I Love Lucy, starring our favorite redhead, Lucille Ball, was rated in 2012 by People Magazine and ABC News as the Best TV Comedy and the greatest TV show of all time. What an honor! I Love Lucy was the most watched show in the US for 4 out of the 6 seasons it aired, and won 5 Emmy awards.

I Love Lucy was a sitcom filmed in front of a live audience which aired on television in black and white for six seasons from October 1951 to May 1957.

In The Beginning:
I Love Lucy evolved from Lucille Ball’s successful radio program, “My Favorite Husband”, which aired on CBS radio from July 1948 to March 1951. Several My Favorite Husband episodes were re-worked into early I Love Lucy episodes. Three writers of later episodes of My Favorite Husband, Bob Carroll, Jr., Madelyn Pugh and Jess Oppenheimer, all became writers as well as directors and producers of I Love Lucy.

I Love Lucy:
I Love Lucy featured the lives and antics of two best friend couples, Lucy & Ricky Ricardo and Ethel & Fred Mertz. Lucy’s TV husband, Ricky, was played by her real life husband, Desi Arnaz. The Mertzes were played by Vivian Vance and William Frawley. The couples lived next door to each other in Manhattan at the fictional address of 623 East 68th St., which in actuality would put their building in the East River. In the last season of the show, the two couples moved to Westport, CT. With a total of 180 episodes filmed over a six year time span, selecting favorite episodes is difficult work.

Top Five Episodes:
With a total of 180 episodes filmed over a six year time span, selecting favorite episodes is difficult work.  Here we at LucyStore.com named our top five episodes.  In the near future, you will even be able to shop our store by episode.  Won't that be fun?

#1: Job Switching - Episode #39 from Season 2.  

When Lucy writes on the back of a check that she hopes the teller won't put the check through until next month, Ricky gets upset that she's spending more money than she has. He tells her she doesn't know the value a dollar and insists they trade places. He and Fred decide to do the chores around the house, and Lucy and Ethel go out to look for a job. The girls find themselves wrapping chocolates off a conveyor belt that eventually speeds up a little too fast!
Cast: Elvia Allman as factory boss, Amanda Milligan as chocolate dipper, Alvin Hurwitz as Mr. Snodgrass

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#2: Lucy Does A TV Commercial - Episode #30 from Season 1

Lucy proves to Ricky she can do commercials by taking apart their TV and performing inside of it. Ricky is unhappy with both her performance and for what she did to their TV. To get the job, Lucy tells the chosen actress that another girl's been hired. Down at the TV studio, Lucy is tasting the product, "Vitameatavegamin", as she rehearses, until she acts out the commercial just right, but the contents of the product contains far too much alcohol.
Cast: Ross Elliott as the director, Jerry Hausner as Joe, Maury Thompson as prompter

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#3: LA At Last - Episode #114 from Season 4

Lucy and the Mertzes go to the Brown Derby to 'hunt' movie stars, where William Holden ends up sitting in the booth behind Lucy. She sneaks looks at him through her makeup mirror and insists that Fred slide over further in the booth so she can get a good look at him. As Lucy stares at Bill Holden, his waiter slides a plant between them but she peaks at him through the plant anyway. Bill decides to remove the plant and stare at her for a change. This causes Lucy to nervously eat her spaghetti.  When she takes too much of it to eat, Ethel has to cut the hanging spaghetti with her manicuring scissors.  Having enough embarrassment for one night, she and the Mertzes leave, but as Lucy passes Mr. Holden's table she accidentally knocks his food onto him. Later when Bill is checking a script with John Sherman, a producer at MGM, Ricky arrives wearing a suit of armor costume. As Ricky phones Lucy to ask her to pick him up, Bill offers to give him a ride to his hotel instead. Ricky asks Bill if he'd be kind enough to meet Lucy. As Bill waits in the Ricardo's hotel living room, Ricky can't understand why Lucy doesn't want to meet William Holden. She finally agrees to meet him, but has to fix her face first. She soon greets Bill wearing a disguise of glasses, a putty nose and scarf around her hair. Bill quizzically tells Lucy there is something familiar about her around her eyes. When Lucy's nose itches, she accidentally pushes the putty out of shape. When she lights a cigarette, it burns her putty nose and she douses it in a cup of coffee. Ricky insists she tell him what's going on. She confesses she went to the Brown Derby that day and the mystery is solved for Holden as to why Lucy looks familiar to him. However he merely tells Ricky that Lucy was in the booth next to him and he had to ask the waiter who the beautiful redhead was. He winks knowingly to Lucy and she gratefully kisses him for concealing the mess she made at the Derby.  But in her excitement, her knees give out and she falls into his arms, happy as a lark.
Cast: William Holden (appearing courtesy of Paramount Pictures); Eve Arden; Bobby Jellison as Bobby the bellboy; Alan Ray as waiter; Harry Bartell as Headwaiter; Dayton Lummis as Bill Sherman; Dani Nolan as Sherman's secretary

