The line was too provocative to be ignored. So were the notices that Desi and Lucy had received on their vaudeville tour. Variety, for example, had called their Chicago act “one of the best bills to play the house in recent months,” and said: “If the red-headed gal wants to slide on her tummy for five or six shows a day past the initial five-week booking for this package, her agency should have no trouble lining up dates.”Bolstered by newspaper clips and their own enthusiasm, Don Sharpe and Jess Oppenheimer made a pitch to CBS. The network’s radio division produced My Favorite Husband, and 1951 seemed the ideal time and place for Lucy and Desi to make the jump to prime-time television. The network thought otherwise. Sharpe and Oppenheimer pressed on. They found the sponsors of Lucy’s radio show mildly receptive to the idea of a TV program centered on the Arnazes. Executives at General Foods’ advertising agency, Young and Rubicam, called Lucy and Desi in and convinced them that CBS would never be persuaded by sales talk alone.
