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I Love Lucy
I Love Lucy logo
Format	Sitcom
Created by	Desi Arnaz
Starring	Lucille Ball Desi Arnaz Vivian Vance William Frawley Richard Keith
Country of origin	United States
No. of episodes	181 (including the "lost" Christmas episode and original pilot) 13 Lucy-Desi Comedy Hours
Production
Running time	30 minutes per episode
Broadcast
Original channel	CBS
Original run	October 15, 1951 – May 6, 1957
External links
IMDb profile

I Love Lucy is an American television situation comedy, starring Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Vivian Vance and William Frawley. The series originally ran from October 15, 1951, to May 6, 1957, on CBS (181 episodes, including the "lost" Christmas episode and original pilot). Then, the show introduced three more seasons of a total of 13 one-hour specials, running from 1957 to 1960, known first as The Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show and later in reruns called The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour. I Love Lucy won five Emmy Awards and received numerous nominations. In 2002, it was ranked #2 on TV Guide's top-50 greatest shows, behind Seinfeld and ahead of The Honeymooners^[1]. In 2007, it was placed on Time magazine's unranked list of the 100 best TV shows.^[2] Also in 2007, the Washington Post named "I Love Lucy" as the second best TV Rerun, attesting to its longevity and sustained popularity.[1]

I Love Lucy was the most-watched show in the United States in four of its six seasons, and was the first to end its run at the top of the ratings (to be matched only by The Andy Griffith Show and Seinfeld), although it did not have a formal series finale episode. Episodes of I Love Lucy are still syndicated in dozens of languages across the world.

Contents 1 Premise 2 Cast 2.1 Regular cast 2.2 Supporting cast 2.3 Primary production team 3 Radio 4 Casting 5 Production 6 Pregnancy and Little Ricky 7 Episodes 8 Feature films 9 After Lucy 10 The "I Love Lucy" lyrics 11 Nielsen Ratings 12 Emmy Awards 12.1 Wins 12.2 Nominations 12.2.1 I Love Lucy 12.2.2 Lucille Ball 12.2.3 Vivian Vance 12.2.4 William Frawley 13 Honors 14 DVD Releases 14.1 Other releases 15 Footnotes 16 References 17 External links

Set mostly in New York City, I Love Lucy is centered around housewife Lucy Ricardo (Lucille Ball), and her singer/bandleader husband Ricky Ricardo (Desi Arnaz), along with their friends and landlords Fred Mertz (William Frawley) and Ethel Mertz (Vivian Vance). In later seasons, Lucy and Ricky had a son named Little Ricky.

Lucy is somewhat naïve and ambitious, with an overactive imagination and a knack for getting herself into trouble. Primarily she is obsessed with joining her husband in show business. Fred and Ethel are former vaudevillians and this only strengthens her resolve to prove herself as a performer. Unfortunately, she cannot carry a tune or play anything other than an off-key rendition of "Glow Worm" (or "Sweet Sue") on the saxophone and has little other discernible ability. The show provided Ball ample opportunity to display her considerable skill at clowning and physical comedy, with Lucy's determination to get into the act in any way possible, resulting in numerous wacky situations. Character development was not a major focus of early sitcoms, so not much was ever learned about her life prior to the show. A few episodes mentioned that she was born in Jamestown, New York, (later corrected to West Jamestown), and that she met Ricky on a blind date. Besides occasional appearances by her mother (Kathryn Card), who annoyed Ricky to no end by constantly mispronouncing his name as "Mickey" and mistaking him for fellow bandleader Xavier Cugat, hardly any mention was ever made of any other family members.

Lucy's husband, Ricky Ricardo (the character initially was named Larry Lopez), is an up-and-coming Cuban American singer and bandleader with an excitable personality. His patience is frequently tested, sometimes to the breaking point, by his wife's antics. When exasperated, he often reverts to speaking rapidly in Spanish. As with Lucy, not much was ever learned about his past or family. Ricky's mother appeared in two episodes and in another Lucy mentioned that he had five brothers. He also mentioned that he'd been "practically raised" by his uncle Alberto (who was seen during a family visit to Cuba) and that he'd attended Havana University.

