Wednesday, May 11, 2016

I Love Lucy: Season One

SEASON ONE
1 - (This was the Lost Pilot, and is identical to the sixth episode)

2 - Lucy thinks Ricky is losing interest in her, she inserts herself into all his activities, ruining things like his poker night and Cuban dance. 

3 - Lucy is determined to get on Ricky's show when there is an opening, but she must fit into the size 12 dress... and only has four days to do it; she starves herself and does crazy exercises with Ethel, in a mad dash to fit into the dress and compete with all the younger actresses. 

4 - Lucy has not paid her bills in months, and is desperate for money so Ricky won't cut off her allowance, so she goes on a game show that requires her to pretend to Ricky that an actor who comes over is actually her lost first husband... except she mistakes a total homeless guy for the actor. 

5 - Lucy is deep in a murder mystery novel and it goes to her head, she is convinced that Ricky is trying to rub her out when she overhears him talking on the phone about something totally unrelated; Ethel's terrible fortunetelling using playing cards doesn't help at all. 

6 - (Same plot as the Lost Pilot) Lucy is determined to get into Ricky's act, but he says No No No - when a clown gets injured during a stunt, Lucy dresses like the clown and infiltrates the show, causing insanity and hysteria. 

7 - Lucy blows Ricky's shot at a broadway review, but attempts to get it back when she finds out that the producer and her are both obsessed with numerology and horoscopes - then she has to hold a seance so the producer can reach his "long lost Tilly," only she doesn't know Fred is ALSO going to impersonate the spirit. 

8 - Lucy is tired of Ricky trashing the apartment, so she divides it in half - not knowing that a Look magazine photographer is coming to photograph the crazy division that ensues. 

9 - Ricky brings home a fur coat he's renting for his act, but Lucy believes it's for her, Ricky has to scheme to get it back, and Lucy counter-schemes to keep it. 

10 - Lucy is highly jealous of a new dancer at Ricky's club, sneaks into the act with a wig and veil, and begins to aggressively sabotage the dancer to Ricky's astonishment and the audience's delight. 

11 - Ricky agrees to do a USO show, but Lucy misunderstands and thinks Ricky is drafted - and Ethel thinks Fred is going with him; meanwhile, both husbands have a mix-up of their own and think the wives are pregnant because they are crying all the time and knitting socks. 

12 - Ricky needs an "Apache Dancer" for his new act, Fred tries to teach Lucy how to do it and fails; Lucy turns to a Frenchman, who begins immediate amorous advances on Lucy - and then challenges Ricky to a duel!

13 - Lucy and Ricky do a benefit show as a husband-and-wife team, but Ricky has written the part so that Lucy has almost no lines or anything to do; Lucy is having none of it, decides to improvise during the show, and completely upstages Ricky.

14 - Lucy decides to make some extra money babysitting, and agrees to take care of a little brat, not knowing that in fact he is one of twins, and they pull all kinds of switcheroo tricks on her.

15 - Lucy agrees, against Ricky's wishes, to pass along a love note for an elderly neighbor to the local grocer; the grocer misinterprets the note and thinks LUCY wants him, and Lucy must make herself as unattractive and unappealing as possible (grocer is 30s film star Edward Everett Horton).

16 - Lucy, after being turned down by Ricky yet again for a part in his show, decides to fake several illnesses and show him how much it's affecting her; she becomes a childlike amnesiac actress and completely stuns Ricky... until he figures it out and hires a doctor to tell her that she needs a Zorch-ectomy. 

17 - Lucy writes a play set in Cuba, but Ricky refuses the part, so Lucy transfers the whole play to England, and recasts Fred; hilarity ensues when Ricky decides to do it after all, but shows up with his still-Cuban script.

18 - After starting out great friends, singing together at the piano, the Ricardos begin feuding with the Mertz's, and decide to break their lease after a long insulting match, and start having Ricky's band practice in the apartment.

19 - Ricky has an opening for a ballerina, and a burlesuqe act and Lucy insists she is right for both parts, and she takes ballet lessons, in which she discovers that her body doesn't always obey when she gives orders; then she learns the famous vaudeville routine "Slowly I Turned" (also made popular by Abbott and Costello, and also The Three Stooges). 

