History Series / ILoveLucy

** Signified any time Lucy said her nasally grimacing [[CatchPhrase "Eeeeeeeeew!"]]

* ReadingTheStageDirectionsOutLoud: In "Lucy Writes a Play", one of Ethel's blunders reading the script for the first time includes fumbling a line describing her character's daughter "Lucita". She describes multiple aspects of Lucita's beauty before reading, without hesitation, "your nose is continued on the next page."

''I Love Lucy'' was a groundbreaking {{sitcom}} from the husband-and-wife creative team of Creator/LucilleBall and Creator/DesiArnaz, under the auspices of their studio, [[Creator/DesiluStudios Desilu Productions]], running from 1951-1957. The show followed a young married couple, played by and loosely based on Ball and Arnaz themselves, through a series of wacky misadventures.

The show's plot often hinged on Lucy trying to convince her bandleader husband Ricky Ricardo (played by Arnaz) to let her appear in his mambo-centric variety show. Ricky insisted on his wife [[StayInTheKitchen remaining home to do wife things]] because he wanted her to give him a quiet home life and she had no talent. Lucy would come up with a ZanyScheme to subvert his authority, by either making her own money or sneaking into the show. HilarityEnsues (and this time, it really means it), and a lot of the humor in the episodes' last acts were built around Lucille Ball, in ''real life'', being a very gifted physical comedian.

Ethel Mertz and her husband Fred, Lucy's neighbors and landlords (and in Fred's case, Ricky's sometimes business manager), rounded out the central cast. An old married couple who couldn't stand one another, Fred and Ethel were former vaudevillians that Ricky would occasionally bring into his show, super-charging Lucy's insecurities by leaving her the only member of the gang ''not'' in show biz. Ethel would often be the unwilling sidekick to Lucy's harebrained schemes, and Fred would often be the muscle for Ricky's.

The show was filmed, which was a big deal in 1951. At the time, most TV shows were "archived", mainly as a receipt to show sponsors their ads had run, via [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinescope kinescope]] which is simply a movie camera taking footage of a TV displaying the show's live broadcast. Obviously, this produces really crummy-looking video; that's why most shows from [[TheFifties the early '50s]] have either been lost or are of very little interest for reuse (videotape didn't become available until 1956). ''I Love Lucy'', by contrast, was able to use not being broadcast live to its full advantage. Desi Arnaz invented the live studio ThreeCameras technique, which is still standard in sitcoms to this day. This show also invented the {{Rerun}}: when Lucille Ball became pregnant and needed a reduction in her workload, Desi came up with the idea of showing a previously-aired-but-much-loved episode instead of something new, which was only possible because Desilu had taken the trouble to film the original broadcast in the first place. "Reruns?" CBS scoffed, "ItWillNeverCatchOn." Well, the laugh's on them; ''I Love Lucy'' has been on the air literally non-stop since it was first produced. Television historians have noted that since its original airing, the show has continuously been in syndication ''somewhere'' in the world. And because CBS in their shortsightedness signed all rebroadcast rights over to Desi, this has made Ball's and Arnaz's estates filthy stinking rich.

It has erroneously been called the first television sitcom to deal with the subject of pregnancy and delivery. This is incorrect, as ''Mary Kay and Johnny'', the first television sitcom in the United States, had tackled the subject four years earlier. Nonetheless, it was still a very sensitive topic at the time, and the MoralGuardians were horrified. ''Viewer'' reaction was actually quite positive, and the episode where Lucy gives birth broke the all-time viewer record up to that point. Because they couldn't actually say "pregnant" on air, they instead popularized the euphemism "expecting", while the episode title was a BilingualBonus ("Lucy Is Enceinte"). And now you know.

* AbsentAnimalCompanion: "The Séance" in Season 1 shows that Ethel and Fred have a dog. It never appears or gets mentioned again in the series.
* AbuseMistake: The episode "The Black Eye" revolves around Lucy getting a black eye after Ricky tried to toss her a thriller book they were acting out, but it ended up hitting her in the face. Fred and Ethel are both convinced, hearing the lurid performancen of the book, that they got into a fight and he slugged her, refusing to believe them when they say it was just an accident. Things get resolved when the same accident befalls the Mertzes.