Lucy's best friend, confidant and accomplice in her crazy schemes is Ethel Mertz. A former model from Albuquerque, New Mexico, Ethel tries to relive her glory days in vaudeville. She usually gets more chances to perform at Ricky's nightclub, because, unlike Lucy, she can actually sing and dance. Ethel, although she is Lucy's ally, often tries to reason with her, providing common sense advice.

Ethel's husband Fred served in World War I and lived through the Great Depression. He is very stingy with money and a very no-nonsense type of guy. However, he also shows that he can be a soft touch, especially when it comes to Little Ricky, the Ricardo's son. Fred performed in vaudeville, so like his wife Ethel, he can also sing and dance. Fred's close friendship with Ricky allows for the opportunity for Battle of the sexes episodes. Lucy and Ricky often play tricks on each other. ie. When Lucy tricked Ricky into thinking she was a compulsive thief; or when Ricky tricked Lucy into thinking she was not legally married to him, based on a mistake in their license. Although they may disagree at times, and despite their age differences (not only the Mertzes' and Arnazes', but Lucy and Desi's, with Lucy six years Desi's senior), the four main characters are very close and loving.

The Manhattan building they all lived in before their move to Connecticut was addressed at 623 E. 68th Street, which in reality would be located in the middle of the East River.

• Lucille Ball as Lucille "Lucy" Esmeralda McGillicuddy Ricardo (in "The Marriage License" and "Fred and Ethel Fight")
• Desi Arnaz as Enrique 'Ricky' Alberto Ricardo y de Acha III (in "Lucy Raises Tulips")^[3]
• Vivian Vance as Ethel Potter (maiden name), Ethel Roberta Mertz (in "Million Dollar Idea"), Ethel Louise Mertz (in "Lucy and Ethel Buy the Same Dress), Ethel Mae Mertz in ("Ethel's Hometown" and subsequent episodes)
• William Frawley as Frederick 'Fred' Hobart Mertz^[3]
• Keith Thibodeaux (billed as Richard Keith) as Ricky Ricardo, Jr., "Little Ricky" (1956-1957)

• Kathryn Card as Mrs. McGillicuddy, Lucy's mother (1955–1956) (also earlier appearance as "Minnie Finch" in 1954)
• Mary Jane Croft as Betty Ramsey (1957) (earlier appearances in various roles)
• Ross Elliot in various roles
• Jerry Hausner as Jerry, Ricky's agent (1951–1954) (also the show's announcer in early seasons)
• Bob Jellison as Bobby, the Hollywood bellboy (1955) (earlier appearances in various roles)
• Doris Singleton as Caroline Appleby (1953–1957) (earlier appearance as Lillian Appleby and various other roles)
• Shirley Mitchell as Marion Strong (1953–1954)
• Frank Nelson as Ralph Ramsey (1957) (many earlier appearances in various roles, including Freddie Filmore, a game show host)
• Elizabeth Patterson as Mrs. Matilda Trumbull (1953–1956) (earlier appearance as "Mrs. Willoughby" in 1952)
• Joseph A. and Michael Mayer as Ricky Ricardo, Jr. (baby) (1953–1954)
• Richard and Ronald Lee Simmons as Ricky Ricardo, Jr. (baby) (1954–1955)

Lucille Ball liked naming supporting characters after real-life people. For instance, Carolyn Appleby had been one of her teachers, and Marion Strong was a friend in Jamestown, New York.

Many character actors were featured numerous times on the show. Actress Barbara Pepper (later featured as Doris Ziffel on the series Green Acres), frequently had one or two lines in a crowd scene. Her friendship with Ball dated back to the film Roman Scandals, in which both appeared as Goldwyn Girls.