#4: Lucy’s Italian Movie - Episode 150 from Season 5

While in Rome, Lucy is approached by Vittorio Fellippi, an Italian film producer who thinks Lucy would be the type he needs for a new picture. While at their hotel room, Lucy asks the bellboy to translate a story about Vittorio since she can't read Italian.  The story announces the starting date of his new picture called 'Bitter Grapes', which is filming in color in and around Rome. Because of the movie title, Lucy feels she has to find out about the grape vineyards and what the workers do there. The bellboy informs Lucy about one little town in the outskirts of the city called Turo where they still make wine without machinery. Lucy visits Turo, dressed like the grape stomping workers.   Lucy ultimately ends up stomping the grapes in the wine vat. At first Lucy hates the feel of stepping into the grapes but is soon running round and round the vat with her stomping.  Lucy and Theresa, the other grape stomping worker, end up throwing grapes at one another and Lucy falls into the vat and is pushed under several times by Teresa. Later, Lucy returns to the hotel room all stained by the blue grape juice and Vittorio is there with Ricky and the Mertzes. She explains she was at the vineyards working to get the right atmosphere for appearing in his picture but the blue stains won't wash off. Vittorio says 'Bitter Grapes' is a symbolic title that has nothing to do with the grape industry. He had her in mind for a small part as a typical American tourist visiting Italy and since shooting would be the next day in color, he can't take the chance that Lucy would be back to normal by then. He asks Ethel if she'd be interested in playing the part and she is to report to his studio the next morning at eight o'clock. Ethel announces that this is only the beginning and she may end up being a star. Disappointed Lucy mumbles some censored words!
Cast: Franco Corsaro as Vittorio Fellippi; Teresa Tirelli as Teresa; Rosa Barbato as Rosa; Saverio Lo Medico as bellboy; Ernesto Molinari as wine vat boss. 

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#5: California Here We Come! - Episode #110 from Season 4

Lucy receives a letter from her mother who wants to join them on their trip to California. When mother arrives, she erroneously calls Ricky "Mickey" and she never remembers his last name.  Later, Ethel overhears Ricky saying he doesn't like the way things are developing; he had hoped just his family was going to Hollywood. Soon, the Mertzes ring the doorbell and enter in disgust with news they're not going. Ethel reminds them, "Don't forget to drop a postcard to Mr. And Mrs. Fred Horninsky or as we are more commonly known, the Tagalong Mertzes".  Mother returns from a walk with Little Ricky and says she spoke to the Mertzes in the hall and thinks that they're not going because of her so she decides she's not going now to California. Lucy and Ricky also decide they won't be going too. The Mertzes return, having cooled off and decide they will go on the trip after all. Lucy informs them that no one's going. Mother tells Ethel, "Well I wasn't going to go because you weren't going to go if I was going. But if you're going to go when I'm going, I might as well go". So now everyone's going to Hollywood. Ricky insists on leaving at 6 a.m. and when the girls bring too much stuff out to the car for the trunk, Ricky decides to send it all ahead. Ethel agrees since they'll be on the road for 2 weeks; it would get there before they do. Mother says, "Are we really going to be driving for 2 whole weeks? I get carsick. I had no idea it would take 2 weeks; it didn't look that far on the map".  Mother ends up going by plane and taking Little Ricky with her. The four-some finally leave around 6 pm (pretty close to Ricky's 6am anticipated departure time!), heading over the George Washington Bridge, singing "California Here We Come".

Songs: California Here We Come
Cast: Kathryn Card as Mrs. McGillicuddy, Joseph (and Michael) Mayer as Little Ricky; Elizabeth Patterson as Mrs. Trumbull

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The Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show:
After the final sixth season of I Love Lucy, Lucy and Desi wanted to cut down on the amount of filming so they ended the weekly show and began producing 13 stand-alone one hour specials which were filmed and aired occasionally over a three year period (as opposed to a weekly series) from 1957 to 1960. The Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show continued the antics and comedy of Lucy and Ricky who are now living in Wesport, CT. Ricky, the owner / operator of the Babalu Night Club, commutes to New York City from Connecticut. Ethel and Fred joined the Ricardos in Westport so the funny antics of the neighborly couple continue in these 13 specials. Many of these episodes featured star guest appearances.

The Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show was supposed to film a fourth season of three episodes, but it was cut short by the divorce of Lucy and Desi in May 1960. The series filmed its final episode on March 2, 1960 and the divorce proceedings began the next day. In re-runs from 1962 to 1967 as well as syndication, the show’s name was switched to the Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour. You can find all thirteen episodes of the Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour on DVD, newly released in 2012. The title of the DVD boxed set is “I Love Lucy: The Final Seasons 7-9” when in fact these hour long specials were not part of I Love Lucy, but instead a variation of the show.

The “Lost” Pilot:
In March 1951, a 34 minute pilot episode was filmed for the proposed sitcom I Love Lucy in an attempt to sell the show to CBS and potential sponsors. The pilot was never broadcast and was eventually forgotten.

In the early 1980s, the museum of broadcasting began actively searching for this pilot episode. It appeared as if all traces of this pilot episode had disappeared. In 1989, a film print of the pilot was discovered which was previously owned by the late Pepito Perez, who appeared as a clown in the pilot.  The pilot then aired on TV for the first time in 1990 in front of 30 million viewers. Unfortunately the first few minutes of the “found” film print was damaged, and so CBS had to cut that portion out of the broadcast when it originally aired in 1990. However, in the I Love Lucy Season One boxed DVD set, the original opening was reconstructed.