* AndThenWhat: In "The Adagio", Lucy hires an Apache dance instructor from Paris named Jean Valjean Ramon. The moment he arrives, he starts to come on to her ''very'' strongly and professes his love for her, much to her dismay. In the end, Ricky catches him climbing into the bedroom window to elope with the unwilling Lucy. Jean Valjean and Ricky are to have a duel, but the former backs out and explains to Ricky that he only acted the way he did because he was told that Frenchmen are expected to be romantic by American women. He is really married with five children. So if Lucy had responded positively to his advances and really did want to elope with him, what would he have done?

** In "The Black Eye", Fred tries to play peacemaker between a quarreling Lucy and Ricky, by having a bouquet of roses and a box of candy delivered to Lucy on Ricky's behalf. He accidentally sends the romantic note with his own name, earning Ricky's ire when he sees the note.
** In another episode we find out Ricky keeps a box of chocolate in the back of the closet complete with gift tags for Christmas, Anniversaries, Valentines and other various holidays for times he forgot to get a gift... including a generic 'forgive me for what I did' card. Mistakenly having given it to Lucy, he takes it back.

* AssemblyLineFastForward: The TropeCodifier, from the famous chocolate factory scene. When working wrapping candies, Lucy and Ethel already struggle and fail to keep pace with the belt, and, due to mishaps at their last stations, have been threatened with termination if even a single candy pases through to the next room unwrapped. This results in the girls pulling candies off the belt and stuffing them into their jackets, hats, and mouths. Then the forewoman comes back in, thinks they're doing a great job, and orders the belt to speed up...

* BadlyBatteredBabysitter: In "The Amateur Hour," Lucy is in need of money. She finds a babysitting job that pays five dollars an hour (a large sum in the 1950s). Suspicious, she asks why she is being paid so much but is only told that she'll be taking care of a little boy. When he arrives, Lucy is confused and begins to doubt her sanity when it seems like the boy is completely contradicting moments previously and not remembering things Lucy just did. The audience is alerted earlier than Lucy that there are ''two'' boys, twin brothers who the mother sneaks in under the guise there's one boy because she knows no babysitter would take both. They prove extremely difficult to deal with, constantly kicking her and at one point they even attempt to burn her at the stake while playing CowboysAndIndians.

* BANGFlagGun: In the episode "Lucy Thinks Ricky Is Trying To Murder Her," Lucy mistakes one of these for a real gun.
* BaseballEpisode: "Lucy Meets Creator/BobHope".
* BedsheetLadder: In "Fred and Ethel Fight," Lucy uses one to escape from a (unbeknownst to her, falsified) fire that Ricky and Fred set up to stage a heroic rescue that couldnend their fight. Unfortunately, she fails to tie it to anything and falls out the window. This is also while wearing body casts she put on during her own scheme to fake a bus accident in her own plan to stage a scenario to end the fight!

* BigEater: Ethel, who was the butt of quite a few "fat" jokes from Fred. Rather hypocritical of him really, since, despite Ethel's enormous appetite, ''he'' was actually much more overweight.
* BilingualBonus: Desi Arnaz really was from Havana, so Ricky often ranted in Spanish, which was nice for Spanish speakers... if they could get past his thick Cuban accent.[[note]] As mentioned elsewhere on this site, "Island Spanish" is often considered by speakers of more standard dialects to be equivalent to how most English speakers view Jamaican.[[/note]]
** Special mention should go to "Ricky Minds the Baby" in which Ricky acts out the bedtime story "Little Red Riding Hood" to Little Ricky for 2 minutes using less than 10 words in English such as "hunter", "hello" and "Oh, my!".[[note]] Oddly enough, in RealLife, Desi did not see much point in having his children learn Spanish; Lucy had to badger him to teach them any.[[/note]]

* BritishRoyalGuards: The European vacation story arc during the show's fifth season began in London where Lucy visited Buckingham Palace and missed out on seeing the Queen when she became preoccupied with desperately attempting to get a guard to crack a smile. The scene ends with the Changing of the Guard. [[spoiler:If one looks really closely, one can see the guard's lips curling up slightly]].

* {{Calvinball}}: In the episode "The Golf Game," Lucy and Ethel want to take up golf, and ask Fred and Ricky how to play. The men don't want their wives following them around the golf course, so they try to discourage them by inventing a set of crazy and overly complex instructions for play. The girls get back at the boys by convincing a famous golf pro to play exactly the way the boys taught them, leading Fred and Ricky convinced they'd been playing the game wrong all these years.

