Treasures of "I Love Lucy" acquired by the National Comedy Center

Behind-the-scenes photos that "sat in boxes for years," an early experimental screenplay, and 35mm film prints are part of the collection.

The news comes on the 75th anniversary of I Love Lucy's Monday, October 15, 1951, episode "Girls Want to Go to a Nightclub."

Also among the treasures is a draft of the original script, which represents the first known revisions to the I Love Lucy pilot, when the sitcom was called The Lucille Ball Desi Arnaz Show and the sitcom's main couple was Lucy and Larry Lopez.

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From the personal collection of original series writer Bob Carroll Jr., provided by his daughter Christina Carroll, the script is part of Carroll's broader collection, which includes thousands of essays documenting his partnership with Madelyn Pugh and their decades-long collaboration with Ball, from My Favorite Husband to Living With Lucy.

Pictures of Bal and Arnaz. Pugh, Carol, and Jess Oppenheimer. Karl Freund, cinematographer; and audiences, executives and family who visited the Hollywood set during the CBS series' six seasons through May 1957.

The collection is digitized and preserved in collaboration with Desilu, Too, a company led by Ball and Arnaz's daughter, actress Lucy Arnaz.

"These photos and negatives have been sitting in boxes for years," Arnaz said in a statement. "As with our recent book 'Lucy and Desi - Love Letters,' we're delighted that fans of Lucy and Desi and historians of the early days of television will finally have a chance to see them."

The National Comedy Center plans to present a selection from the collection to the public for the first time next year at the Lucille Ball Desi Arnaz Museum in Ball's hometown of Jamestown, New York.

The Lucy Desi Museum will also feature 75 pieces from the collection in the coming months to mark the anniversary of I Love Lucy on social media, sharing the story behind each object. Artifacts include Ball's "Professor" costume worn on the Lucy and Desi stage tour in 1950. the original I Love Lucy pilot and season one episode "The Audition"; and a blue spotted dress with wings and a straw hat worn by her husband.