• Producers ..... Jess Oppenheimer (150 episodes); Desi Arnaz (150 episodes)
• Writers .... Madelyn Pugh Davis, Bob Carroll, Jr
• Original Music ..... Wilbur Hatch (33 episodes, 1951-54); Eliot Daniel (135 episodes, 1952-57)
• Cinematography ..... Karl Freund (149 episodes, 1951-56)
• Costume Design ..... Elois Jenssen (57 episodes, 1953-55)

(When Desi was 33 CBS asked Lucy to take her popular radio show to television, but Lucy insisted that the man playing the role of husband be her own husband, who had been on the road as a bandleader touring, and away from Lucy for months at a time. When CBS refused because he was foreign-born, Lucy decided to create a television series of her own to bring her husband back home, and "I Love Lucy" was brought to television.) I Love Lucy was somewhat similar to My Favorite Husband, a 1948-51 CBS comedy radio series in which Lucille Ball (as zany housewife Liz Cooper) starred with Richard Denning. Some of the My Favorite Husband scripts were rewritten as TV scripts for I Love Lucy by the same writers, Madelyn Pugh and Bob Carroll, Jr.. Based on the novel Mr. and Mrs. Cugat by Isabel Scott Rorick, My Favorite Husband was broadcast from July 23, 1948 to March 31, 1951, sponsored by General Foods.

On February 27, 1952, an I Love Lucy radio show was produced, but it never aired. This was a pilot episode, created by editing the soundtrack of a television episode with added Arnaz narration. It included commercials for Philip Morris, which sponsored the TV series.

Gale Gordon and Bea Benaderet, supporting cast members on My Favorite Husband, were originally approached for the roles of Fred and Ethel, but neither could accept due to previous commitments. Gordon did appear as a guest star in two episodes, playing Ricky's boss, Mr. Littlefield. Gordon was a veteran from the classic radio days in which he perfected the role of the exasperated character, as in Fibber McGee and Molly. He would go on to co-star with Ball in most of her post–I Love Lucy series. Benaderet once guest-starred as the Ricardos' neighbor, the elderly Miss Lewis.

Barbara Pepper was originally chosen to play Ethel, but Pepper had been drinking very heavily after the death of her husband, Craig W. Reynolds. She turned up regularly in bit parts.

At the time, most television shows were broadcast live from New York City, and a low-quality 35mm or 16mm kinescope print was made of the show to broadcast it in other time zones. But Ball was pregnant at the time, and she and Arnaz therefore insisted on filming the show in Hollywood. The duo, along with co-creator Jess Oppenheimer, then decided to shoot the show on 35 mm film in front of a studio audience, with three cameras, a technique now standard for most present-day sitcoms. The result was a much sharper image than other shows of the time, and the audience reactions were far more authentic than the "canned laughter" used on most filmed sitcoms of the time. The technique was not completely new — another CBS comedy series, Amos 'n' Andy, which debuted four months earlier, was already being filmed at Hal Roach Studios with three 35mm cameras to save time and money. But I Love Lucy was the first show to use this technique with a studio audience.

Arnaz persuaded Karl Freund, cinematographer of such films as Metropolis (1927), Dracula (1931), and The Good Earth (1937), as well as director of The Mummy (1932), to be the series' cinematographer.

Scenes were often performed in sequence, as a play would be, which was unusual for comedies at that time. Retakes were rare and dialogue mistakes were often played off for the sake of continuity.

Desilu, the company jointly owned by Ball and Arnaz, produced I Love Lucy as well as other shows. It rented space at General Service Studios in Hollywood from 1951 to 1954, when it bought the Motion Picture Center, also in Hollywood, and renamed it Desilu Studios.

Many real-life facts about Arnaz and Ball made it into the series. Like Ball, Lucy Ricardo was born on August 6 in Jamestown, New York, and attended high school in Celoron, New York. Also, the Ricardos were married at the Byram River Beagle Club in Greenwich, Connecticut, just as the Arnazes had been.

The opening familiar to most viewers, featuring the credits superimposed over a "heart on satin" image, was created specifically for syndication. As originally broadcast, the episodes opened with animated matchstick figures of Arnaz and Ball making reference to whomever the particular episode's sponsor was. These sequences were created by the animation team of Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera, who declined screen credit because they were technically under exclusive contract to MGM at the time.

The original sponsor was cigarette maker Philip Morris, so the program opened with a cartoon of Lucy and Ricky climbing down a pack of Philip Morris cigarettes. In the early episodes, Lucy and Ricky, as well as Ethel and Fred on occasion, were shown smoking Phillip Morris cigarettes. Since the original sponsor references were no longer appropriate when the shows went into syndication, a new opening was needed, which resulted in the classic heart on satin opening. The original openings, with the sponsor names edited out, are now used on TV Land showings, with a TV Land logo superimposed to obscure the original sponsor's logo. Ironically, this has led some people to believe that the restored introduction was created specifically for TV Land as an example of kitsch.