* TheCastShowoff:[[invoked]] All four leads, at various times. Justified in-show, as Ricky is a bandleader/singer, the Mertzes are former vaudeville hoofers, and Lucy aspires to a career in showbiz.
* CatchPhrase: "Lucy, you got some splainin' to do." - Ricky, despite being something of a BeamMeUpScotty. "Waaaaaah" or "Ewwwww" by Lucy and "Oh, for corn's sake!" for Fred are more accurate.

* CelebrityLie: In "Harpo Marx", Lucy had been bragging in letters to Carolyn Appleby about all the celebrities she's been hanging out with in Hollywood, even promising to produce some when she comes out for a visit. When Ricky refuses to help, though, Lucy schemes to have near-sighted Carolyn lose her glasses and then to pose as various celebrities. Meanwhile, Ricky bumps into Harpo and [[HilarityEnsues asks him to pay the girls a visit]].
* CelebrityParadox: In an early episode Lucy mentions Tennessee Ernie. Later Cousin Ernie visits (and hangs on).

* CheatingWithTheMilkman: There is an episode where a rumor was spread about a neighbor, Grace Foster, having an affair with the milkman while Mr. Foster is away.

* ClingyJealousGirl: Lucy can sometimes be this. A prime example is the episode "Cuban Pals", where a young lady named Renita that Ricky knew as a little girl in Cuba comes to town. Though he never shows any signs of being attracted to her, nor she him (if anything, Ricky acts fatherly to the girl), Lucy becomes incredibly jealous of Renita. She even gets Fred to pose as a cab driver to get rid of her. Lucy ''does'' get [[KarmicTwistEnding her hilarious comeuppance]] in the end, though, when she tries to take Renita's place in an act down at the club.

* CloudCuckoolander: Lucy's Mother, Mrs [=MacGillicuddy=]. Although the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree...
* ComedicSpanking: Several episodes have ended with Ricky spanking Lucy for the trouble she's caused.

* CompressedVice: In "In Palm Springs," Lucy, Ricky, Fred, and Ethel read a story about how a wife couldn't stand her husband's knuckle cracking and attacked him. Soon after the spouses start commenting on the irritating habits of each other (Ricky's finger drumming to Lucy's teaspoon mixing, Ethel's loud eating compared to Fred's keys jingling) leading to an argument about how these actions have been a problem for many years.  The episode also shows that the characters practically do their vices on reflex.  None of these habits were seen before and were never seen again after the episode ended.  Funny enough, there is a running gag concerning Ethel and her eating through-out the show, but it always refers to how much she eats, not how loud.

* {{Costumer}}: In one episode, they visit Scotland and Lucy dreams she and Ricky are the leads in a Highland historical romance.

* CounterZany: Sometimes taken to [[GambitPileup mounting levels]] of [[XanatosSpeedChess on-the-spot]] planning, improvising, and zany consequences. A married couple and their friends, any two of whom are liable to be on the same side at any given time? How many plans could you get out of that? ''You'd be surprised''.
* {{Countrystan}}: One episode has Lucy try to get on Ricky's show by posing as a princess from the fictional country of Franistan. While discussing her plan with Ethel, they realize that a princess of a country ending in "stan" would have a different title.

* DisguisedInDrag: Fred dressed in women's clothing in "Ricky Asks for a Raise" in order to fool the Tropicana owners (long story).
* DisproportionateRetribution: "The Courtroom" had Fred completely overreacting to Ricky damaging the new TV he had just given as a gift. Yes, Ricky was being stupid trying to fix a TV despite obviously having no skill in doing so, even after Fred read the warning label, but it's not like the Mertzes lost anything in the accident. At most, Ricky would be obliged to get a new TV or having the present one professionally repaired, but instead Fred blows his temper, marches down to Ricky and Lucy's apartment, and kicks in their own TV's screen.
* DistractedByTheLuxury: Besides Lucy's lifelong quest for a mink coat, her personal finances were usually in the red because she couldn't stop buying cute dresses or hats.

** Several characters mention fear that Ricky will hit Lucy because of some of her more extreme schemes, but it's unknown if Ricky really ever did or would. Essentially, it's played roughly the same way as ''Series/TheHoneymooners'' did. In this show, at one point, one of Lucy's schemes cost Ricky his job, and when he heard the news, he hit himself in the hand as Lucy began giving him things to smash to take his anger out on, and he threatened to punch her in the nose more than once. Really the most he ever did was spank Lucy, and it was played for laughs as if she were a child. One episode was the focus of this when Ricky accidentally hit Lucy in the eye with a book and it swelled up. Fred and Ethel thought he actually did hit her (they were eavesdropping outside their apartment and mistook her narrating a chapter from said book as the two arguing).
** In the fifth season when Fred fears Ricky will punch him in the nose for accidentally sending his band to the wrong town during his European tour, Lucy assures Fred that no matter how mad Ricky has gotten with her he never once struck her.

