouldn't pay the extra money required to film it in color and so it wasn't. (This particular episode happens to be my least favorite I Love Lucy episode. WHAT'S YOURS?) As far as I'm aware, this one hasn't been broadcast on CBS.
TIME-LIFE released a set of the BEST I Love Lucy episodes for sale and as an extra, the LUCY'S ITALIAN MOVIE was colorized on it. In 2013 CBS had a December special where they aired this colorized episode and a re-colorized version of the Christmas Episode. (For my money, the first version colorized of the Chrismas Episode was better.)
Last December, 2014, CBS had another special airing the Christmas Episode and a colorized version of JOB SWITCHING (the chocolate factory). These have gotten good ratings for CBS so this month, May 17th, they're having another special with colorized versions of L.A. AT LAST and LUCY AND SUPERMAN. (Since I mentioned my least favorite, I wil mention that L.A. AT LAST is my favorite I Love Lucy episode.)
Since audiences watch these I am kind of confident that eventually I LOVE LUCY episodes will all be colorized.
I've never thought colorization was the "devil" so many have made it out to be. The criticisms of "it wasn't made that way" were hypocritical in light of the fact that no one was objecting when sound was redone or 3-strip technicolor was computer enhanced or The Wizard of Oz was turned into 3-D IMAX, for example. I also grew up watching most every movie and series that was in color in black and white and eventually saw them in color, so it didn't seem so big a stretch to me. And, by the way, I have turned off the color on my tv and watched some of my favorite films that were shot in color in black and white, just to experience them in a different way. (E.T. in b&w is a much more noir movie by the way, heh!) If I had cable when Turner was airing a lot of colorized versions of films, I probably would have watched a lot of them. (I am still looking for a copy of MILDRED PIERCE in color, just out of great curiosity.) Yes, I prefer the original versions and they should never be replaced.