"Lucy Goes to the Hospital" | |
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I Love Lucy episode | |
Episode no. | Season 2 Episode 16 |
Directed by | William Asher |
Written by | Jess Oppenheimer Madelyn Davis Bob Carroll, Jr. |
Produced by | Jess Oppenheimer Desi Arnaz (exec. prod.) |
Featured music | Eliot Daniel |
Cinematography by | Karl Freund |
Original air date | January 19, 1953 |
Running time | 30 minutes |
Guest appearances | |
Charles Lane as Mr. Stanley Peggy Rea as Wheelchair Nurse Adele Longmire as Desk Nurse Barbara Pepper as Nursery Nurse Hazel Pierce as Nursery Nurse Ruth Perrott as Nurse Bennett Green as Orderly Ralph Montgomery as Policeman William Hamel as Maitre D' James John Ganzer as Baby | |
"Lucy Goes to the Hospital" is an episode of the 1950s American television show I Love Lucy in which the title character, Lucy Ricardo, gives birth to a baby boy after a chaotic sequence of events. Twelve hours before the original broadcast on January 19, 1953, the actress who played Lucy, Lucille Ball, had given birth to Desi Arnaz Jr. by cesarean section. The episode had actually been filmed on November 14, 1952.
The episode was the culmination of an unprecedented pairing of the fictional pregnancy of Lucy with the real-life pregnancy of Ball; "real-time pregnancy was fictively narrated for the first time on American television." [1] (This may not entirely be true, since Mary Kay and Johnny is also reputed to have written the pregnancy of its star Mary Kay Stearns into the script; that more obscure series has since been mostly destroyed, making it difficult to verify.) [2]
When the episode premiered on January 19, 1953, 73.9% of all American homes with television sets tuned in, amounting to 44 million viewers watching the episode, a record until September 9, 1956, when Elvis Presley appeared for the first time on The Ed Sullivan Show , at CBS, which drew a share of 82.6%, a figure unrivaled since. [3] It received higher ratings than the inauguration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, which received 29 million viewers, the day afterward. [4] According to the Indian newspaper The Telegraph , scripts for the episode were reviewed by a rabbi, a minister, and a priest in order to make sure it would not be offensive.
The cover story of Newsweek on January 19, 1953 was about the episode (which had not yet been aired when the issue went to press). The first issue of TV Guide , dated April 3, 1953, featured a cover photo of newborn Desi Arnaz Jr., captioned as "Lucy's $50,000,000 Baby". [5]
Numerous stories were published about the sex of the baby, which was kept secret until the episode aired; when Ball actually had a boy as Lucy did in the script, headlines proclaimed "Lucy sticks to script: a boy it is!" ( New York Daily Mirror ), "TV was right: a boy for Lucille" ( New York Daily News ), and "What the Script Ordered" (Life magazine). [3]
Desiderio Alberto Arnaz y de Acha III, known as Desi Arnaz, was a Cuban-American actor, musician, producer, and bandleader. He played Ricky Ricardo on the American television sitcom I Love Lucy, in which he co-starred with his wife Lucille Ball. Arnaz and Ball are credited as the innovators of the syndicated rerun, which they pioneered with the I Love Lucy series.
I Love Lucy is an American television sitcom that originally aired on CBS from October 15, 1951, to May 6, 1957, with a total of 180 half-hour episodes spanning six seasons. The series starred Lucille Ball and her husband Desi Arnaz, along with Vivian Vance and William Frawley, and follows the life of Lucy Ricardo (Ball), a young, middle-class housewife living in New York City, who often concocts plans with her best friends and landlords, Ethel and Fred Mertz, to appear alongside her bandleader husband, Ricky Ricardo (Arnaz), in his nightclub. Lucy is depicted trying numerous schemes to mingle with and be a part of show business. After the series ended in 1957, a modified version of the show continued for three more seasons, with 13 one-hour specials, which ran from 1957 to 1960. It was first known as The Lucille Ball–Desi Arnaz Show, and later, in reruns, as The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour.
William Clement Frawley was an American Vaudevillian and actor best known for playing landlord Fred Mertz in the sitcom I Love Lucy. Frawley also played "Bub" O'Casey during the first five seasons of the sitcom My Three Sons and the political advisor to the Hon. Henry X. Harper in the film Miracle on 34th Street.
Desilu Productions, Inc. was an American television production company founded and co-owned by husband and wife Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball. The company is best known for shows such as I Love Lucy, The Lucy Show, Mannix, The Untouchables, Mission: Impossible and Star Trek. Until 1962, Desilu was the second-largest independent television production company in the United States, behind MCA's Revue Studios, until MCA bought Universal Pictures and Desilu became and remained the number-one independent production company, until Ball sold it to Gulf and Western Industries in 1968.
