ARKANSAS, USA — Editor's Note: The video attached is from Lucille Ball's 100th birthday in 2014.
There's something special coming to THV11 for the holidays... the I Love Lucy Christmas Special!
Along with the traditional airing of "The Christmas Episode," the newly colorized "Paris at Last" is set to air Friday, Dec. 20 at 7 p.m on THV11!
The two episodes will be combined into one hour-long episode with no interruption between them.
CBS has aired I Love Lucy Christmas specials for six years, combining "The Christmas Episode" with a different comedic classic. Episodes have been shown colorized in their entirety since 2015, featuring scenes that had only been seen before in black and white.
"The Christmas Episode" finds the Ricardos and Mertzes decorating Lucy and Ricky's Christmas tree and reminiscing about how their lives have changed since the arrival of the Ricardos' son, Little Ricky (Keith Thibodeaux).
Flashbacks recall the night Lucy told Ricky she was pregnant, the time Lucy showed up unexpectedly as part of a barbershop quartet and the day Ricky and the Mertzes rehearsed taking Lucy to the maternity ward.
"The Christmas Episode" was first broadcast on CBS on Christmas Eve in 1956. The episode was not included in the series' long history of rebroadcasts, first on CBS Daytime and later in syndication. Long thought to be lost, the program was rediscovered by CBS in 1989.
In "Paris at Last," the Ricardos and Mertzes arrive in the French capital, where Lucy encounters a sidewalk artist who sells multiple copies of the same "original" oil painting and a con man who offers a better exchange rate for her American dollars than the one offered in the banks. Later, her attempt to have a quiet lunch in an outdoor café finds her not only unwittingly ordering a plate of snails, but paying the check with counterfeit French francs. Next stop: the Bastille?
"Paris at Last" originally aired on Feb. 27, 1956, and became an immediate viewer favorite.
I Love Lucy was broadcast on CBS from Oct. 15, 1951, through June 23, 1957. It was voted "The Best TV Show of All Time" in a 2012 viewer poll conducted by People magazine and ABC News. I Love Lucy stars Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz as Lucy and Ricky Ricardo and Vivian Vance and William Frawley as the Ricardos' friends and landlords, Ethel and Fred Mertz.
You can watch the I Love Lucy Christmas Special on Dec. 20 at 7 p.m. on THV11 and CBS All Access.
