It’s been 75 years since I Love Lucy made its debut on CBS. Now, the network will offer a tribute to the beloved TV sitcom in honor of that milestone.
CBS will air a special night of programming honoring Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Vivian Vance and William Frawley—and it will come in the middle of the holiday season, per a press release from CBS Entertainment.
The hour-long special, titled I Love Lucy: 75 Years of Laughter, is scheduled to air Dec. 17. It will feature interviews with Carol Burnett, Andy Garcia, Amy Poehler, Carrie Preston, Paul W. Downs, Lucia Aniello and more, interspersed with archival footage from the classic TV sitcom.
In addition, two newly colorized episodes of the series will air: “The Christmas Show,” a rarely seen clip show that looks back on memorable moments from the show, and the classic, “Never Do Business with Friends,” which features a feud between the Ricardos (Arnaz, Ball) and the Mertzes (Frawley, Vance).
View this post on InstagramI Love Lucy originally aired 180 episodes from October 1951 to May 1957 on CBS.
Paramount Global still owns the rights to the series, but last month there was a question if the CBS network would honor the show’s milestone.
During an appearance on The Facts Verse podcast, Ball and Arnaz’s daughter, Lucie Arnaz, said she didn’t think the network had any plans to celebrate I Love Lucy’s anniversary.
“I don’t have high hopes that they’re going to suddenly, you know, jump back into thinking that classic television shows are worth celebrating like they used to in the old days,” she explained.
Arnaz acknowledged that a CBS executive did reach out to her with a promise that there would be a ”whole special broadcast” to air on October 15, the date that I Love Lucy premiered on CBS in 1951, but that the plan didn’t come together in time.
“[He said]… ‘We’re going to put out a whole special broadcast on the 15th and we’re going to follow it with two colorized episodes and you can pick them,’” Arnaz shared. “And I went, ‘That’s great. Good. Thank you. That sounds fine.’ And I didn’t ask him to do it, you know. …So far, no one’s called.”
Luckily for fans, the right calls were ultimately made, and I Love Lucy will now receive an appropriate honor on the network where it all started.
I Love Lucy: 75 Years of Laughter airs December 17 at 8 p.m. on CBS, with streaming available on Paramount+.
Related: 75 Years Ago, the ‘I Love Lucy’ Episode That Was Filmed First Didn’t Air as the Series Premiere
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