Original air date: May 12, 1952
We open on Ricky playing cards in the living room. Lucy just finished doing all the dishes, but somehow it’s Ricky who’s in a shitty mood. He doesn’t want to hang out with the Mertzes and doesn’t want to play cards.
He’s your average six-year-old at the end of summer.
Lucy: I’ll get you a gun, you can shoot yourself.
Well, that escalated quickly.
Original air date: May 5, 1952
Ballers, after many weeks of watching Fred call his wife fat, listening to Ricky sing even when we weren’t that into him, and begging Lucy to suck it up and start her own YouTube channel, we arrive at my very favorite episode: “Lucy Does a TV Commercial.”
Somehow in 1952, writers and performers had a lot more stamina. This is episode 30, and we’re STILL not through with Season 1! There’s 35 of these suckers. Too bad the gang didn’t get addicted to Vitameatavegamin and disappear for a few weeks. We could all use the break.
But we keep pressing on. So sit back, relax, and grab some alcohol and/or medicine. It’s happy hour somewhere!
Continue reading
(Or: The One with the Meat Jokes)
Original air date: April 28, 1952
As I said on the WTF Lucy Facebook page, we have now entered the high holy days of I Love Lucy. This week, we celebrate “The Freezer” — one of the best written sitcom episodes ever. I actually studied this episode in my first TV writing class.
Next week we’ll observe the most sacred Lucy day of the year: the day “Lucy Does a TV Commercial.” You may know it best as the Viteameatavegamin episode. However you traditionally celebrate, here’s wishing you and your families a very happy holiday. Save me some leftovers.
We open on Ricky and Lucy in the kitchen, where Ricky is once again unhappy with his breakfast.
Ricky: Just two eggs? Where’s the bacon?! They look absolutely naked!
Lucy: Well look the other way when you eat them.
(Or: Lucy Kisses Dating Goodbye)
**More WTFacts are at this week’s Episode Watch Party.**
We open on Lucy cleaning out the desk, and underneath the receipts for freestanding bathtubs, bellydancing costumes, and other super useless items she’s bought this month, she finds her and Ricky’s marriage license.
Lucy (reading): On this day, Lucille Esmeralda McGillicuddy was married to Ricky… Bicardi?
And in zero to sixty, Lucy enters full freakout.
You know, she’s really doing this wrong. She might be the heiress to the Bacardi fortune. That’s a LOT of money. My rum and cokes alone would cover the freestanding bathtub and then some.
(Or: Nancy the Harpist: the heartbreak episode)
**More WTFacts are at this week’s Episode Watch Party.**
We open on Lucy talking with Marge via telephone. They’re gossiping like 12-year-old cheerleaders about the fat kid in school. Poor Betty. We’ll get back to her.
Ricky wants Lucy to get off the phone, probably because with all this gossip she’s eventually going to hear about him and Fred going in together on a paid Ashley Madison account. But Lucy keeps talking:
Lucy: She didn’t! She didn’t! She didn’t! She couldn’t!
Ricky: Maybe that’s why she didn’t.
When Lucy finally hangs up, she worries what Marge is saying about her. Ricky’s like “I literally slap you around the damn house, and even I know this isn’t healthy.”
(Or: The Cast Puts the Bic in Transphobic)
**More WTFacts are at this week’s Episode Watch Party.**
We open on –
Sorry but no. I can’t start there. What’s with the title? I’m so sick and tired of this highfalutin, frenchified, European english.
This is ‘murca, and it’s mustache here, not “moustache.” Even my text editor just spell-corrected that commie version with the “ou.”
You want to spell things like some socialist micro-car-driving wine snob? Move to Sweden and buy an Ikea.
But when you write for television, which was founded here in the home of the free, you cut out the “o” along with humility, affordable health care, and gun control.
USA! USA! USA!
(Or: War is a force that gives us meaning)
**More WTFacts are at this week’s Episode Watch Party.**
We open on the living room window, which we’ve never seen before. Lucy and Ethel are snooping on the new neighbors moving in while Ricky demands his breakfast. I’m not sure which is ruder.
(Or: Stalking can be fun!)
**Get the background story at this week’s Episode Watch Party.**
Happy 20th episode, Ballers! We open on Lucy reading a New York Times about Hitler.
Actually, the person on the cover is Gen. Sir Gerald Templer, who was put in charge of British forces in 1952 during the “Malayan Emergency.” But, being Jewish, I can’t go five sentences without mentioning Hitler.
Lucy is a highly educated woman with a strong handle on world affairs… as long as Ricky’s not looking.
Ricky comes in totally creeped out by a perverted teenage psychopath named Peggy. She lives next door, she’s “like a spook,” and she’s legit stalking him. Lucy thinks it’s hilarious, and reminds Ricky that teenage girls are totally unreasonable.
I used to have a massive crush on Ricky myself, and considering he was a) fictional and b) 80 years old by that point, I have to side with Lucy on this.
OR: Lucy Shows Her Stems
Happy Friday, Ballers!
Enough with the chit chat.
We open on Ricky looking through a bunch of papers as the rest of the gang enters. Lucy wants him to hurry up because “the picture starts at 8:22.” That’s awfully specific. Was that really how it worked back in the 50s? No wonder people hate millennials. A millennial hears “8:22” and has a panic attack mixed with a peanut allergy.
Ricky can’t go, though. He’s having trouble finding acts. He needs a ballerina and two comics.
(Or: Lucy and Ricky do something together for once)
Welcome back, my dear Ballers. I’ve missed you like Ethel misses singlehood. Let’s dive in.
We open on our typical Ricardo-Mertz double date. Everyone’s standing around the piano singing “I want a girl just like the girl that married dear old Dad.” Freud’s like, “Yeah, I know! I’ve been saying this for decades!”
Those lyrics are creepy as hell. Here’s the first verse of that song (emphasis mine):
WTF Lucy 