I Love Lucy (1951)
Cuban Bandleader Ricky Ricardo would be happy if his wife Lucy would just be a housewife. Instead she tries constantly to perform at the Tropicana where he works, and make life comically frantic in the apartment building they share with landlords Fred and Ethel Mertz, who also happen to be their best friends.
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Episode 1 - Job Switching
Release Date: 1952-09-15Ricky wants Lucy to try working for a week, so she and Ethel get jobs at a candy factory, where they are totally inept-especially at wrapping chocolates-due to a speeding conveyor belt that has them stuffing chocolates in their mouths, blouses, and hats.
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Episode 2 - The Saxophone
Release Date: 1952-09-22When Lucy fails her saxophone audition for Ricky's band, she tries to stop him from going on the road by pretending there's another man in her life. Ricky gets back at her by hiring several "lovers," and hiding them in Lucy's closet. But Lucy gets the last laugh in the end!
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Episode 3 - The Anniversary Present
Release Date: 1952-09-29Lucy thinks that Ricky is pitching woo with a sophisticated neighbor. The woman is actually a jeweler who Ricky has commissioned to fashion a pearl necklace to surprise Lucy with on their anniversary. Lucy takes to spying before the deal can go down and almost loses out on her big surprise.
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Episode 4 - The Handcuffs
Release Date: 1952-10-06After Lucy snaps a pair of antique handcuffs on herself and Ricky, they realize there's no key. A locksmith is found, but not before the Ricardos go to bed handcuffed together, and Ricky has to do a TV show with his "attached" wife trying to upstage him.
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Episode 5 - The Operetta
Release Date: 1952-10-13Lucy's women's club wants to stage an operetta, but they're completely broke. (Lucy, the treasurer, seems to have spent it all to pay her own bills.) Thus, Lucy and Ethel write and star in the musical, but when their postdated check bounces for the costumes and scenery, the rental company repossesses everything in midperformance.
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Episode 6 - Vacation from Marriage
Release Date: 1952-10-27The Ricardos and the Mertzes take a week off from their in-a-rut marriages. But each spouse misses the other too much, and despite a last-ditch attempt to make each other jealous, they all decide that they'd rather be in a rut with their mates.
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Episode 7 - The Courtroom
Release Date: 1952-11-10The Ricardos give the Mertzes a television set for their anniversary, but Ricky's zealous tuning causes it to blow up. Fred retaliates by breaking the Ricardos' set (by kicking it!) The foursome end up in court, where they manage to destroy the judge's TV, too!
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Episode 8 - Redecorating
Release Date: 1952-11-24Waiting to find out if she has won a home furnishing contest, Lucy won't leave the house, much to Ricky's annoyance. He tells Fred to call her and say that she's won. In her joy, Lucy sells all the old furniture, leaving Ricky with the job of buying it back.
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Episode 9 - Ricky Loses His Voice
Release Date: 1952-12-01Ricky's laryngitis makes it impossible for him to perform in a big reopening show for the Tropicana. So Lucy substitutes herself, the ex-vaudivillian Mertzes, and a chorus line of middle-aged showgirls from the Flapper Follies of 1927. Look for Barbara Pepper as one of the showgirls.
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Episode 10 - Lucy is Enceinte
Release Date: 1952-12-08Lucy is delighted to learn she is pregnant-but how to tell Ricky? At lunch, he's too preoccupied with work to listen to her, then it's off to the club-where Lucy finds the right moment and just the right way to tell him.
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Episode 11 - Pregnant Women are Unpredictable
Release Date: 1952-12-15Lucy thinks Ricky cares more about the baby they're having than about her, especially after he buys her presents like bonnets and rattles. But when he takes her out for a night on the town, she thinks he's lost interest in the baby.
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Episode 12 - Lucy's Showbiz Swan Song
Release Date: 1952-12-22Despite her pregnancy, Lucy wants to appear in Ricky's Gay Nineties revue at the Tropicana. After a disastrous audition, Lucy disguises herself and sneaks into the barbershop quartet number, and then proceeds to ruin it.
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Episode 13 - Lucy Hires an English Tutor
Release Date: 1952-12-29Lucy hires an English tutor so that Ricky won't give their yet-to-be-born baby bad speaking habits. The lessons are free, but Lucy does promise the tutor a payback: he'll get to sing at the Tropicana. Of course, Lucy neglects to tell Ricky this.
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Episode 14 - Ricky Has Labor Pains
Release Date: 1953-01-05Ricky develops "labor pains" because he is jealous of the attention being lavished on the expectant Lucy. So she decides to throw him a "daddy shower," which Fred turns into a "stag party," which Lucy and Ethel crash.
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Episode 15 - Lucy Becomes a Sculptress
Release Date: 1953-01-12Lucy decides to explore her artistic side and takes up sculpting.
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Episode 16 - Lucy Goes to the Hospital
Release Date: 1953-01-19Ricky and the Mertzes rehearse for pregnant Lucy's trip to the hospital. It turns out to be predictably chaotic, but Lucy does deliver Little Ricky.
