The Great Desilu Series of the 1960s - Paperback

by Jon Abbott (Author)

From the author of, and in the style of, Irwin Allen Productions 1964--1970 and Cool TV of the 1960s comes a critical celebration of four classic television shows from the legendary Desilu Studios, with complete cast lists and episode guides.

Nearly 600 pages / For comments on reviews, click on 'see all reviews'

Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball's imprint is all over television history. The Desilu company that was formed by Lucy and Desi to produce and market Lucy's TV series I Love Lucy and The Lucy Show was later sold to Paramount, handing them three of the biggest cash cows in television history--for it was Desilu that produced and financed The Untouchables, Mission: Impossible and Star Trek, three of the most admired and respected television series ever made.

All three would never have made it to air without the power, influence and support of Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball. It was Lucy who took television out of New York theaterland to Hollywood; she financed the pilot for I Love Lucy with her own money; she was the first to film before a live audience; her show pioneered the three camera system of filming sit-coms; her onscreen pregnancy forced American television to grow up a little when it was written into her series. It was Desi who protected The Untouchables; it was Lucy who bullied Star Trek and Mission: Impossible onto the air.

This book examines the four major Desilu legacies of the 1960s in detail--The Untouchables, The Lucy Show, Mission: Impossible, and Star Trek.

Controversial mob show The Untouchables ran for four seasons (1959 to 1963) until TV's censors and professional complainers finally finished it off. It set the bar so high and created such controversy (albeit media-manufactured) that it was twenty five years before gangster shows of comparable quality appeared, and to this day there has not been a gangland show as successful. It was a pulp paperback brought to life, the American trash magazine as live action TV. The slam-bang rapid pace, the justifiable but shameless voyeuristic violence, and the staccato machine-gun-like narration was unique and exciting in the more slower-paced environment of early-'60s TV, and the list of guest stars giving top-rate performances of mostly first-rate scripts is as long as it is distinguished.

The Lucy Show ran for six seasons, featured wonderful physical comedy, numerous staple sit-com formula plots, and dozens of celebrity guest stars as a significant and popular part of Lucille Ball's twenty year TV career. Her co-stars, Vivian Vance and Gale Gordon (as Mr. Mooney) achieved career highs.

Mission: Impossible was the longest running and most parodied spy show of the 1960s, and is today a major movie franchise. With its dazzling theme, self-destructing taped messages, convoluted schemes, drop-jawed disbelieving villains, and iconic characters, it became a genuine pop culture item.

Star Trek, also a major movie franchise, presented pure science-fiction concepts to a mature and wide-ranging mass audience for the first time in television's history, by brilliantly transposing the western formula to futuristic space adventure, and becoming one of the most significant and revered television series in the history of the medium. Desi and Lucy were barely aware they were producing it, but Lucy got it on the air by securing another television first--a second pilot.

The Great Desilu Series of the 1960s is a fascinating, fun-filled, fact-filled story of four famously loved television series--related in the context of each other and discussed together for what I believe to be the first time.

Author Biography

Jon Abbott was born in Lambeth, London, England in June, 1956. Thanks to Huckleberry Hound and Supercar, Jon Abbott has been writing professionally about popular culture for around thirty years, during which time he has written over four hundred articles on American film and television for over two dozen different trade, specialist, and populist publications in the U.K. These have included City Limits, Television Weekly, TV Comic, Video Today, Starburst, Stills, Media Week, Adult Movies on Video, What Video, What Satellite, TV Zone, Time Out, The Face, The DarkSide, Video Buyer, Video World, Cult Times, Comedy Review, SFX, Home Entertainment, and Dreamwatch. Jon is currently appearing regularly in Infinity magazine. He has a wide range of interests in 20th century film, television, and music, including gangster films ranging from Cagney through to Corman and Scorsese, classic cartoons, 1950s sci-fi movies, 1960s TV and comics, and 1970s cinema. He is particularly fond of the work of Laurel and Hardy, Phil Silvers, Lucy, Dick Van Dyke, Termite Terrace, Tamla Motown, the Beatles, Hanna-Barbera, Irwin Allen, Gerry Anderson, DC Comics, Marvel Comics, Elvis Presley, Clint Eastwood, Stallone and Schwarzenegger, Jackie Chan, and Stephen J. Cannell. He's also a fan of Tom and Jerry, Republic Serials, The Untouchables, The Outer Limits, The Beverly Hillbillies, The Man from UNCLE, the Daleks, the Adam West Batman, the Emma Peel Avengers, The Invaders, the original Star Trek, Godzilla and Gamera films, pulp magazine covers and pop art, cheesy, sleazy sex films ( and good ones), shameful Italian comedies, Chinese gangster films (especially with Chow Yun Fat), Fawlty Towers, Frasier, and The Sweeney. Despite the above, he doesn't live in the past, because he's bought the best of it into the future with him, and he prefers his i-pad, i-pod, DVDs, and big screen TV to vinyl, censorship, and two-channel television. He has had two books published by McFarland in the U.S., and self-published four with Amazon on Createspace. He lives in Brighton in the South of England. This is his seventh book.