He’s eccentric, kind of a nutball, and even his close friends admit that a little Stu Shostak goes a long way.
But Stu’s enthusiasm for the Golden Age of TV and his high energy way of telling stories about his personal experiences within it are infectious.
STU’S SHOW, a doc chronicling the relationship between legendary actress Lucille Ball and the titular TV historian is a fun glimpse back to a different time.
Shostak has rooms full of archives – rare films, some of which he rescued from dumpsters, of classic TV shows – he’s like a cross between a super fan and a librarian. He takes it very seriously, but never stops being giddy about his own journey.
He got his start handing out tickets to Norman Lear sitcom tapings to people in Hollywood. It’s not exactly a glamorous job, trying to entice people to come sit for several hours to watch a half hour sitcom get taped (“before a live studio audience”). He eventually found a way to become part of the shows as an audience warm-up guy prior to tapings for shows such as “All in the Family” and “One Day at a Time”.
But it was his unlikely friendship with TV legend Lucille Ball that makes for the most interesting part of the film. Shostak’s take is that, yeah, she was tough and had no time for bullshit, but she was also usually the smartest person in the room at any given time. And, at least to him, she was kind, generous and even helped him get two speaking lines on an episode of Life with Lucy, her 4th and final sitcom before her death.
Ball was asked to hold Q&A’s at a Los Angeles based College which provides a window of opportunity that alters the course of Stu’s life. Shostak’s encyclopedic knowledge of Ball’s career earns his way into becoming an essential part of her small inner circle as her archivist and assistant to her husband Gary Morton.
After Ball passes away, Shostak pioneers what we know now as “podcasting”, hosting internet shows interviewing celebrity cast and crew of the golden age of television. He also co-produces the widely successful LOVING LUCY conventions which welcomed prior cast, crew and super fans from around the world to come together for a few days to celebrate their love of I Love Lucy.
At one of these Loving Lucy conventions Stu meets Jeanine Kasun, a music teacher and Lucy super-fan, who noticed Shostak hosting game shows, events and trivia contests.
They seem to be made for each other and they spend hours on the phone, dating and then, basically living as common-law spouses.
Jeanine suffered a brain aneurysm and the two, alongside the legends of television, entered into a war with the medical industry to keep her alive.
And that last paragraph represents a big shift in the narrative that is jarring and not cinematic. We are terribly sorry that Jeanine has had a medical emergency, but as there is no footage to support the story, we are left mostly with Shostak recounting this maddening period in his high pitched voice…for a long, long chunk of the final third of the film.
Your heart goes out to the couple as Stu relates how crazily incompetent the medical profession was in their case. But it just stops the film’s momentum cold in its tracks.
But as someone used to say, “all’s well that ends well,” and the story of Stu and Jeanine brings the films conclusion back to where it began: with footage from their wedding and a look at their guests, who included Dick Van Dyke, Ed Asner, Tony Dow and many, many more.
The TV nerd in me enjoyed the behind the scenes stories of Stu.
STU’S SHOW will be available on major digital platforms May 2. | Directed by C.J. Walls | Margrette Bird Pictures