* DoubleMeaningTitle: While it may have been unintentional, the pilot episode is called "The Audition". The plot is about Lucy auditioning for Ricky's show, but the episode itself was the show's audition to appear on television.
* DressesTheSame: Lucy and Ethel purchase the same dress for a performance they're doing together (at two different stores, no less).

** The unaired pilot noticeably differs from the series proper in many ways. It was kinescoped instead of filmed, Lucy and Ricky live in a very different looking apartment, Fred and Ethel do not exist, and Ricky's agent, Jerry, is set up as a regular character.

** The first episode with Mrs. Trumbull has her as an angry neighbor who antagonizes Lucy for her new baby and the group dislikes her, a FAR difference from her appearance every episode after that where she is a kind and close friend to the group who adores watching Little Ricky.
** The end of that episode shows her noticing that the Ricardos and Mertzes are distracted and not watching the baby when he's crying, and going in to comfort him. It's likely that she didn't know either couple well before this happened and her dislike of the baby crying was keeping her from getting enough sleep, which can make anyone crabby.

* ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin: Many of the episode titles are simply descriptions of the plot: "Lucy Thinks Ricky Is Trying To Murder Her", "Lucy and Ethel Buy the Same Dress", "The Ricardos Dedicate a Statue"[[labelnote:†]] (incidentally, the final regular episode)[[/labelnote]], etc. To get past the MoralGuardians, [[BilingualBonus one episode title was in Spanish]], "Lucy Es Enciente"[[note]]"Lucy Is Pregnant"[[/note]].

** In an early episode, Ricky is teasing Lucy about gossiping with Ethel. Because of this, Lucy promises not to '''say''' a word to Ethel. However, the story is too good, so Lucy, with her mouth taped shut, plays an absolutely epic game of charades to "tell" Ethel the story. By the end, even Ricky and Fred were NotSoAboveItAll and were guessing along.
** In another episode, Ricky has gotten an invitation to a fashion show Lucy wanted to attend, but plans to imply to her that he couldn't get one by saying they were difficult to get. Ricky repeats the words after Lucy finds the invitation by accident and calls him on it. Lucy attributes this to having been around her too long.

* FacialDialogue: Perhaps the most famous and hilarious example of the trope is the Vitameatavegamin sketch, where at one moment, Lucy is happily promoting the titular multivitamin syrup and in the next, she cringes so hard after consuming one tablespoonful of the syrup that the other actors watching were trying really hard not to laugh.
* FakeCharity: The Ladies Overseas Aid. They choose a made-up name, not realizing that there ''was'' a charity named this. The proprietor of the TV Store who had donated the prize contacted the national chairwoman who accepted the "donation". Lucky for Lucy and Ethel because they were about to be arrested for fraud.

* ForeignLanguageTirade: Ricky may be the TropeCodifier for this one.
* ForgottenBirthday: In one episode, Lucy asks Ricky ''not'' to recognize her birthday. When he appears to follow through with it (although he's got a big surprise party planned), she becomes sad and runs out to the park, where she meets up with "The Friends of the Friendless." Despite the name, they're not a cult. [[AlternateCharacterInterpretation We think]].
* ForgottenThemeTuneLyrics: Quoted above, though they did actually appear in the show. This version of the theme made a [[DiegeticSoundtrackUsage cameo]] when Ricky sang it to Lucy during her surprise birthday party. One could also find it on home video releases of the series; Desi Arnaz also recorded [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_g4-FqbWh9w a version]] that was released as a single by Creator/ColumbiaRecords. Depending on who you ask, the lyrics were either written when the theme was written, or quickly created specifically for this episode.
* FoulMedicine: In "Lucy Does a TV Commercial", Lucy is promoting the Vitameatavegamin tonic, and when she tastes a spoonful of it, she cringes and shudders before [[BlatantLies saying it tastes like candy]].