Just before filming the show, Lucy became pregnant with her and Desi's first child, Lucie Arnaz. They actually filmed the original pilot while Lucy was "showing", but did not include any references to the pregnancy in the episode.

Later, during the second season, Lucy was pregnant again with second child Desi Arnaz, Jr., and this time the pregnancy was incorporated into the series' storyline. Despite popular belief, Lucy's pregnancy was not television's first on-screen pregnancy. That distinction belongs to Mary Kay on the late 1940s sitcom, Mary Kay and Johnny.

In this era, saying "pregnant" or "pregnancy" on the air was prohibited, so Lucy was always described as "expecting" (or "'spectin'" in Ricky's case). The episode "Lucy Is Enceinte" aired on December 8, 1952 ("enceinte" being Spanish for "expecting" or "pregnant"). The episode "Lucy Goes to the Hospital" first aired on January 19, 1953, the same day Lucille Ball gave birth to Desi, Jr. It was watched by more people than any other TV program up to that time, with 68% of all American television sets tuned in. [[2]].

It has sometimes been incorrectly stated^{[citation needed]} that once Little Ricky was born, the writers rapidly aged the child to fit story plot lines, a device that has been used on many other television shows.^{[citation needed]} In reality, Little Ricky was one of the few child characters allowed to grow up in real time. America saw Little Ricky as an infant in the 1952-53 season, a toddler from 1953 to 1956, and finally a young school-age boy from 1956 to 1960. However, five actors played the role, two sets of twins and later Keith Thibodeaux.

Main article: List of I Love Lucy episodes

Most episodes take place in the Ricardos' modest brownstone apartment at 623 East 68th Street or at the downtown "Tropicana" nightclub where Ricky is employed, though other parts of the city are sometimes used. Later episodes take the Ricardos and the Mertzes to Hollywood for Ricky to shoot a movie, and to Europe, when Ricky and his band tour the continent. There is also a trip to Miami Beach for the two couples, with a side trip to Ricky's homeland of Cuba. Eventually, the quartet move to a house in the town of Westport, Connecticut.

Some especially memorable episodes:

• "Lucy Does a TV Commercial". Lucy is hired to act as the "Vitameatavegamin girl" in a TV commercial, to promote a health tonic that contains healthy amounts of vitamins, meat, vegetables, minerals — and a less-than-healthy dose of 23% alcohol. After four rehearsals of saying "It's so tasty too, just like candy!" and then drinking the foul-tasting tonic while trying unsuccessfully not to grimace, Lucy becomes progressively more drunk, but gamely keeps on pitching the product. Eventually, the alliterative, tongue-twisting product name and pitch become too hard for her to keep straight. "Do you pop out at parties? Are you unpoopular? Well, the answer to all your troubles is in this bittle lottle!" The three variations of "Vitameatavegamin" were "Mitameatamigimin," "Mitavatameatymat," and "Vitaveatyvigyvat". In November of 2001, fans voted this episode as their favorite, during a 50th anniversary I Love Lucy television special.

• "Job Switching". Lucy and Ethel get jobs packaging candy that is delivered on a conveyor belt. The work seems easy enough when they are shown what to do by their supervisor, but then the pace picks up and the women soon fall further and further behind. In desperation, they resort to comical means to try to keep up. The classic candy-gobbling scene in this episode was a variation on an old vaudeville routine and has become an American cultural icon. This skit has been parodied numerous times. On Saturday Night Live, Dan Aykroyd played the foreman, while Gilda Radner had to deal with atomic bombs rather than candy. On Bewitched, Uncle Arthur and Serena are stripped of their magical powers and reduced to working in an ice cream shop, dipping chocolate covered bananas. Finally, more recently on the Nickelodeon sitcom Drake & Josh, Drake and Josh get jobs packing sushi to earn money to buy their parents new furniture. The sushi company is called Ball And Vance Fish Co., after Lucille Ball and Vivian Vance.

