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We trusted Lucy to make us laugh

August 7, 2011 by B. Daniel Blatt

There are many tributes that one can offer the late great Lucille Ball, but the greatest is perhaps the simplest:  she made makes us laugh.

She may have geared her humor to audiences in the 1950s, but when we watch the reruns, even though our mores have changed, her antics still delight and amuse us.  We still laugh at Lucy.  As Marlo Thomas put it:

And we loved her for the most basic of reasons: We trusted her. We knew if we showed up on Monday nights, she’d pay us back in laughs.

Whether she was plucking chocolates off a conveyor belt and stuffing them in her mouth, or vigorously stomping in a vat of grapes, or lighting a putty nose on fire —while it was attached to her face — Lucy’s mission was always the same: to see the laugh all the way through. She was like an Olympic gymnast, who practices tirelessly, executes to perfection and always lands on her feet.

As Roger Rabbit put it, “A laugh can be a very powerful thing. Why, sometimes in life, it’s the only weapon we have.”  Indeed.  How many people found a dark day brightened by a half-hour of Lucy’s humor?  (Or have he antics make a good day even better?)  How many times have we turned to Lucy (or other funny folk) as a respite from the struggles of a human life?

And this woman pioneered a new means to bring laughter to millions of homes.  She helped define the modern sit-com.  In developing her unique brand of physical comedy, she may have drawn on vaudeville schtick, but she made it made it work for (what was then) a new medium.  As she was influenced by the silent start Harold Lloyd, countless comedians (and comediennes) have been influenced by her.

The woman whom we remember for making us laugh had not set out to be a comedienne, but to be a Broadway star.  Only in her late 30s, after suffering many setbacks did she realize that that was her purpose in life — to make people life — and she pursued it with passion, determination, imagination and effort.  May we all such realizations and pursue them as did Lucille Ball.

RELATED: 15 Things You Never Knew About TV’s Funniest Lady

Filed Under: Humor, Movies/Film & TV, Strong Women

Comments

  1. wpdunn71901 says

    August 7, 2011 at 5:11 am - August 7, 2011

    oh G_D how i loved Lucy!

  2. Heliotrope says

    August 7, 2011 at 8:42 am - August 7, 2011

    I watched Easy To Wed last night and Lucille Ball was a straight, talented screen beauty without a trace of Lucy until well into the picture when she put her plastic face into action and made everyone else in the picture look like a prop.

  3. Sebastian Shaw says

    August 7, 2011 at 11:24 am - August 7, 2011

    Lucy never gave herself credit for her comedy; she always credited the writers. She was a very humble woman & I wish there were more like her.

  4. TGC says

    August 7, 2011 at 12:40 pm - August 7, 2011

    I always love the bit with William Holden at the Brown Derby,

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWWj3-qOR1s

  5. Richard R says

    August 7, 2011 at 1:37 pm - August 7, 2011

    I’m pleased to see these tributes to Lucy. As a kid in the 1950s I watched the first-run episodes of I Love Lucy every Monday night at 9:00 PM on CBS. For me and most of America, I Love Lucy was one of the original “must see TV” shows long before NBC coined the term.

  6. TGC says

    August 7, 2011 at 7:02 pm - August 7, 2011

    With respect, Richard, didn’t know anybody here was that old.

  7. Dottie Laird says

    August 7, 2011 at 7:54 pm - August 7, 2011

    When I was growing up, I thought the world’s funniest man was Johnny Carson with his quick improv skills and clever comebacks. And the funniest woman was Lucy, who played an everywoman caught in a world that could sometimes be crazy. I miss them both to this day.

  8. Naamloos says

    August 7, 2011 at 8:00 pm - August 7, 2011

    She may have geared his humor

    Huh?

  9. Sebastian Shaw says

    August 7, 2011 at 8:40 pm - August 7, 2011

    I became a William Holden fan after watching Sunset Boulevard; later, I watched the Towering Inferno & was surprised the building owner is played by Holden. I could of swore he was the the original autopsy doctor in JAWS.

  10. B. Daniel Blatt says

    August 8, 2011 at 2:19 am - August 8, 2011

    naamloos, thanks for catching that. Since fixed. Meant her humor.

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