I Love Lucy - The Very First Show (VHS, 1994)

Lucy had appeared in many movies and was in a hit show on radio when she was offered her own show in the fledgling industry of television. She could have just accepted the offer and done it--but with her "radio show husband" playing her husband.
It was revealed much later that her motivation for working so hard to get Desi the part was so he would be spending more time with her and have less time to fool around with other women (which eventually led to their divorce).
After they performed many times onstage together to prove to the networks that audiences would accept Desi as her television husband, and spent $5,000 on this pilot, "I Love Lucy" was finally launched...ironically due to the pilot's plot involving a woman who wants to get into show business but is stopped by her husband. Television executives in 1951 believed that viewers would not be interested in seeing a female character as determined as Lucy was in real life!
The main reason behind their outlook was that for years after World War Two ended, the media bombarded women (who had been housewives before the war started) with messages to stop working outside the home, as they had started doing while men were away at war (ever heard of Rosie the Riveter?)...so that ex-soldiers could get "their" jobs back.
The media routinely ridiculed their ambitions and tried very hard to persuade women that real women preferred living their lives in the shadow of men.
Interesting note:If "I Love Lucy" had never become a television show, "Star Trek" and all its spinoffs would never have existed. It was done at Desilu.

How can a Lucy lover do anything but Love everything she does? The first show is so funny! No wonder it was a smash hit!