Reruns and Spoilers

In the early 1950s, Lucille Ball (of “I Love Lucy” fame) became pregnant. She and her husband Desi knew how dangerous this was for their careers: they had the most popular show on TV, but pregnancy in a lead actress during the 50s could be a career-ending death kiss.

Lucy soldiered on, and she and Desi managed to write Lucy’s pregnancy into the plot, no doubt leveraging their number one status on TV. Still, they were especially concerned that, as the expectancy date approached, this plan wasn’t going to work for much longer.

There’s nothing quite like being under pressure for coming up with novel ideas. That’s what Desi and Lucy did: they insisted on re-airing previous episodes of the show. This bought them the time they desperately needed, and the rerun was born.

You’re thinking: “born”? Why weren’t shows re-aired (rerun) before this?

Ever try to take a video of a video? It doesn’t typically work all that well. Or, have you ever seen a bootleg video of a movie that’s currently in thea…