I Love Lucy follows the antics of stay-at-home mom Lucy Ricardo as she tries to outsmart her Cuban band-leader husband, Ricky, and get into show business. Along the way she usually ends up dragging her landlords and best friends, Fred and Ethel Mertz, into one of her wacky schemes which can create some hilarious situations.
It's the Mertzes' eighteenth wedding anniversary. Ethel longs to celebrate it by going to the Copacabana, while Fred wants to attend the fights. As can be guessed, an argument soon ensues among the couples. Ethel and Lucy decide that they will go to the club-with dates! Now, this is perfectly fine with Fred, but Ricky is worried. So he and Fred call an old friend, Ginny Jones, for dates so that they can go to the nightclub and spy on their wives. Coincidentally, Lucy and Ethel have also called Ginny about getting dates to go to the club. When Ginny tells the girls about the boys' plans, Lucy decides that she and Ethel will impersonate the boys' blind dates. Thus, the two of them enter the Ricardo apartment decked out like country bumpkins, which makes for some superb Lucille Ball schtick.
In order to keep the honeymoon from ending with Ricky, Lucy consults a book that leads to all sorts of hilarious situations as Lucy tries to follow the book's advice.
To her dismay, Lucy finds out that she's put on 22 pounds since marrying Ricky. Complications arise when one of the girls in Ricky's new show quits, making a vacancy for a dancer who can wear a size twelve costume. At the auditions the next morning, Lucy tricks Ricky into saying that if she loses enough weight (12 pounds) in four days, then she can be in the show. Thus, she starves and exercises, with Ethel as her coach. In one funny scene, she tries to steal food from the Mertzes' dog Butch, because she is so hungry! She finally resorts to using a steam cabinet, and manages to get down to the required 120 pounds. At the end, Lucy and Ricky perform "Cuban Pete/Sally Sweet." She's a hit, but at the end she collapses, suffering from malnutrition.
Lucy 's new whodunit and a misunderstood phone conversation work together to lead Lucy to think Ricky is trying to poison her. So with what she believes is her last burst of energy, Lucy hastens to the Tropicana to confront Ricky with a gun.
After hearing a radio quiz show, and having Ricky answer all the question correctly, Lucy manages to get herself and Ricky on the show. Little does she know that Ricky knew the answers beforehand. The show is called "Females are Fabulous," a title that Lucy justifies elaborately. In this episode, Frank Nelson makes the first of many cameos as Freddy Fillmore.
Ricky's band is to be auditioned for television, and Lucy is trying to "get into the act." When Lucy substitutes for Buffo the clown, the producers want to sign her, not Ricky, and Lucy is confronted with problems. Ricky sings his trademark "Babalu`" for the first time in this episode
Lucy suddenly becomes interested in numerology and superstitions. After advising Ricky that it's a good day for him to make deals, she realizes that she read yesterday's horoscopes and that today is actually a bad day for Ricky. She thus says "no" to a very important business call for Ricky from Mr. Meriweather. In the process of putting things right, Lucy conducts a seance. Classic Ethel quote: "Ethel to Tillie, Ethel to Tillie, come in Tillie."
"Men are nothing but a bunch of messcats," insists Lucy Ricardo, while Ricky insists that "a man's home is his castle." To make a point, Lucy divides the apartment in half, so that Ricky can be as messy as he likes on his side. But when Ricky's press agent, Kenny Morgan, lines up a publicity spread in Halfbeat Magazine, Lucy decides to teach her sloppy husband a lesson by turning the Ricardo apartment into a regular pig pen. Little does Lucy know that this photographer is not from the musician's journal, but is actually from Look magazine.
Ricky returns home with a $3,500 mink coat that he has rented for an act at the club. Lucy immediately jumps to the conclusion that it's her anniversary present. Lucy is so delighted with her "present" that she eats, sleeps, and even does the dishes wearing the mink. Ricky decides to get the coat back by having Fred dress up as a theif and "steal" it, but before he does, a REAL burglar almost makes off with the coat! When Lucy learns from Ethel of his plan, she decides to teach her hubby a lesson. Buying a cheap imitation mink, she decides to "restyle" it (with a pair of scissors)in full view of Ricky.
An item in the morning gossip column prompts Lucy to assume that Ricky is seeing another woman, namely Rosemary, one of his dancers. To keep an eye on Ricky, Lucy manages to wangle her way into the chorus line of "Jezebel" at Ricky's club and upstages Rosemary during the number. Later that night, Ricky tells Lucy that there was a "strange girl" in the chorus-ugly, and a terrible dancer. He knew it was Lucy all along. They kiss and make up.
When Lucy opens a telegram addressed to Ricky ordering him to appear at the Army's Fort Dix, she assumes that he has been drafted. Ethel suspects that Fred has been drafted as well. Their suspicions are confirmed when they see them drilling in the living room with brooms. They don't know, however, that Ricky and Fred are practicing a dance routine for a servicemen's show. To get their men "ready for the army," Lucy and Ethel take to knitting blankets and other things for them. They also plan a going away party for them on Sunday night. Ricky and Fred, meanwhile, think that the girls are pregnant. Chaos ensues when they plan a similar party (a baby shower) for that same night.
