CBS to Air I Love Lucy, Andy Griffith Christmas Specials

CBS has decided to branch out this year and will be airing colorized specials featuring episodes of both I Love Lucy and The Andy Griffith Show.

The I Love Lucy Christmas Special (2015 Version)

CBS has revealed details of its annual broadcast of “The I Love Lucy Christmas Special.” That makes three years in a row the network has gifted viewers with colorized episodes of I Love Lucy. This year’s special will air Wednesday, December 23rd from 8-9PM ET. It will include two colorized episodes–“The Christmas Episode” and “Lucy Does a TV Commercial”–and one set of opening and closing credits. A full press release can be found here.

“The Christmas Episode” was first broadcast in December 1956. Because it was seasonal and featured flashbacks it was never syndicated. In fact, the episode was considered missing until it was rediscovered in 1989. This year for the first time the flashbacks will be colorized so the entire episode will air in living color. “Lucy Does a TV Commercial” is the famous Vitameatavegamin episode. It was originally broadcast in May 1952.

For the record, the 2014 special paired “The Christmas Episode” with “Job Switching” from 1952 while the 2013 special featured “Lucy’s Italian Movie” from 1956.

The Andy Griffith Show Christmas Special

CBS is also colorizing two episodes of The Andy Griffith Show this year. “The Andy Griffith Show Christmas Special” will air on Friday, December 25th from 8-9PM ET. The two episodes are “The Christmas Story” from December 1960 and “The Pickle Story” from December 1961.

According to the network, the episodes have been “colorized to match as closely as possible to later episodes of the series that were actually filmed and broadcast in color.” The special will air with one set of opening and closing credits. A full press release can be found here.


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7 Replies to “CBS to Air I Love Lucy, Andy Griffith Christmas Specials”

  1. No. No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Coloring I LOVE LUCY was bad enough, but coloring black-and-white episodes of THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW is a travesty; colorized versions of black-and-white shows and movies always look terrible enough, but there’s a simple, wholesome pleasure about the first five seasons of THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW, and being in black-and-white is part of its charm. I hate this mentality that this has to be done “for kids of all ages to enjoy.” God forbid we expose our kids to black-and-white. . . . though unfortunately, kids are part of the problem: kids automatically hate anything old because they have this mentality that old = bad; I remember when I was a kid growing up, I loved Rocky and Bullwinkle (and still do), but all the other kids hated it simply because it was old. Brad Pitt tried to introduce his kids to the original Rankin/Bass special RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER, and they hated it because it was old and they thought it was cheesy. Still, “The Christmas Story,” and “The Pickle Story” are two of my most very favorite ANDY GRIFFITH episodes, and the very idea of them being colorized is enough to make me want to go to CBS’s headquarters and demolish their editing department.

    1. Too sad you have to even imagine violence. It is comments and mentality like this that take us back to the stone ages.

      If you think the way you do why watch TV as 100+ years ago people did not have any. A lot of things have to stop but coloring is nit one of them. Stop the selling off guns then yiu can worry about other things including coloring of old classics

      I am glad LUCY is colorized and what a wonderful peace of work

  2. the I LOVE LUCY Christmas episode was never syndicated because it’s seasonal and contains flashbacks? HUH? What about all the other Christmas episodes of sitcoms????
    That doesn’t make sense.

    1. That’s the story I’ve read. The episode wasn’t included in the I Love Lucy syndication package because the Christmas theme mean it could only air around the holiday and the flashbacks I guess were too confusing.

  3. I wish there was more dedication to classic TV shows for us vast post baby boomers. The 80s and 90s were the best decades in TV. Anyone for some Max Headroom?

  4. the episode the pickle story was missing the epilogue. hey warner home video Please release the final two seasons of mayberry R.F.D

  5. I like all shows & movies colorized and sharpened. If you don’t like the old shows colorized, just adjust your TV setting to black & white mode; meanwhile let the rest of us enjoy color.

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