Digital subchannel Catchy Comedy, available locally over the air on Channel 2.5, debuts a new programming block featuring all five TV series starring Lucille Ball, presented together for the first time.
From her 1951-60 classic sitcom “I Love Lucy” to her final, misbegotten ABC sitcom “Life with Lucy” (1986), Catchy Comedy will offer a rotating weekly lineup beginning Feb. 15 at 7 p.m. that includes five series along with a documentary, “Lucy & Desi: A Home Movie” (1993), movie “Lucy Calls the President” (1977) and specials “Lucy Gets Lucky (1978), “Three for Two” (1978) and “Lucy Moves to NBC” (1980).
The block, which will run for an initial 13 weeks, will also include original interviews with Ball’s daughter, Lucie Arnaz.
Neal Sabin, vice chairman of MeTV owner Weigel Broadcasting, said MeTV already had the rights to some of Ball’s programs. For others, it required new clearance deals.
“ ‘Life with Lucy’ was in the library at CBS,” Sabin said. “There’s only a few episodes, so it wasn’t worth acquiring until we had a project like this.”
Sabin said there will be a greater focus on “Here’s Lucy” than “Life with Lucy” because “Here’s Lucy” hasn’t been seen much in recent years, MeTV got new prints of the episodes and Lucie Arnaz appears in that series. MeTV interviewed Arnaz and then chose episodes that best fit with her recollections.
“It’s fun having her talk about the show and tell stories about some of the episodes as they were made,” Sabin said of interviews filmed over two days that will be interspersed with the shows and movies.
Sabin said he’s particularly fond of “Lucy & Desi: A Home Movie,” a documentary produced by Lucie Arnaz that originally aired on NBC.
“The home movie is really touching,” Sabin said. “We’re starting with it first, so you could see those home movies and Lucie Arnaz commenting on what’s on the screen and get a broad picture of what you’re about to see for the next 13-plus weeks. We may do more than 13 [weeks], but we’re going to start with 13.”
In addition to over the air, Catchy Comedy is also available locally on internet-connected DISH (Channel 375), Frndly TV, Philo TV and Fubo TV.
‘Neighbors’
Pittsburghers love the idea of being neighborly thanks to “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,” but even the patron saint of children’s television may have winced if he lived next door to some of the people featured in the six-episode docuseries “Neighbors” (9 p.m. Feb. 13, HBO. HBO Max).
Produced by A24, it’s hard to imagine a worse time for “Neighbors” to premiere given the ugliness of our current cultural-political moment. We can’t avoid it in the news, so it’s mystifying that HBO thinks viewers will want to invite more discord into their lives watching “Neighbors.”
While there is undoubtedly some “Tiger King”-grade entertainment observing a conspiracy theorist verbally spar with a “Lord of the Rings” cosplayer, so much of the behavior displayed in “Neighbors” is unpleasant to behold.
Seth, the 9/11 Truther, takes umbrage when his Shawmut, Mont., neighbor, Josh, the “LOTR” Tik-Toker, erects a gate to keep horses off his property, which leads another neighbor to threaten the life of Josh’s wife while calling her profane names.
In Santa Rosa Beach, Fla., neighbors beef over what is public versus private beach property, leading the Shoreline Defender, an “anonymous beach activist,” to don a creepy/ridiculous rubber mask for his interviews. Absurdity is the point, but turning the show’s visuals into a funhouse mirror-style image is both too on the nose and nauseating to watch.
One gets the sense that “Neighbors” is intended for viewers who will look down on the show’s characters, but if that subset of viewers balks, one can also imagine “Neighbors” appealing to exactly the kind of ill-mannered people the show depicts.
Channel surfing
Recording artist Pink will gust host “The Kelly Clarkson Show” (3 p.m. weekdays, WTAE) the week of March 2. … Former NBC and Nat Geo series “Running Wild with Bear Grylls” will air new episodes this spring on Fox. … Canadian import “Heated Rivalry” has surpassed 10.6 million viewers, more than doubling its viewership since its season finale streamed on Dec. 26. … This week Netflix filmed “Stranger Things: The First Shadow” on Broadway with the intent of releasing it on Netflix at some unspecified point in the future. … “Super Bowl LX” averaged 124.9 million viewers, down 2% from the 2025 game; more viewers tuned in for Bad Bunny’s halftime show, which had 128 million average viewers, down 4% from Kendrick Lamar’s halftime show in 2025 … The Pennsylvania Film Commission announced this week the fifth and final season of Paramount ’s “Mayor of Kingstown,” filming locally March-June, will receive almost $28 million in film production tax credits that the state estimates will result in $107 million in direct spending, create 1,749 jobs and utilize 5,600 hotel nights in Western Pa. Netflix’s lower-budgeted Shane Gillis sitcom “Tires,” filmed in Philadelphia, will receive $6 million in tax credits that the state estimates will bring in $24 million in direct spending, create 1,709 jobs and utilize 1,200 hotel nights in the Philly region. Gov. Shapiro calls for maintaining the current $100 million cap on funding for Pennsylvania’s Film Production Tax Credit Program in the state’s 2026-27 budget. The Pittsburgh Film Office has urged the state to raise the cap to $300 million annually to better compete with New Jersey ($550 million cap), New York ($800 million cap) and Georgia (uncapped) … On Saturday, 1988 Upper St. Clair High School grad Stephen Chbosky (“The Perks of Being a Wallflower”) took home the Directors Guild of America award for TV movie for directing Netflix’s “Nonnas.”