Lucy volunteers for Ricky's Parisian apache dance number for an upcoming Tropicana show. And Ethel finds the perfect person to teach her the basic aspects of Apache dancing-Jean Valjean Raymand, who is the nephew of the woman who runs the French hand laundry. This Frenchman has more than dance lessons in mind, however. When Ricky finds him hiding in the hall closet, fireworks commence. Jean challenges him to a duel behind Radio City Music Hall, but they ultimately decide to stage a fake fight in the bedroom to teach Lucy a well-deserved lesson.
Ethel wants Ricky to a headline a benefit show for her women's club, but Lucy refuses to ask him, unless she can be on the bill, too. After plenty of coaxing on the part of Lucy, Ricky finally says that he'll do it. But Lucy then gets a chance to look at the act that she and Ricky will be doing for the benefit. Ricky has all the punch lines! She decides to rewrite the jokes and teach her husband a lesson.
Lucy, as usual, spends too much money on a dress. So she tells Ricky that she will get a job babysitting in order to pay for it. The trouble is, she didn't know that she would be winding up babysitting a pair of rambunctious, spoiled twins. The twins do almost everything to Lucy besides burning her at the stake. The twins' mother eventually calls, and says that if Lucy performs at a variety show with the twins, she can keep the prize money $100.
Miss Lewis, the Ricardos' elderly neighbor, requests Lucy's assistance in getting the attention of Mr. Ritter, the elderly grocery man whom she is sweet on. Lucy readily agrees to give Mr. Ritter a dinner invitation for Miss Lewis. The first complication arises when Lucy shares the news with Ricky, who spanks Lucy for interfering and makes her promise to give the note back to Miss Lewis. But, when Lucy proceeds to give Mr. Ritter the note anyway, he misunderstands and thinks the invitation is from Lucy herself. This leads to an unsuccessful plan by Lucy to discourage Mr. Ritter and Ricky's telling Mr. Ritter that he can have her. In spite of all these unintended mishaps, Mr. Ritter and Miss Lewis do in fact wind up together, never to be seen on any future episode.
After all this time, Lucy has finally found what she believes to be the perfect solution for getting into show business. After Ethel gives her a book about diseases, Lucy decides that she will pretend that she is suffering from numerous psychological ailments so that Ricky will feel sorry for her and let her go into show business. To convince Ricky that she is really "ill," Lucy pretends that she doesn't know who she is, and at one point "thinks" that she is Tallulah Bankhead! When Ricky eventually gets wind of Lucy's trick, he hires a phony doctor to scare Lucy back to health.
Lucy is busily writing the script for the play that her women's club is going to put on, a little something called "A Tree Grows in Havana," and she needs Ricky to appear in it. When Ricky sees the script, he immediately declines. So Lucy is then left with no alternative but to get Fred to agree to do the role. Deciding that Fred wouldn't be very good for portraying a Cuban character, Lucy decides to rewrite the play so that it is set in England. Later, however, Ricky decides that he wants to be in the play when he hears that some very important sponsors are going to be at the women's show. So he manages to trick Fred into giving him back the role. But Ricky doesn't know that Lucy has rewritten the play. This leads to some pretty disastrous results.
The show opens with the Ricardos and the Mertzes sitting around the Ricardos' piano, singing songs together. After the Mertzes leave, Lucy and Ricky wind up in an argument: Lucy wants to leave the bedroom window open, while Ricky wants it closed. The Mertzes, who are trying to get some sleep, are most irritated by the noise. They angrily phone the Ricardos and demand that they cut down on the racket. This, as you can imagine, leads to a big quarrel between the Ricardos and the Mertzes. Lucy and Ricky decide that they can't take it anymore, and they want to move out. However, there is a slight problem--they've signed a lease. The Ricardos thus decide to become the most undesirable tenants ever so that they can break that lease. They succeed in doing so, but ultimately decide that they can't move away and that they must apologize to their friends.
Even after all this time, Lucy still longs to get into one of Ricky's shows. When she learns that there is an opening in one of Ricky's acts for a ballet dancer, as well as a burlesque comedienne, Lucy decides to take a ballet class-which leads to some pretty disastrous results. Fed up, Lucy then hires a teacher to teach her the art of burlesque comedy. It is then that Lucy learns that Ricky still has one spot available in his act. Falsely assuming that it is the burlesque comedienne, not the ballet dancer, that Ricky needs for his act, Lucy goes to the club and mayhem ensues.
A shy young teenager named Peggy has a major crush on Ricky. Ricky, however, is tired of all this "attention" that this girl is giving him, so asks Lucy to have a talk with her. During their conversation, Lucy asks Peggy to think of some other boys her own age that she might like to go out with instead. Peggy, it seems, also likes a boy named Arthur Morton. Unfortunately, Arthur is painfully shy and cannot dance, so Lucy volunteers to give him a dance lesson. But it is then that Arthur becomes infatuated with Lucy! To get the two off their backs, Lucy and Ricky come up with a solution: they will dress up and act like 90 year olds, and scare their "young fans" back to reality.