• "Lucy and Superman". Among the many guest stars was George Reeves, star of the 1950s Adventures of Superman TV series. His real name is never mentioned on the show; instead, he is always referred to as Superman. Lucy tries to get him to appear at little Ricky's birthday party and fails, so she dresses up as Superman herself, only to have Reeves turn up in costume at the last minute. After many Lucy-caused misadventures, Reeves is informed by Ricky that he has been married to Lucy for 15 years, to which Reeves replies, "And they call ME Superman!"

• "L.A. At Last". Lucy, Fred, and Ethel have lunch at The Brown Derby, where Lucy accidentally causes a waiter to heave a pie in William Holden's face. Later at the hotel, Ricky has a surprise for her. He has brought one of her favorite actors to meet her — none other than William Holden. Fearing that the actor will recognize her, she puts on a disguise that includes a putty nose. When she lights a cigarette, she accidentally sets her fake nose on fire.

• "Lucy and Harpo Marx". While living in Hollywood, New York friend Carolyn Appleby, who is under the impression that Lucy and Ethel have been rubbing elbows with all the celebrities, visits the Ricardos and Mertzes on her way to Hawaii. Lucy and Ethel manage to get Carolyn's glasses off and Lucy enters and exits the room many times dressed as different celebrities. Meanwhile, Ricky and Fred ask Harpo Marx to go up to the Ricardo's apartment and pay a visit to Carolyn. After Harpo has come into the Ricardo's place, Lucy, disguised as him, encounters the real Harpo and hides in a kitchen doorway. Harpo is perplexed when he sees what he thinks is his reflection, forcing Lucy to mimic his every move to avoid detection. This bit was a tribute to Harpo and Groucho's famous mirror scene in the Marx Brothers comedy classic, Duck Soup.^[4]

• "Lucy Does the Tango". The Ricardos and the Mertzes move to Connecticut, but their chicken business does not do very well. Lucy and Ethel come up with a scheme to fool the boys into thinking the hens are laying lots of eggs by smuggling some, hidden underneath their clothes, into the henhouse. On one such trip, Ricky insists that he and Lucy rehearse their tango number for a local benefit. Unbeknownst to Ricky, Lucy's blouse is filled with chicken eggs. In the final dance step, the eggs break, saturating Lucy's shirt. She tries to act nonchalant. The skit resulted in the longest audience laughter in the show's history, 65 seconds.

Arnaz and Ball capitalized on the series' popularity by starring in Vincente Minnelli's 1954 film The Long, Long Trailer as Tacy and Nicky Collini, two characters very similar to Lucy and Ricky.

Desilu produced a feature film version of the show in 1953. The film consisted of three first-season episodes edited together: "The Benefit", "Breaking the Lease" and "The Ballet". New scenes featuring the cast were filmed and put between the episodes to tie them into one cohesive story. A successful test screening was held in Bakersfield, California; however, MGM demanded the I Love Lucy movie be shelved because they felt it would diminish interest in the The Long, Long Trailer. Although I Love Lucy was never theatrically released and ultimately forgotten, in 2001, it was found and clips of it were featured in the I Love Lucy's 50th Anniversary Special. A screening was held in 2002 at a Lucy fan convention.

In 1956 Lucy and Desi starred in the feature film Forever, Darling with James Mason. With the tandem success of I Love Lucy on TV and Henry Fonda in Mister Roberts (on both Broadway and in films), RKO distributed a 1956 theatrical re-release of The Big Street which Ball and Fonda had made for RKO in 1942.

After the conclusion of the sixth season of I Love Lucy, Lucy and Desi decided to cut down on the number of episodes that were filmed. So, instead of the usual 30 minutes, they extended I Love Lucy to 60 minutes, with a guest star each episode. This did not run every week, it ran five times the first and second seasons and three in the final season. The main cast, Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Vivian Vance, and William Frawley were all in the show, which was renamed The Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show and later changed for syndication to The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour. Thirteen hour-long episodes aired from 1957 to 1960. Ball and Arnaz's eventual off-screen personal problems had a detrimental effect, contributing to the show's end. This affected the series' final episodes; Ball can be seen looking as if she had just been crying, even in supposedly funny scenes. On March 2, Desi's birthday, 1960, the day after the last hour-long episode was filmed, Lucille Ball filed for divorce from Desi Arnaz. For the rest of Desi's life, he had flowers sent to Lucy on their wedding anniversary, although she remarried in 1960. The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour is available on DVD, released as I Love Lucy: The Final Seasons 7, 8, & 9.

