I Love Lucy – The most popular 1950’s sitcom

by Erika Cox

I Love Lucy was the most popular television sitcom during the 1950’s and still is shown in reruns today, making it one of the most popular sitcoms ever. The show was rated as the number #2 show out of the top 50 greatest television shows of all time.

The show aired in October 1951 until May 1957 and filmed at the Desilu studios, which was owned by both Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. The show featured Lucy Ricardo (Lucille Ball), the doting but sometimes over ambitious wife with a sense of naivety. Her husband Ricky Ricardo (Desi Arnaz) was a loving and hard working singer and bandleader.

They lived next door in an apartment building to their friends and neighbors Fred and Ethel Mertz (William Frawley and Vivian Vance). The couple’s real life son, Dezi Arnaz, Jr would also appear on the show.

The show was based on a radio show that Lucille Ball and Richard Denning starred in called My Favorite Husband, and although Denning was enthusiastic to play the part as the husband in the television show, Ball wanted her real life husband to play the part. Yet, there was concern that the public would not accept a mixed marriage since Arnaz was Cuban, but Ball, a determined and head strong women, was not about to let that get in the way.

She and Arnaz put together a musical and comedy act performing across the country to see if the public would accept the mixed marriage act, they did, and the producers went ahead and added Arnaz to the TV show. However, they did not put his name in the title but chose to name the show I Love Lucy, with the “I” in place of Ricky.

The show centered on Lucy’s often unsuccessful attempts at a show business career or other adventures. She would often get Ethel involved with her hilarious schemes, all the while trying to hide everything from Ricky, which would fall apart in the end.

Although, everyone would try to discourage Lucy from engaging in her futile attempts, she ignored them and with sheer determination tried almost anything to achieve what she set her mind on. Lucy’s hilarious and bizarre ideas is what made the show a success and extremely funny; performing comical stunts, getting in unusual binds and eventually needing her husband or friends to bail her out, she had audiences laughing throughout the entire show.

Strictly a housewife, Lucy tired of this obligation and longed to get attention, many times at the club her husband played. Even though she could not sing or play an instrument she was determined to become a star, oftentimes resulting in hilariously embarrassing moments. The show was very innovative in its approach to filming the scenes.

The tape ran from start to finish without any interruptions and with rare retakes. If the cast made a mistake it was usually included in the script as intentional mistakes by the actors. That concept added to the show’s humor and made it more like a “live” show because it would be obvious the actors made a mistake.

The show was extremely popular and on January 19, 1953 that popularity increased when more than 65 percent of Americans tuned in to watch Lucy give birth. After that, Ball and Arnaz were given an extended contract and the show continued until 1955.

Some of the favorite episodes included Lucy the Clown (known as Lucille McGillicuddy), Lucy’s numerous attempts to become a performer, the funny twist her, is that Lucille Ball was a highly talented actress who could sing, dance and play a number of instruments.

The Mirror Gag episode was about Lucy dressing up as Harpo Marx and actually met the real Harp Marx. And one of the most popular and memorable episodes was the Vitameatavegemin episode, where Lucy does a commercial for a so-called vitamin drink that has a number of ingredients that make up the unusual and hard to pronounce name, but also has a generous amount of alcohol in it as well.

Throughout the commercial, Lucy becomes more and more intoxicated adding more humor to the the already hilarious scene with her trying to pronounce the drink while intoxicated. After the end of the regular weekly show, the actors got together for a monthly one-hour special called The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour.

I Love Lucy is one of the funniest shows of all time. Ball was a very talented actress and her exceptional talent and flair for comedy, along with the supporting actors on the show, made the show a huge success and one of the most memorable and popular sitcoms of all time.

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