Lucy Ricardo

[upbeat music] Hello, friends.

Welcome to the Lucy Podcast.

And now your host, here's Jordan.

Hello, friends.

Welcome to the Lucy Podcast.

This is your host, Jordan, and today we're talking about I Love Lucy, season four, episode six, "Ricky's Movie Offer." This first aired November 8th, 1954.

So we're-- This is-- I think this is the first episode that was actually recorded in the time of when they were into season four.

So it wasn't like they recorded it when they were doing season three.

I Love Lucy began a six-year run in October 1951, continuing on six seasons until May of '57.

Starring Lucille Ball as the perpetually scheming, endlessly ambitious Lucy Ricardo, and her real life husband, Desi Arnaz, as Cuban band leader Ricky Ricardo, the show turned Lucille Ball's breathtaking physical comedy into a global phenomenon that everybody copied.

I mean, the three camera setup filmed before a live studio audience on 35 millimeter film created the modern television syndication model.

Everything that came after I Love Lucy owes something to this show.

And the first issue of TV Guide was released April 3rd, 1953.

The cover was really special because it featured a photograph of an adorable baby swaddled in yellow against a blue background under the headline, "Lucy's $50 Million Baby."

[laughs]

The baby pictured was Lucille Ball's newborn son, Desi Arnaz Jr.

And the reason that headline existed is because the advertising revenue around her pregnancy and his birth was expected to surpass that amount.

Desi Arnaz Jr. was arguably America's first newborn star because his parents, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, who produced and starred in the sitcom, I Love Lucy, they had written Lucille Ball's pregnancy into the show, which was incredibly daring, groundbreaking, and the network did not want it to happen in 1952.

The same day that Desi Jr. was born in real life, the fictional Lucy Ricardo gave birth on television to Little Ricky, which I think that's insane.

That was insane.