When the series ended, Vance and Frawley were said to have been offered a chance to take their characters to their own spin-off series. Frawley was willing, but Vance refused to ever work with Frawley again since the two did not get along. Frawley did appear once more with Lucille Ball--in an episode of The Lucy Show that was filmed after Vance had retired from that series (Vance co-starred on The Lucy Show during the first three seasons, 1962-1965, and Frawley made his single guest appearance during the fourth season). In that episode, he appeared in a brief cameo as a stable attendant who encounters Lucy. As soon as Frawley's character exits the scene, Lucy turns to her friend (played by Ann Sothern) and comments, "You know, he reminds me of someone I used to know." to audience laughter. This 1965 cameo turned out to be his final television appearance; he died about four months after it aired.

In 1962, Ball began a six-year run with The Lucy Show, followed immediately in 1968 by six more years on yet another sitcom, Here's Lucy, finally ending her long run as a CBS sitcom star in 1974. Both The Lucy Show and Here's Lucy are notable for having Vance as recurring characters named Viv (Vivian Bagley Bunson on The Lucy Show and Vivian Jones on Here's Lucy), so named because she was tired of being recognized on the street and addressed as Ethel. Vance was a regular during the first three seasons of The Lucy Show but continued to make guest appearances through the years on The Lucy Show, and on Here's Lucy. In 1977, Vance and Ball were reunited one last time in the CBS special, Lucy Calls the President, which co-starred Gale Gordon.

In 1986, Ball tried another sitcom, Life with Lucy. The series aired on ABC for eight episodes before being cancelled due to low ratings. Oddly enough, the show debuted to very high ratings, landing in Nielson's Top 20 for that week.

I Love Lucy has remained perennially popular. For instance, it was one of the first programs made in the USA seen on British television, which became more open to commerce with the launch of ITV, a commercial network that aired the series, in September 1955. As of July 2007, it remains the longest-running program to air continually in the Los Angeles area, almost 50 years after production ended. Ironically, the series is currently aired on KTTV, which had given up the CBS affiliation several months before I Love Lucy premiered.^{[citation needed]} In the US, reruns have aired nationally on Nick at Nite and TV Land in addition to local channels. This is particularly notable because, unlike some shows to which a cable channel is given exclusive rights to maximize ratings, Lucy has been consistently—and successfully—broadcast on multiple channels simultaneously.

When registering for hotel stays, Jorge Posada used the alias "Ricky Ricardo" to avoid unwanted fan attention [3].

On December 14, 2007, several movie trailers were seen on 90th and 1st Avenue in Manhattan with Lucy, Ricky and other character names on the doors. The day before, a scene was shot in a local supermarket.

This was sung by Ricky in one episode ("Lucy's Last Birthday"), to the "I Love Lucy" theme music. This song can also be heard on the introduction on the VHS and DVD releases:

I love Lucy and she loves me

We're as happy as two can be

Sometimes we quarrel, but then

How we love making up again

Lucy kisses like no one can

She's my Mrs. and I'm her man

And life is Heaven, you see

'cause I love Lucy,

Yes, I love Lucy

and Lucy loves me

I Love Lucy consistently ranked very high in the Nielsen Ratings throughout its run.

• 1951-52: #3
• 1952-53: #1
• 1953-54: #1
• 1954-55: #1
• 1955-56: #2
• 1956-57: #1

• Best Situation Comedy, 1953, 1954
• Best Comedienne, Lucille Ball, 1953
• Best Series Supporting Actress, Vivian Vance, 1954
• Best Actress - Continuing Performance, Lucille Ball, 1956

• Best Situation Comedy, 1952
• Best Written Comedy Material: Madelyn Pugh Davis, Jess Oppenheimer, Robert G. Carroll, 1955
• Best Situation Comedy, 1955
• Best Comedy Writing: Bob Carroll Jr., Madelyn Davis, Jess Oppenheimer, Bob Schiller, Bob Weiskopf for the episode "L.A. At Last", 1956

