Everybody Loved Lucy : She Set the Standard for Situation Comedy

“Oh, Ricky. . . .”

How many times--and in how many languages--have TV viewers across the globe heard that line from Lucille Ball as the huggably wacky housewife in “I Love Lucy”?

So many times and in so many languages that Lucy was one of the most beloved and recognizable figures in the world when she died Wednesday at age 77.

There hasn’t been a more enduring TV star or TV series. As Lucy Ricardo in the globally syndicated “I Love Lucy,” Lucy remains, even after her death, a common denominator for nations, continents and hemispheres, doing in entertainment what others have not accomplished in professional diplomacy.

It’s easy to overstep here. “I Love Lucy” has not ended the arms race or united traditional enemies. Yet its famous musical theme-- da da da da-da-da da-da-- signifies something special, a time out from the problems that divide peoples and a time in for the shared experience of TV viewing.

You might call it temporary peaceful coexistence in front of the small screen, with “I Love Lucy” becoming TV’s version of neutral Switzerland.

With Lucy and her then-real-life husband Desi Arnaz as the Ricardos, and William Frawley and Vivian Vance as those prototypical sitcom neighbors the Mertzes, the 179 episodes of “I Love Lucy” continue as a universal language, burned into the memories of those who viewed the series when it was new, and then regenerated again and again through reruns and international distribution.

Lucy was a marvelously gifted clown for all seasons, whose popularity has always reflected the intimacy of television, whereby the actress and TV character become inseparable in the minds of viewers. The more you think about Lucy as an icon, the more remarkable she becomes, for her esteem has grown and grown despite Lucy Ricardo being in many ways the flighty, manipulative, narrowly defined female of her time, a stereotype far outdistanced by today’s woman.

That dated image seems transcended even now by Lucy’s instinctive physical comedy in the tradition of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, the unself-conscious skills, the mugging and sight gags that set her apart from so many of her contemporaries and enhanced the good name of slapstick.

“I Love Lucy” had already been preceded by such TV comedy series as “The Goldbergs,” “Amos ‘n’ Andy” and “The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show” when it premiered on CBS on Oct. 15, 1951, with an episode about the Ricardos and Mertzes having an adventurous evening at the Copacabana.

But it was the sitcom, the style-setting, trend-setting grande dame that begat countless offspring-- the overwhelming bulk of which were able to copy the form but not the results.

More than any other TV star and TV series, Lucy and “I Love Lucy” set the standard for situation comedy being not necessarily trifling, but at its best an art form as worthy of admiration as opera. And as a shaper of comedy on the nation’s dominant stage, Lucy also played a significant role in the shaping of contemporary American humor.

“I Love Lucy” was important in other ways. It gave us, in Lucy, a beautiful star who bucked the tired old axiom that females did comedy only at the expense of losing their femininity. It also gave us, in the Cuban Arnaz, TV’s first identifiable Latino star, one whose ethnic eccentricities sometimes set up Lucy’s punchlines, but were never ridiculed.

Lucille Ball’s comedy did not end with “I Love Lucy.” More success followed with “The Lucy Show” and “Here’s Lucy,” but in 1986, Lucy took a rare, unplanned pratfall with ABC’s short-lived “Life With Lucy.”

Not that it seemed to matter to her fans, who mourn her death in a year celebrated as the 50th anniversary of American TV, the medium she helped forge.

Oh, Lucy. . . .