This past Friday we received a letter from one of our readers, Matt Bahr, who asked us a very good question! Here is the appropriate portion of his e-mail:
...What I am wondering is whether or not Paramount/CBS plans to include "The I Love Lucy Christmas Show" (Eps. #164, originally aired 12/24/56) in the set. As this episode was not sold into syndication with the others and is only shown at Christmas, I was curious if they planned to include it. I'm assuming they will, won't they?
Matt
P.S. About 15 years ago at Christmas I saw this episode for the first time and it had been colorized. Would they put the colorized version or the original B&W
version on the DVD? It might be neat to see both.
Not knowing the answer to this, we forwarded the question to the best possible person we could think of: Gregg Oppenheimer. Gregg, as fans of
I Love Lucy ought to know well by now, is the son of the show's producer and head writer, Jess Oppenheimer. Gregg has been very intimately involved with the studio's work on these DVDs, and we knew he would have the answer to Matt's question. Here is Gregg's response:
The sixth season box set will include the Christmas Show, digitally remastered and restored, in its original black and white form. I've never been a big fan of colorization, but strictly as a matter of historical interest, the bonus material will also include, unrestored, the colorized portions of the show that aired December 10, 1990 on CBS.
- Gregg
So, there's your answer Matt! And it's good news for every fan of the show, because this special episode is certainly one you'll want to enjoy every holiday season...and then you may not want to wait! Thanks again to Matt for asking, and especially thanks to Gregg Oppenheimer for taking the time to answer (especially on the weekend). Stay tuned and we'll let you know more about
I Love Lucy - The Complete 6th Season (planned for a
Spring 2006 timeframe) as developments occur.