In order for Lucy to hide from Ricky that she is snooping in the new neighbors' apartment, she hides in their closet where she hears them planning to blow up the capital, not knowing that they're rehearsing a play.
Fred and Ethel have been going at each others' throats for the past few days now, and aren't talking to each other any more. (Fred: She called my mother a weasel!)To get them back together, Lucy comes up with a plan: She will invite Ethel to dinner, while Ricky will invite Fred. Neither Mertz will know that the other is coming, Lucy hopes that she can bring the Mertzes together so they can talk out their issues. Lucy commences with her plan, but during dinner, she and Ricky start to bicker. By the end of supper, the Mertzes leave the Ricardos' apartment as happy as larks, but Lucy and Ricky are now at each others' throats. It's now up to the Mertzes to bring the Ricardos back together.
Lucy dislikes Ricky's new moustache. In order to take revenge, she glues a moustache and beard on to her face. Then, Ricky agrees to shave his moustache off, as long as Lucy gets rid of hers. Lucy tries to get the facial hair off, and is unsuccessful. They try to get a special substance to take the glue off, to find out that it is not made anymore.
Ricky is disgusted by Lucy's obsession with gossiping about other people. According to Ricky, Lucy acts as if it is her "life's blood." Fred, too, is disturbed by Ethel's love of gossiping. The two girls then point out that both Ricky and Fred have been known to gossip, also. The boys then challenge the girls to a bet: They will see who can go without gossiping the longest, and the winners will receive breakfast in bed for a month. The bet commences, and everything is going fine until Ricky comes up with a plan to cheat so that he and Fred can win.
Lucy and Ethel's hopes of joining the posh Society Matrons' League lead to a bet with their husbands over which sex - the men or the women - had it harder living in a bygone era. They select the turn of the last century, and as Lucy and Ethel start to bake their own bread and churn their own butter, the men become acquainted with straight-blade shaving and riding home from work on horseback. They all have some "'splainin'" to do when two ladies from the Society Matrons' League stop by for an unexpected visit.
Lucy thinks she and Ricky aren't legally married because his name was misspelled on their marriage license. So she wants them to renew their vows at the same place in Connecticut where Ricky first proposed to her. But they run out of gas getting there.
When Ricky sees Lucy sneaking silver items into their closet, he thinks she's a kleptomaniac. Fred and Ricky question her when they see her hide a cuckoo clock under her coat.
Lucy is jealous of one of Ricky's female Cuban friends, a woman named Renita. Lucy and Ethel dress as cleaning women to spy on Renita and Ricky at rehearsal. Lucy is appalled, and arranges for Fred to take Renita to the show by way of Philadelphia.
Where's the beef? It's in Lucy and Ethel's new walk-in freezer (according to Lucy, the "human popsicle"). Of course, Ricky and Fred have a beef with their wives, because they paid $483 for it. The meat company won't take it back, and they can't sell it to customers waiting in the local butcher shop, so they're stuck with it. And speaking of stuck, Lucy gets herself locked in the freezer!
Lucy has angled her way onto Ricky's special as the show's pitch girl. She advertises a medicine called "Vitameatavegamin." Believing it contains vitamins, minerals, meat, and vegetables, Lucy does not know is that it also contains twenty-three percent of alcohol.
Lucy poses as a princess for a publicity stunt.
Lucy secretly books Ricky on a radio quiz show.
Ricky puts Lucy on a rigid time schedule.
Ricky fears that he is going bald, so Lucy takes it into her head to help him: she stages a "bald people's party" to show him that he's not so bad, after all. But when that doesn't work, she resorts to showing some new "hair treatments" (or "torture tactics" as Lucy calls them) to show Ricky how silly he's been.
Ricky's boss won't give him a raise, so he quits. Lucy and the Mertzes decide that to convince the boss to hire Ricky back, they should pretend to be different patrons of the club who, once they discover Ricky isn't there anymore, would leave.
Ricky 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.
When 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!
Life magazine does a picture story on Ricky, but Lucy is not in it, leaving her feeling resentful of Ricky for not letting her have a career in show business. To teach Lucy a lesson that show business is not all just glamour and stardom, Ricky tells Lucy that she will be the star in his new show at the club, and works her very hard during rehearsals, with no intention of actually using her in the show. When Fred inadvertently tells Lucy about Ricky's scheme, Lucy decides to upstage Ricky during his "Lady in Spain" number.
Lucy and Ethel buy a dress shop behind their husbands' backs, but soon find that they are not making the profits that they anticipated.
Ricky hires a business manager (Charles Lane), and Lucy finds him tighter with money than Ricky. After Lucy gets several months behind in all the bills, Ricky hires Mr. Hickox, a no-nonsense business manager who puts her on a strict budget. Lucy comes up with a scheme to get some extra money that soon has her rolling in cash.
To help Fred impress his world-traveling ex-vaudeville partner, Barney Kurtz, Ethel talks Lucy into posing as their maid. It turns out that Barney is not as successful as he had been letting on.
