CBS to Air New ‘I Love Lucy’ Special

CBS has announced a new one-hour “I Love Lucy” special featuring colorized episodes “Lucy Visits Grauman’s” and “Lucy and John Wayne.” It airs on Sunday, May 22 at 8 pm. ET.

Originally telecast on Oct. 3 and Oct. 10, 1955, respectively, the two episodes were the first historically to tell a continuous story in one comedy hour. “Lucy Visits Grauman’s,” the fifth season opening episode, featured Lucy (Lucille Ball) Lucy and the Mertzes (Vivian Vance and William Frawley) visiting Hollywood’s famed Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, where Lucy discovers that the cement slab containing John Wayne’s footprints has come loose. Lucy thinks it would be a fabulous souvenir to take home, if only she can come up with a way to take it without being caught.

In “Lucy and John Wayne,” Lucy must find a way to replace the pilfered footprints. Ricky tries to help by calling John Wayne, but as usual with Lucy, the seemingly simple task of replicating the footprints becomes a comedy of errors. “Lucy and John Wayne” was included in CBS’ 1958 summer series, “The Top Ten Lucy Shows,” as selected by a panel of 155 newspaper TV critics and columnists.