Two newly colorized back-to-back classic episodes of the 1950s series 'I Love Lucy' will be broadcast Dec. 20, 2013
CBS plans to turn two I Love Lucy episodes into one seamless colorized special this December, showing them back-to-back and commercial-free on Friday, Dec. 20.
The original 1956 episodes will feature the aptly timed “Christmas Episode,” which has run on television only a handful of times after it was thought lost, according to CBS. That season 6 beauty will get followed up with “Lucy’s Italian Movie,” also from 1956, but from March.
The first time “The Christmas Episode” aired was in December 1956, but it didn’t make it into the mix of rebroadcasts and subsequent syndication, thus was figured lost. CBS found it again in 1989 and showed it colorized in 1990. The episode features Ricardos and Mertzes decorating Lucy and Ricky’s Christmas tree and is full of flashbacks showing how their lives have changed. CBS says it will keep the flashbacks in black-and-white and use a “vintage look, a nod to the 1950s period in which the shows were filmed” for the new colorization.
The main titles and end credits of the two episodes will join as one with no interruption in the hour long special, allowing an easy flow into “Lucy’s Italian Movie,” where Ricardos and Mertzes are joined in Rome by Lucy.
If just talking about I Love Lucy didn’t get you nostalgic, wait for the vintage colorization. That ought to do the trick.