Today we came to the close of the first week of Body Language with Lucille Ball as guest. It was definitely worth watching, mainly because I found myself asking, what the heck was she doing on this show? Clearly she had a long standing relationship with Tom Kennedy, which must have helped, but in 1984 I'm guessing she was sort of "between jobs", and though I doubt she needed the money, probably felt like getting her face out on TV.

Finding fault with Lucy is definitely tricky business. She's clearly a TV legend and so many of today's comedy stars owe her a ton for her groundbreaking style. But I was sort of put off by the way she was acting on this week of shows. It could be best described as sort of a victory tour for her, accepting overly long rounds of applause with no real false modesty. It wound up detracting from the game, the contestants, and not to mention her co-celebrity, Charles Nelson Reilly, no slouch in the accomplished thespian department himself. Not to mention the fact that because of the extra "Lucy time", the shows ran mercilessly long and by the end, Tom was racing through the end game like a NASCAR driver.

It also continued a disturbing pattern I saw both on this shown and (Super) Password (Plus) where Lucy got away with murder in terms of judgment calls. Several times she would only say half of a two word phrase and get credit for it, and it seemed the puzzles and clues she had to play were a tad easier than normal (one of the puzzles she gave clues for was "Lucille Ball").

That being said, Lucy has long passed, her legend lives on, these game show episodes aired over 20 years ago, and in the long run it's not really a big deal. But this is a game show blog and this what I have to yak about here, so there it is.

 

posted by Brad @ 1:47 AM   3 comment(s)