There's a sort of urban legend that says that comedy icon Lucille Ball had been offered a part in the 1952 movie, "The Greatest Show on Earth", but turned it down. She was developing I Love Lucy at the time of production.
11 years later, Ball's production company, Desilu, acquired the rights to produce a TV series version of Greatest Show on Earth, for ABC, to replace The Untouchables, another Desilu entry, on the schedule.
Jack Palance landed his first series gig, one of three (Bronk & Ripley's Believe it or Not! being the others) in his career. Unfortunately, Greatest Show was matched opposite The Beverly Hillbillies & The Jack Benny Program on CBS, and The Richard Boone Show, a Goodson-Todman entry for NBC. CBS won the ratings war in the time slot, and Greatest Show was cancelled after 1 season. So was The Richard Boone Show, but that's for another time.
Following is "Lady in Limbo", with Lucy in a rare at the time dramatic part. Billy Mumy, 2 years before Lost in Space, and Roger C. Carmel, 4 years before The Mothers-in-Law, also guest star.
Ringling Brothers & Barnum & Bailey Circus had a hand in the production for authenticity. There, though, is a reason why they haven't tried something like this since.
No rating.
No comments:
Post a Comment