Ricky has completed his movie for MGM, but Lucy and the Mertzes convince him to let them stay in Hollywood for one more week. While sight-seeing, Lucy discovers that the cement slab with John Wayne's footprints and signature in front of Grauman's Chinese Theater has become loose. Lucy talks Ethel into helping her steal the slab to keep as a souvenir, and as they make their get-away, Lucy gets her foot caught in a bucket of cement. Ricky demands that they return the slab to the theater forecourt, but while trying to return it, Lucy and Ethel accidentally destroy it.
Lucy and Ethel have made off with the cement slab of John Wayne's footprints. Now the police are called in to investigate. John Wayne guest stars.
Sighting Bob Hope at Yankee Stadium, Lucy hopes to persuade him to appear at Ricky's club (now named Club Babalú) unaware that Hope has already agreed to appear. She ends up joining Hope and Ricky in performing at Club Babalú. Richard Keith makes his first appearance as Little Ricky, who is now depicted as four years old.
Little Ricky's non-stop drum playing threatens the Ricardos' and Mertzes' friendship.
Complete episode guide for I Love Lucy with detailed information about every season and episode including air dates, summaries, ratings, and streaming availability in United States.
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Lucy 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.
Inspired by a magic trick she saw, Lucy handcuffs herself to Ricky using old handcuffs from Fred. She was unaware of the fact that he didn't have a key for them.
Lucy'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.
The 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.
The 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!
Waiting 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.
Ricky comes down with a sore throat just as he is about to open a new show.
When Lucy learns that she's going to have a baby, she tries to find the right way to tell this to Ricky.
With the baby coming, Ricky decides to make Lucy breakfast in bed and shower her (baby) with gifts. Lucy then gets depressed thinking that all the special treatment she is getting is only because of the baby.
Pregnant Lucy insists on being in a barbershop quartet skit at the club with Ricky and the Mertzes.
Lucy wants her baby to be raised hearing nothing but perfect English, so she hires a tutor to teach her, Ricky, and the Mertzes proper English diction. The tutor turns out to be an aspiring entertainer, and hopes that Ricky will give him a break.
When Lucy's pregnancy cravings and preoccupation with a baby shower leave Ricky frustrated and overwhelmed, he begins to develop psychosomatic pregnancy symptoms of his own. A doctor advises Lucy and Ethel to give Ricky some special attention as a cure, so the women ask Fred to organize a men-only "daddy shower" for him. When Fred calls it a "stag party" in front of Lucy, curiosity gets the best of her and she must find a way to sneak into the event.
Lucy feels that her child should grow up with artistic influence, so she takes up sculpting. When Ricky arranges for an art critic to arrive and judge her work, she ends up disguising herself as a bust in an attempt to fool the critic.
With the baby due at any moment, Ricky and the Mertzes carefully rehearse the trip to the hospital. But when the big moment actually comes, things do not go quite so smoothly. When they eventually get there, Lucy stays in labor for quite a while, so Ricky goes to do his new show at the club. He is in full tribal face makeup when the call comes from the hospital, and he rushes over still in costume.
When Lucy buys a gadget in response to an ad, Ricky gets angry.
Lucy makes one faux pas after another and develops an inferiority complex.
Lucy and Ethel each run for president of their club, the Wednesday Afternoon Fine Arts League. They soon discover that the deciding vote will be from their club's newest member, Ruth Knickerbocker. Lucy and Ethel's campaigns end up taking a nasty turn, while Ricky and Fred each campaign separately for the other woman to win.
Lucy and Ricky are both engrossed in a thrilling novel, and decide to read it aloud to enjoy it at the same time. When Ricky tosses the book to Lucy for her to put it away, it accidentally hits her in the face, giving her a black eye. Trouble begins when Fred and Ethel overhear the dialogue from the novel and, seeing the black eye, fear the worst. When Ethel will not accept the truth, Lucy concocts a "juicy story" about her falling in love with another man, which only leads to further trouble.
Lucy seems unable to finish anything without changing her mind. Ricky loses his temper over it, so Lucy tries to play a trick on him with an old, unfinished love letter to a beau from high school. However, Fred finds out from Ethel and warns Ricky of Lucy's plot.
The Ricardos' lease does not allow children, and their crying new baby Little Ricky causes neighbor Mrs. Trumbull to complain to Lucy and Ethel about the noise. However, she later has a change of heart. This episode marked the beginning of recurring character Mrs. Trumbull.
Ricky allows Lucy to hire a maid because she keeps falling asleep during the day from staying up nights with Little Ricky. However, the maid she hires has a cozy schedule, refuses to help take care of the baby, treats Lucy with disdain, and eats most of the Ricardos' food.
Ricky is planning an Indian number for his nightclub act, and assumes that motherhood has ended Lucy's show business ambitions. However, Lucy still wants to get in on the act, and persuades the female vocalist in the number to switch places with her.
When it seems that everyone has forgotten Lucy's birthday, she becomes depressed and wanders around town. She meets the "Friends of the Friendless" in the park, and joins them. They all march to Ricky's club to protest, where a surprise party is waiting for her.
