I Love Lucy was one of the most popular and beloved American comedy series in the history of television. It ran from 1951 to 1957. The show followed the comic adventures of a married couple and their neighbors and friends. The show is notable for pioneering many of the conventions of the television situation comedy, including using several cameras for each scene and recording before a live audience. “I Love Lucy” remains popular today in reruns in dozens of languages around the world.
The show starred the comedian Lucille Ball as Lucy Ricardo, the zany housewife of Cuban-born bandleader Ricky Ricardo. Ricky was played by Ball’s real-life husband, the Cuban-born actor, musician, and bandleader Desi Arnaz. Ricky worked at—and later owned—a downtown nightclub. Many of the couple’s misadventures came about as a result of Lucy’s schemes to get into show business—usually against Ricky’s wishes.
The show’s other main characters included the Ricardos’ friends, landlords, and neighbors the Mertzes. Ethel Mertz (Vivian Vance) often served as an accomplice in Lucy’s crazy schemes, to the disgust of Ethel’s grouchy husband, Fred Mertz (William Frawley). The Ricardos later had a son, Little Ricky. From 1956 to 1957, as Little Ricky grew up, he was played by a child actor (Keith Thibodeaux, credited as Richard Keith).
The Ricardos and Mertzes first lived in an apartment building in New York City. The two families later moved to Westport, Connecticut. The show’s successor, “The Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show” (also known as “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour”), was a series of 13 one-hour specials that originally aired until 1960.
“I Love Lucy” was created by writer, producer, and director Jess Oppenheimer. He adapted it from “My Favorite Husband,” a radio comedy series that was broadcast from 1948 to 1951 starring Ball and actor Richard Denning as a married couple. The radio series was based on the novel Mr. and Mrs. Cugat (1940) by the American author Isabel Scott Rorick.
See also Arnaz, Desi ; Ball, Lucille ; CBS ; Television (History of U.S. television broadcasting) .
