I Love Lucy was the first scripted TV program to be shot on 35 mm film in front of a studio audience. That may not sound like a big deal, but it means this TV show was the Star Wars of its era in terms of doing exciting cutting-edge, industry-changing technical development.
In short, it revolutionized an industry.
Before that, most shows were aired live for some time zones and they had some rather pitiful, low-quality means to record it for play-back for the other American time zones which was not fit for archival material. The way shows were done made for some very long, grueling days in the studio -- unacceptably long for Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz since the raison d'etre for the show was that they wanted to have children.
Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz actually did a vaudeville act to prove to producers that audiences would accept her real life latino husband as her on-screen husband. I believe this delayed doing a TV show slightly but it meant they were able to work together like they wanted to, laying the groundwork to have children.
The couple pioneered the use of three cameras to film the show before a live studio audience which became an industry standard and they invented the rerun. This grew out of the fact that Lucille did get pregnant and was past the age of forty and needed to slow her schedule down to not endanger her pregnancy.
This allowed newcomers to the show to get caught up on the storyline and proved to be wildly popular, which no one expected. It proved to be a fantastic way to grow the audience.
After they started the show, Desi had a home office that he worked out of a great deal, especially evenings and weekends. This allowed the couple to work a relatively normal day-job kind of schedule for filming the show, then go home and have dinner with the kids.
Lucy could tuck the kids into bed and Desi could remain available if necessary for the family while continuing to put in long hours related to the business. In other words, revolutionizing an industry was a more family-friendly, workable solution for this couple than accepting the standard way television shows were made at the time the TV show was conceived -- and far more family friendly than his music career plus her film career, which had prevented them from having children for the first ten+ years of their marriage.
If you ever wondered why we see I Love Lucy reruns endlessly, it's largely because it was the first TV show to have archival quality footage. This also means that simply having that footage was as breathtaking at the time as the special effects of Star Wars was for later generations.
In short, it revolutionized an industry.
Before that, most shows were aired live for some time zones and they had some rather pitiful, low-quality means to record it for play-back for the other American time zones which was not fit for archival material. The way shows were done made for some very long, grueling days in the studio -- unacceptably long for Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz since the raison d'etre for the show was that they wanted to have children.
Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz actually did a vaudeville act to prove to producers that audiences would accept her real life latino husband as her on-screen husband. I believe this delayed doing a TV show slightly but it meant they were able to work together like they wanted to, laying the groundwork to have children.
The couple pioneered the use of three cameras to film the show before a live studio audience which became an industry standard and they invented the rerun. This grew out of the fact that Lucille did get pregnant and was past the age of forty and needed to slow her schedule down to not endanger her pregnancy.
This allowed newcomers to the show to get caught up on the storyline and proved to be wildly popular, which no one expected. It proved to be a fantastic way to grow the audience.
After they started the show, Desi had a home office that he worked out of a great deal, especially evenings and weekends. This allowed the couple to work a relatively normal day-job kind of schedule for filming the show, then go home and have dinner with the kids.
Lucy could tuck the kids into bed and Desi could remain available if necessary for the family while continuing to put in long hours related to the business. In other words, revolutionizing an industry was a more family-friendly, workable solution for this couple than accepting the standard way television shows were made at the time the TV show was conceived -- and far more family friendly than his music career plus her film career, which had prevented them from having children for the first ten+ years of their marriage.
If you ever wondered why we see I Love Lucy reruns endlessly, it's largely because it was the first TV show to have archival quality footage. This also means that simply having that footage was as breathtaking at the time as the special effects of Star Wars was for later generations.