Vivian Vance was an American actress best known for playing Ethel Mertz on the sitcom I Love Lucy (1951–1957), for which she won the 1953 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress, among other accolades. She also starred alongside Lucille Ball in The Lucy Show from 1962 until she left the series at the end of its third season in 1965. In 1991, she posthumously received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She is most commonly identified as Lucille Ball’s longtime comedic foil from 1951 until her death in 1979.
Jessurun James Oppenheimer was an American radio and television writer, producer, and director. He was the producer and head writer of the CBS sitcom I Love Lucy.
The Lucy Show is an American sitcom that aired on CBS from 1962 to 1968. It was Lucille Ball's follow-up to I Love Lucy. A significant change in cast and premise for the fourth season (1965–1966) divides the program into two distinct eras; aside from Ball, only Gale Gordon, who joined the program for its second season, remained. For the first three seasons, Vivian Vance was the co-star.
Here's Lucy is an American sitcom starring Lucille Ball. The series co-starred her long-time comedy partner Gale Gordon and her real-life children Lucie Arnaz and Desi Arnaz Jr. It was broadcast on CBS from 1968 to 1974. It was Ball's third network sitcom, following I Love Lucy (1951–57) and The Lucy Show (1962–68).
Desiderio Alberto Arnaz IV, better known as Desi Arnaz Jr., is an American retired actor and musician. He is the son of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.
Madelyn Pugh, sometimes credited as Madelyn Pugh Davis, Madelyn Davis, or Madelyn Martin, was a television writer who became known in the 1950s for her work on the I Love Lucy television series.
My Favorite Husband is the name of an American radio program and network television series. The original radio show, starring Lucille Ball, evolved into the groundbreaking television sitcom I Love Lucy. The series was based on the novels Mr. and Mrs. Cugat, the Record of a Happy Marriage (1940) and Outside Eden (1945) written by Isabel Scott Rorick, the earlier of which had previously been adapted into the Paramount Pictures feature film Are Husbands Necessary? (1942), co-starring Ray Milland and Betty Field.
The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour is a collection of thirteen black-and-white one-hour specials airing occasionally from 1957 to 1960. The first five were shown as specials during the 1957–58 television season. The remaining eight were originally shown as part of Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse. Its original network title was The Ford Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show for the first season, and Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse Presents The Lucille Ball–Desi Arnaz Show for the following seasons. The successor to the classic comedy, I Love Lucy, the programs featured the same cast members: Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Vivian Vance, William Frawley, and Little Ricky. The production schedule avoided the grind of a regular weekly series.
I Love Lucy is a 1953 American comedy film that is a spin-off of the sitcom I Love Lucy. Except for one test screening in Bakersfield, California, the film was never theatrically released and was shelved.
Lucy and Ricky Ricardo, also known simply as Lucy and Ricky or the Ricardos, are fictional characters from the American television sitcom I Love Lucy, portrayed respectively by Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. The Ricardos also appear in The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour, and Lucy also appears in one episode of The Ann Sothern Show.
Lucy is a 2003 television film directed by Glenn Jordan. It is based on the life and career of actress and comedian Lucille Ball. The film premiered on May 4, 2003 on CBS.
Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse is an American television anthology series produced by Desilu Productions. The show ran on the Columbia Broadcasting System between 1958 and 1960. Three of its 48 episodes served as pilots for the 1950s television series The Twilight Zone and The Untouchables.
Lucille Désirée Ball was an American actress, comedian, producer, and studio executive. She was recognized by Time in 2020 as one of the most influential women of the 20th century for her work in all four of these areas. She was nominated for 13 Primetime Emmy Awards, winning five times, and was the recipient of several other accolades, such as the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award and two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She earned many honors, including the Women in Film Crystal Award, an induction into the Television Hall of Fame, a Kennedy Center Honor, and the Governors Award from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.
Enrique Alberto Ricardo IV, better known as Little Ricky, is a fictional character from the American television series I Love Lucy and The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour (1957–60). Little Ricky is the son of Lucy and Ricky Ricardo. Little Ricky lives with his parents in a New York brownstone apartment building, which is owned and run by his godparents. During the series' final season, the family moves to a suburban house in Westport, Connecticut.
Being the Ricardos is a 2021 American biographical drama film written and directed by Aaron Sorkin, about the relationship between I Love Lucy stars Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem star as Ball and Arnaz, while J. K. Simmons, Nina Arianda, Tony Hale, Alia Shawkat, Jake Lacy, and Clark Gregg are featured in supporting roles.