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 show starred Lucille Ball, her husband, Desi Arnaz, along with Vivian Vance and William Frawley. The series followed the life of Lucy Ricardo (Ball), a young, middle-class housewife living in New York City, who often concocted 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.
George Reeves was an American actor. He is best known for portraying Superman in the television series Adventures of Superman (1952–1958).
William Clement Frawley was an American vaudevillian and actor best remembered for playing landlord Fred Mertz in the American television sitcom I Love Lucy, "Bub" O'Casey in the television comedy series My Three Sons, and the political advisor to the judge character in the film Miracle on 34th Street.
Vivian Vance was an American actress and singer best known for playing Ethel Mertz on the sitcom I Love Lucy (1951–1957), for which she won the 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 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.
Adventures of Superman is an American television series based on comic book characters and concepts that Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster created in 1938. The show was the first television series to feature Superman and began filming in 1951 in California on RKO-Pathé stages and the RKO Forty Acres back lot. Cereal manufacturer Kellogg's sponsored the show. The first and last airdates of the show, which was produced for first-run syndication rather than for a network, are disputed, but they are generally accepted as September 19, 1952, and April 28, 1958. The show's first two seasons were filmed in black-and-white; seasons three through six were filmed in color.
Desiderio Alberto Arnaz IV, known professionally as Desi Arnaz Jr., is a retired American actor and musician. He is the son of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.
Ethel Mae Mertz , played by Vivian Vance, is one of the four main fictional characters in the highly popular 1950s American television sitcom I Love Lucy. Ethel is the middle-aged landlady of the main character, Lucy Ricardo, played by Lucille Ball. Ethel was most likely born about 1905, and was raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She is married to Fred Mertz, played by William Frawley, with whom she had a career in vaudeville. The two female characters are close friends, habitually scheming together; Ethel is generally the voice of reason as a counterpart to Lucy's harebrained ideas.
"Little Big Mom" is the tenth episode of the eleventh season of the American animated television series The Simpsons. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on January 9, 2000, the first episode of the new millennium. In the episode, while the rest of the Simpson family goes skiing, Marge remains at the ski lodge due to her fear of skiing, only to break her leg from a falling clock. As a result, while hospitalized, Marge leaves Lisa to take care of the house. When Bart and Homer refuse to help out with the chores, Lisa pulls a prank on them by making it look like they have leprosy.
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.
Frederick Hobart Mertz, played by William Frawley, is a fictional character in the 1950s American sitcom I Love Lucy.
Mary Elizabeth Patterson was an American theatre, film, and television character actress who gained popular recognition late in her career playing the elderly neighbor Matilda Trumbull on the television comedy series I Love Lucy.
Kathryn Card was an American radio, television, and film actress who may be best remembered for her role as Mrs. McGillicuddy, Lucy's mother on I Love Lucy.
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 Girls Want to Go to a Nightclub" is the second filmed episode of I Love Lucy but the first one aired. Originally, "Lucy Thinks Ricky Is Trying to Murder Her" was supposed to have been aired instead, as it was the first one filmed, but numerous production problems kept Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz and others, who had a stake in the success of the program, from airing it until the problems had been fixed. Instead, it was determined that "The Girls Want to Go to the Nightclub" was a better product to introduce the American public to their program. It debuted on CBS on Monday, October 15, 1951 at 9:00 pm.
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 Ricardo 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.
"Sweet Sue, Just You" is an American popular song of 1928, composed by Victor Young with lyrics by Will J. Harris. Popular versions in 1928 were by Earl Burtnett and by Ben Pollack.