• Best Comedian or Comedienne, 1952
• Most Outstanding Personality, 1953
• Best Female Star of Regular Series, 1954
• Best Actress Starring in a Regular Series, 1955
• Best Comedienne, 1956
• Best Continuing Performance by a Comedienne in a Series, 1957
• Best Continuing Performance (Female) in a Series by a Comedienne, Singer, Hostess, Dancer, M.C., Announcer, Narrator, Panelist, or any Person who Essentially Plays Herself, 1958

• Best Supporting Actress in a Regular Series, 1955
• Best Supporting Performance by an Actress, 1957
• Best Continuing Supporting Performance by an Actress in a Dramatic or Comedy Series, 1958

• Best Series Supporting Actor, 1954
• Best Supporting Actor in a Regular Series, 1955
• Best Actor in a Supporting Role, 1956

• In 1999, Entertainment Weekly ranked the birth of Little Ricky as the fifth greatest moment in TV history.^[5]
• In 2002, TV Guide ranked I Love Lucy #2 on its list of the 50 greatest shows, behind Seinfeld and ahead of The Honeymooners^[1]
• In 2007, Time magazine placed the show on its unranked list of the 100 best TV shows.^[2]

CBS Home Entertainment has released all six seasons of I Love Lucy on DVD in Region 1, as well as all 13 episodes of The Lucy and Desi Comedy Hour (as I Love Lucy: The Final Seasons - 7, 8, & 9). Bonus features include rare on-set color footage, the "Desilu/Westinghouse" promotional film, as well as deleted scenes and on-air flubs.

DVD Name	Ep #	Release Date
The Complete 1st Season	36	June 7th 2004
The Complete 2nd Season	31	August 31st 2004
The Complete 3rd Season	31	February 1st 2005
The Complete 4th Season	30	May 3rd 2005
The Complete 5th Season	26	August 16th 2005
The Complete 6th Season	27	May 2nd 2006
The Final Seasons 7, 8 & 9	13	March 13th 2007
The Complete Series	194	October 23rd 2007

• "I Love Lucy - Season 1" (9 separate discs labeled "Volumes", first volume released July 2, 2002, final volume released September 23, 2003)
• "I Love Lucy - Season 1" (9 Volumes in box set, released September 23, 2003)
• "I Love Lucy - 50th Anniversary Special" (1 disc, released October 1, 2002)

The DVD releases feature the syndicated heart opening, and offer the original broadcast openings as bonus features. Season 6 allows viewers to choose whether to watch the episodes with the original opening or the syndicated opening. The TV Land openings are not on these DVDs.

Initially, the first season was offered in volumes, with four episodes per disc. After the success of releasing seasons 2, 3, and 4 in slimpacks, the first season was re-released as a seven disc set, requiring new discs to be mastered and printed to include more episodes per disc so there would be fewer discs in the set. The individual volume discs for the first season are still in print, but are rare due to lack of shelf space.

Episodes feature English closed-captioning, but only Spanish subtitles.

• Joe Garner, Stay Tuned: Television's Unforgettable Moments (Andrews McMeel Publishing; 2002) ISBN 0-7407-2693-5
• Bart Andrews, The 'I Love Lucy' Book (Doubleday & Company, Inc.; 1976)
• Coyne Steven Sanders & Tom Gilbert, Desilu: The Story of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz (William Morrow & Company, Inc.; 1993)
• Michael McClay, "I Love Lucy: The Complete Picture History of the Most Popular TV Show Ever" (Kensington Publishing Corp., 1995)

• Colorized "I Love Lucy" episode "Lucy Goes To Scotland" commissioned by CBS. 12_2_07 Newsday article
• East 68th Street - Everything "I Love Lucy"
• I Love Lucy at the Internet Movie Database
• I Love Lucy's 50th Anniversary Special at the Internet Movie Database
• The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour at the Internet Movie Database
• Everything Lucy
• Encyclopedia of Television
• Archive of American Television Video Interview with I Love Lucy writers Madelyn Pugh Davis and Bob Carroll, Jr.
• I Love Lucy on TVLand.com
• I Love Lucy retrospective on TVWeek.com

Preceded by The Red Skelton Show

Emmy Award Winner - Outstanding Comedy Series 1953, 1954

Succeeded by Make Room for Daddy