Now that they have a baby, Lucy thinks that she and Ricky need a bigger apartment, but Ricky says they cannot afford it. When Lucy learns that neighbor Mrs. Benson has an extra room now that her daughter has married, Lucy has the idea to swap apartments with Mr. and Mrs. Benson.
Lucy tries to fix up her girl friend with a bachelor friend of Fred's, but soon ends up as an unwitting party in a love triangle.
When Lucy buys a new sofa and coffee table without Ricky's permission, he says she will have to pay for it out of her allowance. To save money, Lucy attempts to make her own dress and gives herself a home perm.
Determined to prove to friends from her bridge club that she and Ricky have not grown apart, Lucy starts spending all of her time with Ricky. When she wants to join him and Fred on a summer camping trip, Ricky takes Lucy into the wilderness for a practice trip to make her hate camping, but Lucy and Ethel team up to thwart his plan.
Ricky and Fred are excited about watching a lengthy boxing match on TV. While Ricky and Fred stay glued to the set, Lucy and Ethel are mistaken for thieves and taken to the police station, while their husbands do not realize they are gone
The Ricardos sell their old washing machine to the Mertzes, where it breaks down in their possession. They demand that the Ricardos take it back, but then change their minds when they find out how much a repairman is willing to pay for it.
Lucy and Ethel are going to appear on TV with their women's club, and choose to sing Cole Porter's "Friendship" together. In addition, Lucy manages to use reverse psychology to get Ricky to host the event. All is well until the two women buy the same dress for the occasion.
ired of Ricky and Fred's attitude towards them, the girls demand equal rights. Ricky and Fred turn the tables on them when, out to dinner, they call for separate checks, and Ethel and Lucy, lacking any money in their purses, must wash dishes to pay for their meals.
The Ricardos have decided they are not going to brag about their baby Little Ricky. That changes when Carolyn and Charlie Appleby start to brag about their own baby, Stevie.
When Ricky and the Mertzes wager that Lucy can't go a full day without telling a lie, her husband and friends feel more than a bit stung by her unabashed honesty.
After being embarrassed in a restaurant, Lucy takes French lessons. Then she does everything she can to get into Ricky's new French-themed show.
Lucy decides that she and Ricky are going to redecorate the Mertzes' apartment.
The police are looking for "Madame X," the mysterious burglar. Due to misunderstandings, Ethel suspects that Lucy is Madame X, while Lucy suspects that Ethel is the burglar.
The girls decide they are tired of Ricky and Fred wearing the same old worn out clothes at home and decide to make some changes.
After a visit to the eye doctor leaves Lucy's vision hopelessly blurred for the rest of the day, she decides to go through a jitterbug number at an audition at Ricky's club.
The Ricardos and Mertzes take a marriage quiz. One question involves past romances, and Ricky makes up a story about an old girlfriend from Cuba, Carlotta Romero. When a real Cuban entertainer of the same name is performing in town, Ricky is in trouble.
Lucy concocts a delicious salad dressing, and Fred tells her she ought to sell it. Marketing the product as "Aunt Martha's Old Fashioned Salad Dressing," the girls manage to receive hundreds of orders. The problem: they've priced the product so cheaply that it will cost them rather than make them money.
While the Tropicana is closed for repainting, Ricky offers to give Lucy a week's break and take total responsibility for the care of Little Ricky.
After seeing Ricky and Fred give pretty girl Eve Whitney the eye during a party, Lucy and Ethel decide to go to charm school.
It is the Ricardos' wedding anniversary, and they plan to spend it home alone. The Mertzes however, have planned a surprise anniversary party for them.
Lucy and Ricky put on a big act for a magazine writer who wants to do an article on the 'real' Ricardos. The writer spends the day with Lucy and plants seeds of doubt about Ricky's fidelity. A stunt by Ricky's publicity agent makes it looks like he is cheating on her.
The gang buys oil stock from new neighbors who claim to be Texas oil tycoons.
Ricky gets fed up with Lucy buying so many new hats. They decide to see who can hold out the longest: she has to stop buying hats and he can't lose his temper.
Ricky bores everyone by overplaying the home movies he's taken with his new camera. When the gang finds out he's making a TV pilot they try to get in on the act, but they're stopped short. They decide to make their own movie.
Ricky secretly hides a winning Bonus Buck worth $300 in Lucy's purse, but she gives all the money in her purse to the grocery boy! Ethel gets the winning dollar in the form of change from the grocery boy, and Lucy and Ethel fight over it, to the point of ripping it. After the Ricardos' half of the dollar gets sent to the laundromat, the gang has to rush to get it back before the 3 pm contest deadline. Lucy and Ricky end up retrieving the bill, but at a great cost- they damaged so much from rushing that the group only ends up with one dollar left! Oh, the irony!
Ricky and his band get an offer to play in Honolulu. Lucy disguises herself an elderly mother and goes on a TV game show to try to win a trip to Honolulu for her and the Mertzes, but Ricky thwarts her fraudulent plan.
After Lucy and Ethel each accidentally pledge a five-hundred dollar donation to a charity run by Lucy's rich high-school friend, they must now earn the money to pay their donation.
