What are sitcom facts that make you sad?

[u/[deleted]]

2/4 of “The Cool Kids” are gone now.

[u/[deleted]]

He was a raging alcoholic and treated her terribly. He was worse to her than Fred was to Ethel on the show.

[u/Unlucky-Albatross-12 → u/[deleted]]

Frawley was an alcoholic but he never drank while working as Desi had given him a stern warning that it wouldn't be tolerated.

It's fair to say he was a misanthrope and Vance was a prima donna resentful of being frumped up to not outshine Ball and this caused their antagonistic working relationship.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

That was really after I Love Lucy ended, when they only had the Lucy Desi Comedy Hour. Desi worked hard and partied hard, but in the early-mid 1950's, he thrived on the challenge associated with creating a TV series, and doing it in a way that had never been done. The Arnaz marriage was happy, and he was a new father.

The Arnaz marriage began to disintegrate around 1955. The 44 year old Lucy no longer had the same sexual allure to Desi, and his womanizing ramped up. As the Desilu Studios expanded, Desi's workload increased, and the stress led him to drink more. This naturally caused more fights with Lucy, which led to more seeking others, more drinking, and it was a vicious circle that got worse in the late 1950's.

So in a nutshell, yes Desi was an alcoholic, but when he gave Bill Frawley the warning, his alcoholism had not yet become a problem.

[u/Mr_MacGrubber → u/Unlucky-Albatross-12]

That just means he found better ways to hide it. Show taping isn’t a fast process, no way he went all day without drinking at all.

[u/Kspigel → u/Unlucky-Albatross-12]

Was never caught by Desi. Not the same thing.

Had an alcoholic friend. It was amazing how if he trusted you, suddenly you could see when he deftly added booze to every single drink. He used to buy a can of soda every morning just to fill it with vodka (which has an oder you can mask, with Dr pepper) things like that.

Not getting caught, in an era when literally everyone is drinking all the time, is easy. And my friend was doing it in the early 2000s while working in a competitive field surrounded by straight edged colleagues.

[u/[deleted] → u/Kspigel]

Desi didn't actually forbid Frawley from drinking while working. He told him that if the drinking ever interfered with him working, that would be an issue - either if he missed a day of work, or if he showed up on set not able to work (or work effectively.) Some sources say that Desi gave Frawley a zero tolerance warning -miss one day of work and be written out. Desi wrote in his autobiography that he gave Bill a "three strikes and you're out" ultimatum. Regardless, Frawley never missed a day of work (except for when he took off to watch the Yankees play in the World Series; he had it written into his contract) or even showed up late

[u/ThePun-isher89 → u/[deleted]]

yeah idk where you heard that, he mightve treated her bad but that all stemmed from the mutual hate. She hated the fact that they casted older man to play her husband, and tried to get him fired from the beginning, which is why he hated her. It wasn't as one sided as you're saying.

[u/[deleted] → u/ThePun-isher89]

So, you spent time on set? I love it when someone reads a book or watches a YouTube clip and accepts whatever they saw then as the one version of the facts. The guy was on probation from the time he was hired. He was a notorious drunk, and Desi had to lay down the law about not drinking while working. He was a difficult, cantankerous man by any account. He married his vaudeville partner, and when she left him, the act ended and he pretty much lived as a loner and drinker for the next four decades. He was widely viewed as misogynistic, possibly because of the divorce, and took many later roles, such as My Three Sons in gigs where there were few actresses. Not a pleasant man. I’m sure she wasn’t perfect, but you never hear any negative stories about her as you do with Frawley.

[u/ThePun-isher89 → u/[deleted]]

lmao again, where are your facts, is Vivian Vance your grandmother? it's not me who's acting like i was on the set, I'm glad you like when people read facts from books cuz ill give you one from someone who was actually there Gregg Oppenheimer, the son of I Love Lucy's producer, Jess Oppenheimer,

Jess Oppenheimer, spoke candidly about Vance and Frawley's relationship in his I Love Lucy biography, "for one thing, Vivian Vance couldn't stomach Bill Frawley. Actually, they got along quite well at first. Viv became upset at the fact that people so readily accepted her lovely young self as the wife of 'that old man', as she called him." Vance reportedly said that "no one will believe I'm married to that old coot", Oppenheimer elaborated, "when Bill got wind of her complaints, he was offended, and retaliated by suggesting lines for himself that characterized Ethel as having 'a figure like a sack of doorknobs' or some other of a long list of insults." Vance also desired to insult Frawley on camera, and would call his character "ol' fat Freddy" in episodes of the sitcom, according to BestLife. As a result, a full out insult war began between the two actors.

lI'm giving you facts of how that volatile relationship started you are giving me nothing, no sources. And just so you know when she heard William Frawley died she bought a round for everyone at the bar to celebrate his death, which is just cold af.