20 - A teen girl gets a big crush on Ricky and a teen boy on Lucy; after a lot of attempts to gently shoo them away, Lucy and Ricky join forces and proceed to act about ten times their actual age to scare the teens away. (Teen girl is played by Janet Waldo, voice of Judy Jetson; teen boy is played, incredibly, by Richard Crenna, best known as Rambo's commanding officer Colonel Troutman). 

21 - New neighbors move in, and Lucy starts snooping; when she overhears them talking of murder and terrorism, in Russian accents, she doesn't realize they are actors, rehearsing for a play, and proceeds to warn Ricky and the Mertz's. (Actor husband is played by Hayden Rorke, best known as Colonel Bellows on I Dream of Jeannie).

22 - After Fred and Ethel fight and make up, Lucy and Ricky fight too; except to win Ricky back, Lucy fakes being hit by a bus, while to win Lucy back Ricky fakes a building fire.

23 - Ricky starts growing a mustache, Lucy can't stand it and glues a giant white beard on herself; then discovers she can't take it off, and there is a movie producer coming over to interview Ricky for a starring role.

24 - Ricky claims that the wives gossip far, far more than men, so the two pairs make a wager: whoever gossips first has to make the other pair breakfast in bed; things take a turn for the hilarious when Ricky and Fred make up a story and Ricky feeds it to Lucy while pretending to be sleeping. 

25 - After Lucy complains that she needs an electric dishwasher, Ricky and she make a bet that the other half can't live rustically, as if it were before 1900; Lucy's attempt to bake homemade bread (using approximately 50 lbs of dough) results in a famous manic moment with her stove. 

26 - Lucy discovers her marriage license says she is married to "Ricky Bacardi" and insists they live apart until the error is fixed, since they are not really married, AND says they have to get married exactly in the same upstate NY place as the first time; when they get up there to renew/correct their vows, insanity ensues (Note: Desi Arnaz's maternal grandfather was one of the three founders of Bacardi rum).

27 - Lucy isn't supposed to be helping with the local carnival, so she explains that the massive amounts of prizes she's been hiding in her closet are actually stolen because she's a kleptomaniac; this results in the famous scene where a psychiatrist hypnotizes her and she recounts a hilariously long life of crime. 

28 - Ricky agrees to do a dance number with "Little Renita," a little girl he used to dance with in Cuba, but Lucy is unhappy when she sees Renita has grown into a very attractive woman; Lucy switches places with her at the club, but Ricky switches songs and Lucy finds herself chased by singing African tribesmen. 

29 - Lucy and Ethel insist on getting a freezer for the building to save on buying meat, and they prove the "savings" by each buying a SIDE of beef, not realizing how huge that is; Lucy, desperate to get rid of it before Ricky finds out, gets herself locked in the freezer.

30 - The famous "Vitameatavegimin" episode, where Lucy, in her haste to be a showbiz star, accepts a role in a commerical where she has to drink a product that contains alcohol... and the director insists on many, many takes...

31 - Lucy feels Ricky's publicity needs a boost, and invents an alternate celebrity identity, the "Maharincess of Franistan" who claims she came all the way around the globe only to see Ricky's act; of course, she must also put in an appearance as the Maharincess, which proves quite dangerous indeed. 

32 - After Ricky gets all the answers right on a radio quiz show, she signs them up for the next show - not knowing that Ricky heard the show being taped; when they get on the show, her pre-prepared answers to the random questions are beyond hilarious.

33 - After Lucy makes Ricky late for dinner with his boss - and makes him look bad, holding up his promotion - Ricky puts her on a schedule; but when the boss is invited over for another dinner, Lucy, Ethel, and Boss's wife get their revenge. (Boss is played by Gale Gordon, the character actor who was a foil to Lucy in every one of her various TV shows)

34 - Ricky is convinced he is balding, so Lucy begins to investigate balding cures; the one she puts Ricky through is about 100 steps of pure insanity, designed to get the baldness idea out of his head forever.


35 - Ricky wants a raise at work, but when he asks for one he gets fired; Lucy and the Mertzes then scheme up a fantastic and imaginative way to get him his job back at the Tropicana. 

No comments:

Post a Comment