Lucy's novel - a thinly disguised story of her life and the people in it - upsets Ricky, Fred, and Ethel.
Lucy, Ethel, and their friends from the Wednesday Afternoon Fine Arts League decide to raise money for their club by sponsoring a dance. They decide to form their own all-girl orchestra for the occasion, but they sound so terrible that Lucy convinces Ricky to give them some pointers, leading to unwanted publicity for Ricky.
After Ricky forbids Lucy to cut her hair short in an Italian style haircut, Lucy dons a black wig at the beauty salon to try out the look. She then decides test Ricky's marital fidelity by pretending to be another woman and flirts with him. However, Ricky, having been tipped-off of Lucy's plan by the salon owner, pretends not to recognize her and flirts back.
Ricky decides to quit show business, and the Ricardos and the Mertzes decide to open up a diner. The Mertzes struggle with all the difficult cooking, while Ricky only has to be the greeter. Because of a road detour, there are few customers.
Lucy's mother writes to inform Lucy and Ricky that her friend's roommate's cousin's son Ernie Ford will be arriving from Tennessee to visit them in New York. To the Ricardos' surprise, Ernie has no place to stay and must sleep in their living room since he cannot afford a hotel or a trip back home.
Ernie is still living with the Ricardos, much to their annoyance. The Ricardos and Mertzes try different schemes to get Ernie to leave on his own accord.
After Lucy buys Ricky a set of golf clubs for their anniversary, the girls regret it when he and Fred become obsessed with the game.
The Ricardos are taking a summer trip to Maine after Ricky's band is booked there, so they sublet their apartment for the summer. After the booking is canceled, the Ricardos need their apartment back, but the subtenant refuses to leave.
Lucy cries wolf once too often when she decides to see whether Ricky would come to her aid in an emergency. He assures her that he'd rush home from the club "between the 'baba' and the 'lu' " if she were in danger, but that's not enough reassurance for her, and soon she's in a precarious position.
Lucy attempts to help her friend Dorothy get married by inviting Dorothy and her beau Sam to a romantic dinner at the Ricardos' apartment, hoping to present Sam with a positive example of married and parenting life. However, Ricky is not amused at Lucy's matchmaking attempts, and the evening does not go as planned.
Phipps Department Store offers Ricky a job as a morning TV show host, but only if it includes Lucy as well.
A Hollywood talent scout wants Ricky to audition for a movie about the life of Don Juan, and everyone wants to get into the act and audition.
Lucy appears with Ricky in his screen test, with the hope that she will get discovered by a Hollywood executive.
When Ricky's mother visits, Lucy desperately tries to impress her.
Fred asks Lucy to choose something special for him to give Ethel for her birthday. Ethel opens the gift, then complains that Fred's choice of presents is getting worse every year.
Ricky is still waiting for the results of his screen test, and his anxious attitude is worrying Lucy and the Mertzes. To calm Ricky down, Fred leaves a note saying that Ricky got the job, but the call still has yet to come.
The Ricardos and the Mertzes are all ready to leave for California, until they see the antique car Fred has bought for the trip.
Ricky makes the mistake of teaching Lucy to drive his brand new car. It's only after showing Ethel how the car works that she crashes into another car and has to get them unhooked and fixed in time.
Lucy and Ricky are all ready to start their trek to Los Angeles when complications develop: Lucy's mother decides to join them. The car is also extremely overloaded with baggage strapped precariously on all sides.
After a long day of non-stop driving, the Ricardos and the Mertzes pull into a run-down cafe somewhere near Cincinnati that has nothing but frozen cheese sandwiches. The bunk beds in their ugly cabin, with spongy sagging mattresses, scoot back and forth across the floor every time a noisy train passes nearby.
After getting lost and ending up south in Tennessee, the Ricardos and Mertzes get arrested for speeding and Tennessee Ernie Ford helped them escape, to continue their trip west, to California.
The gang arrives in Ethel's hometown of Albequerque, New Mexico, where the locals are under the impression that she, and not Ricky, has been hired to star in a Hollywood movie.
When the Ricardos and the Mertzes arrive in Hollywood, Lucy goes to the Brown Derby restaurant where her sighting of William Holden turns catastrophic.
Ricky leaves Lucy at their hotel and goes out to a movie premiere with four starlets. He then gets in trouble with Lucy when she thinks that he was out all night.
Lucy finally gets her chance - she lands a part as a murdered showgirl in a major MGM musical.
Lucy is determined to own a Don Loper gown and winds up being part of a "Hollywood Wives" fashion show while having a bad sunburn.
Lucy's mother arrives in California with the baby, while Ricky's agent concocts a publicity stunt designed to land Ricky in Hedda Hopper's celebrity gossip column. They plan for Ricky to "save" Lucy from drowning in the hotel pool.
When Lucy finds out from a Variety article that MGM has shelved Ricky's film Don Juan, she schemes with her mother and the Mertzes to create public demand for Ricky's talent. However, producer Dore Schary informs Ricky that even though the studio is indeed shelving Don Juan, they want to keep Ricky on contract, and will star him in a film as soon as they can find the right one.
