Ever wonder who in your group of friends is the Carrie, Miranda, Samantha, and Charlotte?
Ross, Rachel, Monica, Chandler, Joey, and Phoebe?
Will, Grace, Jack, and Karen?
Dave Bjerke/NBC
But they do so in a very unexpected way.
The one constant isEric McCormack, who plays Ricky Ricardo.
(We’re not crying, you’re crying.)
Courtesy of Debra Messing
Because of the rights.
I lived on four acres of land and we playedGilligan’s Islandoutside around a swamp.
That was what we did for fun.
Courtesy of Debra Messing
And we would go next door and watch the horses being born.
And it wasI Love Lucythat just literally lit me up.
No, that was a complete surprise to all of us.
Courtesy of Debra Messing
I was like, I don’t know if…
I don’t understand what you’re saying.
What are you saying?
I’m playing…what?
I will also be Fred?
Im going to be Fred?
Seeing Sean as Lucy is just…
Yeah.
Didn’t know you needed that in your life but here it is.
Is that a jokerooted in real life in any way?
No, I have never dressed up as Lucille Ball my whole life.
You have to do it?
And I remember someone did reach out, years ago, to see if I would consider it.
And I remember saying, right away, no.
I would never do it.
Lets get into the hair and makeup process of it all.
What was it like watching this transformation happen?
Oh, it was so exciting!
And you’re like,Oh, my God!
And it was kind of like that.
It took three-and-a-half hours to make the transformation.
Its a famous trick from drag queens you put three layers on.
And the first time Elaine tried it, she wasn’t happy with it.
I thought it was amazing.
And then the other thing was the shape of her lips.
The shape of her lips wasreally, reallyimportant.
It was like watching a magic act.
And then once the wig went on, then we all just screamed.
You have to see her!
So I think it was really a gift to all of us.
of your portion being “Vitameatavegamin.”
How do you describe it?
Complete terror at first because I only had a week to prepare.
And those scenes arent just little nods to the original.
Theyre basically a shot-for-shot recreation.
That was the thing, is that every department was committed to replicating it as well as we could.
In fact, the bottle that I’m holding in that scene is the actual bottle that Lucy used.
Yeah, the same bottle.
And we can break it up into sections.
And I was like, Absolutely not.
We are going straight through the seven minutes.
And it ended up that I think they used my first take.
If thats the first take in the episode, you nailed it.
Thank you so much.
I think we only did two.
No, that was the same company!
The attention to detail in this is blowing me away.
It blew us away.
I mean, people were crying from just seeing it come to life.
The living room set that was the furniture from the show!
And then they replicated the dimensions on the stage in proportion to the space we had.
I cant imagine how special that was for her to not just be there but beinthe episode.
It’s been a long time.
And everyone in the room started to cry.
She said, This is unbelievable.
I know that this has been a lifelong dream of yours.
And I’m so glad that we were able to make this happen.
And she said, And you look absolutely incredible.
And everyone broke down for crying.