* FrenchCuisineIsHaughty: Lucy famously pretends to be a Frenchwomen while visiting Paris; she visits a Parisian sidewalk café and snubs the Mertzes as "Les Americans", ends up ordering escargot and is horrified to find out she's ordered snails, tries to put ketchup on said snails outraging the chef, [[HumiliationConga and is finally arrested for unknowingly passing the counterfeit money she was duped into taking by a conman outside the American Express Office]].
* {{Frenemy}}: The Ricardos and the Mertzs with the Applebees, particularly the women. While Lucy and Ethel have a strong rivalry with Carolyn Applebee, they also consider her a close friend, and she and her husband Charlie are the most recurring members of Lucy, Ricky, Ethel and Fred's circle of friends.
* FunnyForeigner: Ricky could be regarded as a mild one of these.

* GainaxEnding: Yes, the show did feature one of these. In the final scene of the lost ChristmasEpisode described above, Lucy, Ricky, and Ethel all dress up as Santa Claus to put presents under the tree for Little Ricky, joining another person in a Santa Claus suit who's already there. They assume it's Fred...until they all go into the kitchen and Fred shows up at the back door. Lucy tugs on each person's beard and discovers that the fifth person's whiskers are real. He then fades away in full view of the quartet. This means that magic exists in the ''I Love Lucy'' universe.

* GiftOfSong: In the episode "Lucy's Last Birthday" has Ricky sing Lucy a song he wrote for her birthday after she thinks everyone forgot her birthday. This was the [[Main/ForgottenThemeTuneLyrics only time in the series where the lyrics to the theme music are heard.]]

** In "Lucy Tells the Truth," Ricky bets Lucy that she can't go twenty-four hours without telling a single lie. She agrees and ends up at a bridge party with some female friends. After trying to [[MetaphoricallyTrue use vague wording]] to get around some statements, Lucy eventually decides to start being ''brutally'' honest with everyone (making comments about one woman's laugh and another's cheapness, for example). When she gets home, she does the same thing to Fred, Ethel, and Ricky, to the point where the first two ask the latter to call off the bet to spare their feelings.

* HawaiianShirtedTourist: Fred Mertz dons one to sight-see in Hollywood.
* HeelFaceTurn: In her first appearance as the character, Mrs. Trumbull is a cranky mean lady complaining about Lucy's baby's crying.  When Lucy and Ethel try to dissolve an argument between Ricky and Fred, they accidentally leave Little Ricky crying by himself in his room, with Mrs. Trumbull coming over to complain. When the group realises and returns, they find her happily holding the baby, promising to be there for him from now on.  After that, she becomes a very close friend to the group and gladly volunteers to always watch the baby.

* {{Housewife}}: Lucy is an example of a rebellious housewife.

* ImpossibleLeavening: In "Pioneer Women", a loaf of bread with this trope applied ends up expanding to fill the entire oven, and when the door is opened, it stretches ''out'' of the oven, far longer than the oven is deep, and pins Lucy to a wall. After the dough, with "excessive yeast", had grown ever larger, as well as ever more ''massive''. This [[http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_P5-KXUCbsI8/SKxFAIhzEfI/AAAAAAAABiw/VEMye8eGwAg/s1600-h/Lucille-Ball-ad-Oct-5-1952.jpg comic book ad for Phillip Morris]] refers to the incident.

* IntoxicationEnsues: "Vitameatavegamin contains vitamins, meat, vegetables, and minerals" -- and 23 percent alcohol.

* JeopardyIntelligenceTest: One episode got kicked off after Ricky proudly announces all the right answers while listening to "Mr. And Mrs. Quiz" on the radio. Lucy then finagles them an invitation to the show, whereupon Ricky admits he was merely at the studio earlier while it was being taped. Naturally, he gets in a oneliner in the process:
--> '''Ricky''': All I know is Columbus discovered Ohio in 1776!
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Fred, and to a lesser extent Ricky

* KarmicTwistEnding: In "Cuban Pals", Lucy is unreasonably jealous of a young girl named Renita starring alongside Ricky in an act down at the club. Ricky knew Renita as a child in Cuba, but now she has become an attractive young woman, which causes Lucy to be jealous of her in spite of there clearly being no romantic feelings between her and Ricky. After getting rid of Renita by having Fred pose as a cab driver, Lucy takes her place in the act, which was supposed to be "The Lady in Red". What she doesn't know is that Ricky became exhausted during rehearsals and decided not to do that song, letting Renita and her boyfriend perform an African wedding dance number instead. The boyfriend, in a terrifying native costume, leaps out and proceeds to frighten Lucy out of her wits. Ricky apparently caught on as, at the end of the episode, he comes out in the mask he wore at the start of the number. Scaring Lucy enough to faint in his arms.
* TheKeyIsBehindTheLock: Lucy gets locked in a walk-in meat freezer and a steamer trunk, both times with the key in her pocket.

