I Love Lucy

You might think I just sit around trying to come up with parties to have. And maybe on some level I do. Or it might just be the fact that I love to be with people, and have to have a "reason" to come together with them. I know you don't need that, but it's much easier for me to work up the nerve to say, hey come hang out with me, when there's a plan involved. When it's just to do "nothing", the rejection is so much more personal, and I don't know about you, but I hate rejection.

God has really blessed me with a great group of friends that I can call to get together and hang out. We can laugh and have a good time, and not even need an agenda. I've also been blessed with a wonderful family.

Did you know that this past Saturday was Lucille Ball's 100th birthday.. if she was still alive?


I Love Lucy is very dear to me, and I love to spend time laughing together with my family watching the episodes. We do this at least once a week! My kids will end up laughing hysterically at some of her theatrics. Laughing is great for the body, and this show always delivers for us. It's so nice to have some hilariously good, clean, family entertainment.


The first time I watched an I Love Lucy episode, I was probably 12 or 13. I was staying up late, and the show came on television around midnight. I could not stop laughing. I never did catch the name of the show, and told my mother about it the next day. I tried to explain who the characters were in it, but my mom couldn't figure out what I had watched. I think I watched it a few times before I ever knew that I was watching I Love Lucy. It's been a favorite of mine ever since.


If I remember right, the first episode I watched was "First Stop" from the fourth season. The Ricardo's and the Mertz's are taking their road trip to California for Ricky's big Hollywood movie. They stop for a bite to eat and are terribly disappointed with the selection of food. The only thing left to choose was a cheese sandwich that they can't even sink their teeth in to. They end up paying their bill very unhappily, get back in the car and plan to drive to a nicer place. The climax is when they finally reach the new restaurant/hotel, it's the same rotten place they were at an hour ago. Since everyone is so tired, it's settled they will just put up with the only cabin, and more hilarious things unfold. To this day it's still one of my all time favorite I Love Lucy episodes.


You can't actually see it in my photos since I changed them to grayscale, but we all are dressed in Black & White on purpose. It was the costume for the party. Zech's red arm was the only thing in color.


If you noticed in the pictures, we're all smoking. I want to clarify, Those aren't real cigarettes. We thought it would be fun for the party to buy the candy ones. We got a chocolate pack of cigarettes and a gum pack. If you're familiar with the show, someone is always smoking. Most of the time it's Ricky, but often Lucy and the others will join him for a cigarette. Sadly, Desi Arnaz actually died from lung cancer at the age of 69.


During our party we spent most of our time watching the highlights of the show. Titus and I looked through the first 4 seasons that we own, and picked out the funniest shows. We wanted the night to be filled with laughter. We spent almost 3 hours watching I Love Lucy. It was very difficult to narrow it down, but in the end we found 8 of her funniest moments.

From Season 1 we watched:
Pioneer Women and Lucy Does a TV Commercial

From Season 2 we watched:
Job Switching, Lucy Becomes a Sculptress, Sales Resistance , Lucy Wants New Furniture,

We skipped all of Season 3 and went on to Season 4, we watched:
Getting Ready, and my favorite First Stop.

No party is complete without something to take home with you. We had a couple movies we gave out as our door prizes.


It was a night FULL of laughter! I loved it.

Just for fun, some random facts for you:

CBS would not allow them to use the word "pregnant" when Lucy was pregnant with Little Ricky. They instead always called her "Expecting." The episode in which Lucy gives birth, first aired on January 19, 1953. To increase the publicity of this episode, the original air date was chosen to coincide with Lucille Ball's real-life delivery of Desi, Jr. by cesarean delivery.

I Love Lucy was more popular than President Dwight Eisenhower. Eisenhower's presidential inauguration drew 29 million viewers on January 20, 1953. The prior day, 44 million viewers tuned in to watch Lucy give birth to little Ricky.

Everything on I Love Lucy was scripted. Despite what seemed like ad-libbing, Ball made sure each moment of the show was rehearsed and perfected.

Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz were married for 20 years and got divorced 3 years after the show ended. Lucille actually initiated a divorce to Desi in 1944, but reconciled. The show aired from 1951-1957. They remained friends, and grew closer in Desi's last decade of life. Lucille telephoned him two days before his death, on what would have been their 46th wedding anniversary. They shared a few words, mostly "I love you's." She said, "All right, honey. I'll talk to you later."

On April 18, 1989, Lucille Ball was at her home in Beverly Hills when she complained of chest pains. An ambulance was called and she was rushed to the emergency room. She was diagnosed as having a dissecting aortic aneurysm and underwent heart surgery for nearly eight hours, receiving an aorta from a 27 year old male donor. The surgery was successful, and Ball began recovering, even walking around her room with little assistance. On April 26, shortly after dawn, Ball awoke with severe back pains. Her aorta had ruptured in a second location and Ball quickly lost consciousness. All attempts to revive her proved unsuccessful, and she died at approximately 05:47 PST. She was 77 years old.


Lucille Ball before her final public appearance, with her husband Gary Morton on the left. The photo was taken at the 61st Academy Awards just 3 weeks before her death.

I've always believed the title of the show to be very fitting, because
I LOVE Lucy.