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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ClassyCo" data-source="post: 240534" data-attributes="member: 7">Aaron Spelling, as we all know, was one of the most prolific television producers in the history of the medium. He had produced a number of long-running shows, such as CHARLIE'S ANGELS, THE LOVE BOAT, FANTASY ISLAND, DYNASTY, BEVERLY HILLS, 90210, and MELROSE PLACE among a host of others. Spelling first approached Lucille Ball and her husband Gary Morton in 1979 with the idea of bringing Lucy back to situation comedy. Lucy was reluctant for a number of years, before finally relenting and agreeing to jump over to ABC (all her other sitcoms were CBS shows) and do another series. Spelling wanted her to play a grandmother of twin babies, a setup he felt she would've been hysterical at, and he offered her the writers of M*A*S*H, one of the most successful television shows ever. Lucy, however, had different ideas and she ending up playing a widowed grandmother who moves in with her daughter and son-in-law and ends up running a hardware store with her son-in-law's grumpy father, opening the door for Gale Gordon to also join the show. LIFE WITH LUCY premiered amid fanfare. Apparently ABC was hoping that the show would prove another long-running success in a similar fashion of Lucy's earlier successes. There was also hope that Lucille Ball would be "rediscovered" in the way that Beatrice Arthur and Bill Cosby had been on THE GOLDEN GIRLS and THE COSBY SHOW, respectively. LIFE WITH LUCY debuted to strong ratings, but each episode declined steadily in viewership. After six or seven episodes, it has slid to #73 out of 79 shows, and ABC canceled the show, leaving five episodes left unaired. LIFE WITH LUCY is often listed as one of the worst television comedies of all time. In every single interview I've seen, Aaron Spelling points all the fingers at himself when discussing LIFE WITH LUCY and its failure. He always said that he had the final say and that his misjudgment was in giving Lucy practically all the creative control she wanted and the liberty to make whatever kind of show she wanted. He insists that Lucy wasn't past her prime in 1986, but that he should've insisted that she change up her act and bring in some new writers to freshen her on-screen character. The failure of LIFE WITH LUCY rendered Aaron Spelling weary of doing comedy. He once said that if he failed with a legend like Lucille Ball then he didn't need to do comedy. When it comes right down to it, there were a few different factors that caused LIFE WITH LUCY to have such a short shelf life. The writing was not the greatest, sure, but I think the acting was really the nail in the coffin. Aside from Lucy and Gale Gordon, the rest of the cast are just generic television family actors, with nothing particularly distinctive about their look or personality. The stories are fairly typical of family comedies of the late 1980s, so I can understand where the writers felt they were edging Lucy in the right direction. I personally wish Spelling would've pulled rank and talked Lucy into taking those M*A*S*H writers and maturing her character. He always said that she left the final decision up to him, and by golly, he should've taken that liberty and presented a stronger show that this dismal little humor fest we got.</blockquote>

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