When Lucy gets to write answers to questions about what it is like to be married to Ricky for Photoplay magazine, she blackmails him to let her appear in his "Heart Fund" show. However, when Lucy's singing skills are not up to par, Ricky arranges for her to wear a bull costume for his bull fight number.
Lucy and Ricky's wedding anniversary is approaching, and Ricky has forgotten the date, but he has a plan to convince Lucy that he knew it all along, telling her that he had planned an anniversary party at the Mocambo nightclub. She is elated until she learns that the entire party is a sham.
Lucy poses as a bellboy to get a glimpse of Cornel Wilde, who is staying at the hotel. When this does not work, Lucy manages to get a bellboy's help to sneak into Wilde's hotel room. However, getting out of his room proves to be more difficult.
Lucy and Ethel go to Palm Springs; guest Rock Hudson.
Carolyn Appleby, one of Lucy's friends from New York, is visiting and wants to meet some of the movie stars that Lucy has bragged about befriending, starting with Van Johnson, who is appearing at the hotel.
Lucy promised Carolyn Appleby she'd produce some real Hollywood celebrities. Now she's got to deliver. Dressing up as Clark Gable, Gary Cooper and other celebrities, she manages to fool the near-sighted Carolyn. However, the real Harpo Marx shows up only to discover Lucy dressed up as him.
Lucy pretends to be Ricky's agent and tries to bluff a studio executive (Parley Baer) into casting Ricky in a film, only to get him released from his contract.
After Ricky forbids Lucy to join him for lunch with Richard Widmark at Romanoff's, Lucy and Ethel take a bus tour of movie stars' homes in Beverly Hills, and Lucy ends up picking a grapefruit from Widmark's backyard, where she gets trapped.
MGM asks Ricky to help entertain executives at a studio party. Ricky has plans to go deep-sea fishing, but as far as Lucy is concerned, "the show must go on." She performs with a dummy and ends up being offered a contract.
Ricky sells the car and buys train tickets for the trip back to New York, but he forgets about Fred and Ethel, leading to a rift between the friends. After Lucy informs Ricky of his error, he is able to buy tickets for the Mertzes, but Lucy worries when she finds out that the tickets are not the same class as theirs.
On the trip back to New York, Lucy learns a jewel thief's on their train.
The gang is finally home from Hollywood, and everybody is gushing over Ricky, treating him like the movie star that he has become. A reporter emphasizes to Lucy how important it is to pamper Ricky and love every minute she has to spend with him. Lucy falls under the Ricky-is-a-star spell, too, and Ricky hates it. To snap her out of it, Ricky starts acting like a hugely pompous celebrity, ordering Lucy to do five things at once. Lucy eventually gets annoyed enough to shout back at Ricky, and he tells her that he's happy he's got his girl back.
Ricky's agent says that the Ricardos should move to a fancy apartment and get out of the "dump" that the Mertzes own. The Ricardos stand up for the Mertzes, saying they're happy where they are. Just for fun, though, Lucy goes to look at a high-price New York apartment. Meanwhile, the Mertzes make up a fake fight to get the Ricardos to move out, because they think living elsewhere would do wonders for Ricky's careers. After the fight, Ethel calls up her Aunt Martha, saying that there will probably be a vacant apartment soon. But when the Mertzes find out Lucy visited the ritzy apartments, and when the Ricardos find out Ethel called Aunt Martha, the two couples start bitterly feuding. The feud spreads when they all appear on the TV show Face to Face. In the end, all of their real motives are explained, and they end up friends again.
Ricky is upset when he learns that he signed up to do not a radio show, but a rodeo show. When there are no acts available, he has to reluctantly turn to Lucy and the Mertzes since they are planning their own Western show for Fred's lodge.
Lucy is not happy about the idea of being separated from Little Ricky, but Ricky insists their son must start nursery school. Lucy then becomes worried when Little Ricky gets sick with tonsillitis and must be hospitalized.
Ricky's band gets booked in Europe, and Fred is recruited as Ricky's band manager. Lucy and Ethel can only go if they can come up with enough money to pay their own way. They run a raffle benefiting a phony charity and nearly get arrested for the fraud.
Lucy needs her birth certificate in order to get her passport, but Jamestown has no record of her being born there. She devises a way to sneak to Europe with the others: hide in a large steamer trunk. While trying it out, she ends up locked in the trunk with the key in her pocket. Lucy ends up receiving her birth certificate in the mail from her mother, and learns from her childhood doctor that she was actually born in West Jamestown.
The Ricardos and Mertzes are all ready to leave for Europe, until Fred announces that he gets seasick, so Ricky suggests seasick pills.
After boarding the ocean liner SS Constitution, Lucy goes ashore just one more time to kiss Little Ricky goodbye, and misses the boat. As a result, she ends up hiring a helicopter to drop her off on the ship.
Lucy plans to make the ocean voyage a second honeymoon, but Ricky has previous shipboard engagements with his band. When she has had enough, she devises a plan with Ethel to trap Ricky in the room.