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Episode 17 - Sales Resistance
Release Date: 1953-01-26Convinced his wife is a sucker for a sales pitch, Ricky demands that she return the vacuum cleaner she bought from a door-to-door salesman. Instead, she tries (unsuccessfully) to sell it. Ricky insists that he'll return it-and ends up buying a refrigerator.
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Episode 18 - The Inferiority Complex
Release Date: 1953-02-02When no one laughs at her jokes or wants her to be their bridge partner, Lucy comes to the conclusion that she is inferior to everyone else. Worried by Lucy's behavior, Ricky goes to the psychiatrist (or "fizz-a-key-a-tryst" as Ricky pronounces it,) to find the remedy. But it turns out that this doctor's "remedy" isn't exactly what Ricky had in mind.
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Episode 19 - The Club Election
Release Date: 1953-02-16Because they both want to be president of the Wednesday Afternoon Fine Arts League, Lucy and Ethel both engage in cut-throat competition. Prior to the elections, Lucy and Ethel independently engage in a little "spywork." It seems that half the club plans on voting for Lucy and the other half plans to vote for Ethel. But there is one undecided vote--that of the new member, Ruth Knickerbocker. So Lucy and Ethel both go to extremes to sway Knickerbocker's vote.
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Episode 20 - The Black Eye
Release Date: 1953-03-09Lucy misses catching a book tossed to her by Ricky, and winds up with a black eye that Fred and Ethel are convinced was intentional. Trying to patch things up for the Ricardos, Fred sends Lucy flowers, but inadvertently uses his own name instead of Ricky's.
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Episode 21 - Lucy Changes Her Mind
Release Date: 1953-03-30Whether it's getting dressed or ordering dinner at a restaurant, Lucy seems unable to finish anything without changing her mind. Ricky loses his temper, so Lucy tries to play a trick with an old, unfinished love letter to a beau from high school. Fred warns Ricky of Lucy's plot, and Lucy is soon in over her head.
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Episode 22 - No Children Allowed
Release Date: 1953-04-20When a cranky tenant (Elizabeth Patterson, in her first appearance as Mrs. Trumble,) threatens to move because of Little Ricky's loud crying, Ethel makes it clear that her friendship with Lucy is more important than a rental agreement. But Ethel doesn't let the Ricardos forget her loyalty.
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Episode 23 - Lucy Hires a Maid
Release Date: 1953-04-27Lucy's sleepless nights with the new baby are exhausting, so the Ricardos hire a maid. Unfortunately, this new maid turns out to be a terrible shrew, who takes better care of herself than of Lucy or the apartment. Unable to get the gumption to fire her, Lucy wrecks the apartment, hoping it will make the maid quit.
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Episode 24 - The Indian Show
Release Date: 1953-05-04Even the arrival of the baby hasn't dampened Lucy's showbiz aspirations. Wanting to get into the new Indian act at the Tropicana, Lucy pays off one of the performers and appears herself, carrying Little Ricky papoose-style on her back.
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Episode 25 - Lucy's Last Birthday
Release Date: 1953-05-11Convinced everyone has forgotten her birthday, a forlorn Lucy sits on a park bench and meets up with a group of musical "lost souls." To embarrass Ricky, she brings them to the Tropicana, only to discover that a surprise birthday party awaits her.
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Episode 26 - The Ricardos Change Apartments
Release Date: 1953-05-18Now that they have Little Ricky, Lucy insists they need more room, and wants to change apartments with one of the other tenants (Mrs. Benson.) She convinces a reluctant Ricky by cluttering their apartment with baby things and assorted junk.
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Episode 27 - Lucy is Matchmaker
Release Date: 1953-05-25Lucy plays matchmaker when she meets a friend of the Mertzes (Hal March, as Eddie) who happens to be an eligible bachelor. His line of work? He's a lingerie salesman, a fact that just might get her (and Ethel) into trouble when her matchmaking efforts inevitably backfire.
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Episode 28 - Lucy Wants New Furniture
Release Date: 1953-06-01Lucy tries to hide some new furniture she bought without Ricky's permission in the kitchen. Discovering his wife's extravagant purchase, Ricky insists that Lucy pays for it from her allowance.
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Episode 29 - The Camping Trip
Release Date: 1953-06-08Lucy fears that she and Ricky don't have enough in common, so she decides to pursue one of his interests: camping. Ricky and Fred don't want her (or Ethel, for that matter,) horning in on their summer retreat, so Ricky decides to take Lucy on a "trial run" in the woods and make her life miserable. But Lucy is wise to his plan, and guess whose life is made miserable in the end?
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Episode 30 - Ricky and Fred are TV Fans
Release Date: 1953-06-22With Ricky and Fred glued to a TV fight, their wives go to the local cafe, where service is so slow that Lucy makes change for herself at the cash register and the girls are arrested. They finally prove their innocence and get home to husbands who didn't know they were gone.
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Episode 31 - Never Do Business With Friends
Release Date: 1953-06-29The Ricardos sell their old washing machine to the Mertzes for $35. When it breaks down the next day, the Mertzes want out of the deal. A tug-of-war ensues, however, when the Mertzes want the machine back after a repairman offers them $50 for it.