I Love Lucy… The Seasons

This week’s blog will cover the six seasons of I Love Lucy, including some of the complications and guest stars. Let’s begin shall we…

Season 1:

The 35 episodes of season one are used as an introduction to the TV series. About ten of these episodes involve Lucy trying to get into Ricky’s shows, while the rest develop the friendship between the Ricardos and the Mertzes as well as how each of the characters feels about their spouses. At this point, Ricky is playing the struggling musician, Lucy the ambitious housewife, and Fred and Ethel their, also ambitious, landlords and best friends.

My two favourite episodes (cause I just can’t choose one) are “The Gossip” and “Pioneer Women”. As an East Indian girl, gossiping is definitely something I can relate to :p However the way the plot comes to a complete and surprising- the first time you watch it- end, and Lucy’s silent display of gossip that anyone, regardless of age or language, can enjoy are also some of the best parts of “The Gossip”. “Pioneer Women”, on the other hand, displays a time that people who we consider ‘old school’, considered old school; in other words, the Ricardos and Mertzes made a bet forcing them to live as if it were the 1890’s.. “the gay 90’s”, they called it. This episode also has a clever ending, and it’s just a hilarious way to see how people, of a time we don’t even think about, actually lived.

Here’s a video of some funny moments of season 1:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0Kcq1K-51M

Season 2:

Season two, the season of controversy. In 1952 Lucy was pregnant with her second child; something that might not be considered an issue today, but back then an actress could be fired for getting pregnant before her contract expired. Lucy overcame this, and many of the 31 episodes of season two revolved around her pregnancy- a word that was not allowed to be said on television. Instead, Lucy was ‘having a baby’, or it was ‘her condition’, the word pregnant was never used once throughout the entire show.

The episode I like best is “Ricky loses his voice”, an episode before the pregnancy. This is an episode where Lucy takes over one of Ricky’s shows as he is bed ridden, and his boss is out of town; of course neither Ricky nor his boss know about it. Lucy, Fred, and Ethel put together a 20s act. Fred and Ethel sing “Carolina in the Morning”, and Lucy surprises Ricky playing the ukulele and singing “Has anybody seen my gal”, and they finish it off with a Charleston dance. Once again, I love when they go back in time to an era that we rarely see on television anymore.

Funny lines of season 2:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjlxQ1Y5iZ0

Season 3:

The episodes of season three had no particular theme to them, but there was a huge controversy behind the scenes as Lucille Ball was accused of being a communist. Her party affiliation was listed as communist in the late 30s, but she had never voted red, or had been a part of the communist party. The newspapers were covered with Lucille Ball being listed as red in 1953, and I Love Lucy was on the rocks. Before one of their episodes Desi Arnaz addressed the I Love Lucy studio audience saying something along the lines of.. Lucy is not, and has never been a Communist. In fact the only thing red about her is her hair, and even that isn’t legitimate (she used a ton of henna rinse haahaha) (Lucille Ball: Finding Lucy). As she made her appearance, the audience erupted in applause just as they always had; everyone loved Lucy, and they always would.

The episode I like best has to be “Lucy has her Eyes Examined”. I’m kinda just realizing this myself now, but I really love episodes where they reflect the decades before the 50s. So in this episode not only is there endless humour, but Ricky lets his friend William Parker, a Broadway producer, put on a 1920’s show at his nightclub. Lucy does the jitterbug, or tries to considering what happens to her eyes, with a funky guy named King Cat Walsch, and Fred and Ethel perform the Varsity drag.. a performance me and my brother (my brother and I, but this is my casual blog tehe) do for fun lool.

This is a hilarious clip where Ricky sets Lucy up by having men hide in the closet before he gets home.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQVH_MVN8mI

Season 4:

Season four begins the Ricardos transition to Hollywood. Ricky gets called to sign a contract with MGM, and most of the fourth season revolves around their preparation for the trip, their travels across America by car, and Lucy’s terrible antics in Hollywood. There are many well known actors that make guest appearances throughout the season…

William Holden gets a pie in the face, Hedda Hopper causes Lucy and Ricky to jump in the pool with their clothes on, Cornel Wilde has Lucy break into his room, Rock Hudson plays a joke on the girls, Lucy BEGS Van Johnson to act like he knows her to impress a friend she lied to, Harpo Marx and Lucy perform the famous mirror scene, Lucy breaks into Richard Widmark’s home, and she and Ethel steal then break John Wayne’s footprints from the front of Grauman’s theatre. The general concept is that something goes wrong whenever Lucy encounters a movie star, and it’s pretty darn funny.

I sorta love all the episodes of this season, but “Dancing Star” is one of the best. Lucy sends letters to her friends in New York telling them how she hobnobs with all sorts of celebrities, until one of her friends shows up in LA. Lucy and Ethel pull all kinds of stunts to prove to their friend that they’re part of the elite Hollywood society. Lucy ends up putting on a performance with Van Johnson when his partner gets sick, and I just think it’s so FAB cause you can really see the talented superstar Lucy really was.

Ethel’s best dialogue is while she’s on the phone trying to get Lucy out of Richard Widmark’s house:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvH8p9X_ZsE

Season 5:

Season five finishes off the trip to Hollywood and begins Ricky’s tour of Europe. The writers decided on this trip for the fifth season because it was around 1955 that travelling became affordable for the middle class, the class that the Ricardos represented. So now that Ricky’s a big movie star he gets to go on a European tour, and Lucy, the star’s wife, gets to cause trouble on another continent. A few of their destinations include London, Italy, Scotland, Switzerland, and Paris. Charles Boyer guest stars in an episode, and Lucy carrying on from Hollywood causes some trouble for, and with him.

Season five has most of my favourite episodes. I mentioned one in an earlier blog “Return Home from Europe”, where Lucy pretend her cheese is a baby, and the two episodes where she needs to get her passport are absolutely hysterical. In “The Passports” Lucy plans to stow away in a seal trunk, and being who she is, she gets stuck in it, and in “Staten Island Ferry” she gets high off Fred’s seasick pills and it’s just a total riot.

This is my absolute favourite moment of the entire series!! Ricky comes home to find Lucy’s childhood doctor (there to sign an affidavit) and Lucy trapped in a trunk singing together:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96xWLF2lEFg

Season 6:

1957, the year of the suburban movement; the Ricardos, and folks watching at home began their switch over to the country.  Before the move, however, Bob Hope and Superman make guest appearance on the show. Frank Nelson and Mary Jane Croft also make their first appearance as Ralph and Betty Ramsey,  the Ricardo’s suburban neighbors in “Lucy Gets Chummy With the Neighbors”.  Of course the Mertzes make appearances in all the country episodes leading up to “Lucy Raises Chickens” where they finally move into the guest house, making the Ricardo’s the landlords of their old landlords.

I gotta say it’s difficult to choose, but I think “Lucy Gets Chummy With the Neighbors” is one of the funniest, and most well put together episodes. It has a brilliant plot, and ending, and overall is one of the funniest episodes of all. What happens is Betty Ramsey convinces Lucy to redecorate their house, so Lucy convinces Ricky to let her spend $500 dollars on furniture, cause that’s all he can afford. Lucy ends up spending over $3000 dollars, and well, it lead to a series of arguments, and fist fights- including one between Little Ricky and the neighbor’s son.

A scene from the very last episode of I Love Lucy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEBNfrEHuN8

That’s it, my review of the six splendid seasons of I Love Lucy; you can comment below about which season you think sounds best if you’d like..

thanks for reading mes amis 🙂