Lucy and Ethel go looking for Queen Elizabeth II on their first day in London. Ethel manages to get a glimpse of the Queen, but Lucy misses seeing her. Eventually, Lucy finds out that she can be presented to the Queen if she is one of the performers in Ricky's show at the London Palladium.
Lucy is torn between wanting to spend the weekend fox hunting and her jealousy of a blonde.
Ricky's tour calls for Paris as the next stop, but Lucy wants to go to Scotland.
The Ricardos and the Mertzes arrive in Paris, and when a man outside the American Express office offers to exchange money for Lucy, she ends up in jail for passing counterfeit francs.
Lucy decides to fake a meeting with Charles Boyer.
Lucy is determined to get a new designer dress while in Paris.
While in Lucerne, the Ricardos and the Mertzes go mountain climbing in the Swiss Alps, and are stuck in a cabin with little to eat after a sudden avalanche.
Lucy, while in Florence, gets homesick for Little Ricky on his third birthday. To lift her spirits, she hosts an impromptu party for several Italian children who all claim it is their birthday too.
Lucy is "discovered" by an Italian film director while traveling to Rome.
Lucy can't cross the French-Italian border because she lost her passport.
Lucy and Ethel go to the casino and inadvertently win big. After Ricky finds the hidden money, he thinks Fred has been skimming Ricky's concert earnings.
In order to make it home from Europe in time for Ricky and his band to perform at the Roxy Theatre, everyone must travel back to New York by plane. Lucy tries to get out of paying duties by disguising a twenty-five pound piece of Italian cheese as a swaddled baby, much to the frustration of Ricky.
Orson Welles asks Lucy to assist in his magic act.
A case of stage fright hits Little Ricky as he is about to perform.
Lucy tries to reunite a Venetian gondolier with his brother who lives in America.
Driving to Miami to meet their husbands after Ricky's band is booked in Florida, the girls share the drive with a strange lady (Elsa Lanchester) they suspect is an ax murderess.
While in Miami, the boys bet the girls that they will catch bigger fish on a planned deep-sea fishing trip. To win the bet, the men and the women each buy large tunas to pass off as their catch. The only problem is hiding the fish from their spouses.
Still in Miami, Lucy and Ethel's scheme to prevent the boys from judging a bathing beauty contest leaves the Ricardos and the Mertzes marooned on a desert island.
Lucy is bent on impressing Ricky's family when they leave Florida and visit Havana, Cuba, but she cannot seem to say or do anything right.
Back in New York, the Ricardos and the Mertzes sign on as extra cast members in Little Ricky's school play, "The Enchanted Forest".
Lucy, Ricky, Fred and Ethel reminisce (via flashbacks of previous episodes) as they trim the tree on Christmas Eve. The flashbacks were all from season 2, include Lucy telling Ricky about her pregnancy in Lucy Is Enceinte, Lucy, Ricky, Fred and Ethel singing in a barbershop quartet in Lucy's Showbiz Swan Song, and Ricky, Fred and Ethel franctically preparing for Lucy's impending labor in Lucy Goes to the Hospital.
After Ricky makes fun of Lucy's new hat, she puts on a trophy that Ricky is supposed to present at a ceremony. She finds out it goes on a lot easier than it comes off.
Lucy promises to produce Superman ([[George Reeves]) for Little Ricky's fifth birthday party, but must make alternate plans when he is unable to attend. She hastily tries to impersonate Superman, but gets locked out on the balcony with the pigeons.
Little Ricky's new puppy prompts complaints by a grouchy new tenant.
Fed up with city life, Lucy yearns for the suburban life. Ricky buys an old Colonial house in suburban Westport, Connecticut as a surprise for their anniversary.
The Mertzes rent the Ricardo's apartment to a young newlywed couple named Mr. and Mrs. Taylor. Lucy and Ricky decide to sell their furniture to the Taylors, but when Lucy finds out that the Taylors plan to make alterations the furniture, she buys all of it back from them. Then when the Ricardos find out that the Connecticut house's title search has been delayed for two weeks, they find themselves, and all their belongings, living with the Mertzes while they wait to move into their new home.
The Ricardos move into their new home in Connecticut. While Little Ricky is at a sleepover, Lucy and Ricky decide to take the train to New York to surprise the Mertzes. But Fred and Ethel have the same idea, and are on their way to Connecticut.
Lucy's new neighbor, Betty Ramsey, talks Lucy into buying all new furniture, and it all ends up costing over three thousand dollars. When Ricky finds out, he demands that Lucy return it. However, she is too embarrassed to admit to Betty that they cannot afford the new furniture, which leads Betty to assume that Lucy thinks that she has bad taste. Eventually, the Mertzes arrive and help clear up the misunderstanding, and Betty's husband Ralph gives Ricky a job on a television show that pays thirty-five hundred dollars, which will be enough to pay for furniture.
The Ricardos and Mertzes go to war over chicken-raising and PTA meetings.
Lucy gets involved in a flower show and starts raising tulips.
Lucy becomes involved in community affairs and almost gets expelled from the neighborhood.