Cheers to “Here’s Lucy”! (Part 1)

The theme music echoed in living rooms across the country, accompanied by the booming male voiceover announcer.

The vivid colors on countless TV sets were ignited and highlighted by the blue curtain and the vibrant red hair that adorned an animated, wide-eyed, and tuxedoed female doll. All the flair was there, and it was the weekly start of something good.

For the next 30-minutes, something exciting and uplifting was going to transpire; something entertaining and funny; something special was in the air, and on the air. That something wonderful was and remains Here’s Lucy.

Initially sandwiched between Gunsmoke and The Doris Day Show on Monday nights at 9 PM, Here’s Lucy originally aired from September 23, 1968, to March 18, 1974. The series was the third in a long line of weekly sitcom hits that former movie-star-turned-TV-legend Lucille Ball brought to life in the vivacious way that was her trademark.

The small-screen franchise began as I Love Lucy (CBS, 1951–1957), continued with The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour (CBS, 1957 to 1960) and The Lucy Show (CBS, 1962–1968), and then post-Here’s Lucy, ended with the short-lived Life With Lucy (ABC, 1986).

I Love Lucy and The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour focused on the wedded bliss and blitz of the delightfully-devious and dynamic housewife Lucy Ricardo and her charismatic Latin husband/bandleader Ricky Ricardo, played by real-life spouses Ball and Desi Arnaz.

On The Lucy Show, Ball was the scatter-brained-but-lovable banking secretary-widow Lucy Carmichael to the cantankerous, penny-pinching Theodore Mooney played by Gale Gordon.

On Here’s Lucy, Ball portrayed the also-widowed and slightly-ditzy and newly-named secretary Lucy Carter, who worked for the Unique Employment Agency, owned and operated by Gordon, now playing Ball’s harried brother-in-law/employer Harrison Carter.

Gordon would return as grandfather-in-law Curtis McGibbon opposite Ball’s grandmother Lucy Barker on Life With Lucy, but many moons before that, he had made a few guest appearances on I Love Lucy. It was on that show he was rumored to be Ball’s first choice to play neighbor Fred Mertz before William Frawley was cast as the curmudgeon husband to Vivian Vance’s Ethel Mertz, Ball’s on-screen…