Month: June 2025

1 Comment Posted on Desi Arnaz, I Love Lucy, Lucie Arnaz, Lucille Ball, The Man Who Invented Television, Todd S. Purdum

I Love Desi

I just read the new book, Desi Arnaz:  The Man Who Invented Television by Todd S. Purdum, and came away with a higher appreciation for Arnaz, who some pejoratively referred to as Mr. Lucille Ball.

Arnaz was the mastermind behind “I Love Lucy” and Desilu Studios.  He’s responsible for moving television production from the east coast to the west in the 1950s, establishing situational comedies shot on film in front of a live audience, and conceiving of re-runs, the concept that networks could earn money by airing repeat viewings instead of paying for summer replacement shows.

“I Love Lucy” was created to keep the Arnazes together after 10 years of marriage which included long periods of separation due to Desi’s orchestra being on the road.

In 1950, Lucille Ball had a popular radio show, “My Favorite Husband.”  When TV executives sought new series to develop, they harvested radio shows to make the transition.

What resulted was “I Love Lucy” which only happened after CBS and their sponsor Philip Morris agreed to their demands: that Desi replace actor Richard Denning as Lucy’s husband, and that the show be produced in Los Angeles where they had their home.

At the time, most TV shows were produced in New York and nearly all were aired live on the east coast with movie cameras capturing the shows off television monitors in order to air them in other time zones.  Called kinescopes, these were of inferior quality compared to a show produced directly using motion picture cameras (videotape didn’t exist yet).

Reluctantly, the network agreed to all their terms including having the show filmed in front of a live audience with a revolutionary three-camera concept.  Famed cinematographer Karl Freund figured how to properly light the set for both long and close-up shots as all cameras simultaneously captured the action.  By having the show filmed allowed for high quality repeats to air.

When “I Love Lucy” premiered on Oct. 15, 1951, it quickly rose to become the number one rated show in America for four of its six seasons.

Near the end of the 1950’s, Desilu was producing more shows for television than any other studio.

He was the first Latino to head a major studio, Desilu, which at one time had more programming on television than any other studio.  In fact, to this day, no other Latino has held such a powerful position in Hollywood.

Unfortunately, such success led to Desi spending long hours at the studio, leaving his wife and children alone.   It’s ironic that the show was created to ensure they had more time for themselves, but instead the opposite happened which ultimately led the couple to divorce in 1960 after 20 years of marriage.

Sadly, Desi Arnaz never received an Emmy nomination for his performance (Lucille Ball earned two Emmys for the show).

Lucille Ball was Arnaz’s strongest supporter of what he accomplished as a studio mogul.  She’d always give him credit for creating the show and running Desilu successfully while so many in the Hollywood community didn’t.

Once they went on with their separate lives, they remained close.  He would continue producing her TV program “The Lucy Show” and near the end of his life, Ball visited him at his house in Del Mar.  According to daughter Lucie Arnaz, the last phone call they had with one another occurred on their wedding anniversary, Nov 30, 1986, with each one repeating “I love you” to the other.  Two days later, Arnaz passed away.

When Ball received the Kennedy Centers honors five days later, actor Robert Stack, star of the Desilu-produced “The Untouchables,” read a note from Desi which ended:  “I Love Lucy was never just a title.”

Leave a comment Posted on California Commission on Teacher Credentialing

Get Ready for Less Qualified Teachers

This year, over 17,000 teaching credentials will be issued in California, not enough to fill about 25,000 vacancies.  In order to encourage more people to go into teaching, a new state law was passed in 2024 allowing anyone with a bachelor’s degree to get accepted into a teacher credential program.   It is no longer necessary to pass a test to assess a candidate’s basic knowledge of reading, writing and arithmetic.  It is no longer necessary to have a minimum 3.0 GPA.

California Commission on Teacher Credentialing’s Executive Director Mary Vixie Sandy said that “now is a great time for anyone with a qualifying bachelor’s degree” to become a teacher.

Why is allowing less qualified people into the profession viewed as a good thing?

Instead of fixing what ails the teaching profession, namely a lack of prestige, competitive salaries and support from administration and parents, the state is lowering the qualifications to attract more people into the classroom.  If anything, higher minimum requirements is the first step in ensuring only qualified people be allowed to teach.

If this approach were applied to the medical field, with an influx of doctors who could not otherwise meet basic requirements suddenly earning medical degrees, they’d be an uproar about health care.

For some reason, when it comes to education, there isn’t any pushback that more inexperienced, less academic people will be teaching young people.  But it gets worse.

To meet the demands of the teacher shortage, school districts are hiring people on an emergency credential that pays them a full salary without taking the two years of coursework and student teaching that traditional candidates complete.

Even those teachers who do the full credential coursework and earn a credential aren’t destined to be effective teachers.

I know this first-hand from my work as a university field supervisor who visits schools where the teachers in training work.  My job is to observe a candidate teach between three to six lessons over an 18-week semester, then evaluate their strengths and weaknesses.

More important than someone like me is the mentor teacher who observes the teacher candidate every day, reviewing their lessons and offering suggestions.   It’s crucial that the mentors are highly qualified.  Unfortunately, many are not. 

College credential programs don’t have the luxury of vetting mentors due to how few classroom teachers show interest in that role.   That’s because not enough excellent teachers are willing to hand over a couple of their classes to a novice.  Often, those who become mentors are those who are looking for a lighter workload.

That’s why the evaluation forms from the mentors may not be an accurate assessment of a student teacher’s abilities.  After all, how can an ineffective teacher help a young teacher be effective? 

I often find myself assigning higher marks for candidates based on the inflated evaluation of the mentors.  It is difficult for someone like me to hold higher standards since the mentor is seeing so much more of the candidate.  How can I justify lower marks when I’m only observing six lessons, while the mentor observes 90 lessons?

My job observing student teachers for the past four years is frequently disappointing and sometimes depressing.  Still, each semester I meet that one young teacher who has a knack for working with kids, a desire to help children with their academics and their lives.  That’s what keeps me going, a flame of faith that for some students, their future will be bright.