* KnittingPregnancyAnnouncement: Subverted when Lucy and Ethel think their husbands are going to join the army and take up knitting. The husbands notice them doing this, and naturally assume they are both having babies.

--> '''Lucy:''' "You ''hablo'' plenty of ''Ingles'', and you better start ''hablo-ing'' right now!"
* LaughTrack: The show didn't have one – it was famously filmed in front of a live audience. However, the laughter you hear here would be used as the basis for canned laughter in sitcoms for decades to come.

* LivingProp: Ricky's band members in scenes set at the Tropacana/Club Babalu.

* LockedInAFreezer: The famous episode where Lucy buys a walk-in freezer and locks herself in while moving all the meat she bought into the furnace.
* LoudOfWar: Lucy and Ricky tried to get out of their lease by having a loud Cuban jam session late at night. Fred and Ethel turned the tables by selling tickets to the "concert."

** In "Ricky's Old Girlfriend", Lucy dreams that Ricky left her for Carlotta, leaving her poor and homeless on the streets with only a button given to her in her coin cup. Ricky, of course, doesn't get why she's so angry at him when she wakes up.

* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: It's never said outright in "Lucy and Superman" if it's George Reeves in costume and in character, or if it's actually Superman. Ricky mentioned meeting him in Hollywood and speaking with his secretary, and that he needs to catch a plane, suggesting the former. But Lucy seems to think he can really fly, he casually shoves aside a piano Ricky could barely budge and doesn't hesitate to go out and risk a three-story drop to help Lucy, even casually leaping through the rain over a gap across the ledges with a smile. Either way, even the adults only ever refer to him as Superman (though of course, they wouldn't want to spoil it for the kids in the audience).

* MenCantKeepHouse: The episode "Job Switching" had Ricky and Fred invoke this trope along with ADayInHerApron.
* MirrorRoutine: Lucy (dressed as Harpo Marx) and Harpo Marx.

* MonoChromeCasting: Desi Arnaz and the actors playing his friends and relatives from Cuba were seen not as non-whites, as they are today, but more as an exotic, FunnyForeigner troupe.

* MurphysBed: Subverted with Cousin Ernie...when presented with Fred and Ethel's folded up rollaway bed, he just climbed into the middle of the taco-shaped bed, later commenting that it gave him one of his finest rests in a long time.

* ObjectCeilingCling: Ricky was cooking a couple of chickens in a pressure cooker. He put it on too high and the lid blew off. Ricky looks in to see the chickens are gone. A few seconds later, one chicken fell down and then the other.
* ObnoxiousInLaws: Lucy's kooky mother is utterly awful to Ricky, who hates her just as much in return. She even insists on always calling him "[[MaliciousMisnaming Micky]]", no matter how many times she's corrected.

** Pretty much any time Lucy said, [[CatchPhrase "Eeeeeeeeew!"]]

* OnionTears: A scene has Ricky crying while calculating the losses from Lucy's failed salad dressing business. At least it appears that way until he sobs, "Oh, get these onions out of here!" A plate of chopped onions right under his nose is what was making him "cry."

* PieInTheFace: "The Diner" ends with a big pie fight between the Ricardos and Mertzes.

* PregnancyMakesYouCrazy: In the episode "Pregnant Women are Unpredictable", Lucy becomes insecure when Ricky gives their unborn child a lot of attention. Someone advises Ricky to pay attention to Lucy and only her for a while. This seems to cheer her up, but partway through dinner, she breaks down crying because Ricky hasn't talked about the baby at all and must not love him/her.
* PrettyInMink: Lucy's second life goal aside from getting in the show has always been to have a mink coat. In one episode, Lucy thinks a mink coat Ricky rented for a play is for her for their anniversary ([[ForgottenAnniversary which he forgot]]), and he spends the episode trying to trick her into losing it until he fesses up. [[spoiler:It turned out she tricked him; it wasn't their anniversary at all.]]

* ProjectileToast: A RunningGag. On one memorable occasion, Lucy was angry that Ricky was paying more attention to his newspaper than to her, so she loaded up the toaster, and aimed it at him. Ricky caught the toast out of the air without even looking up from the paper. For bonus points, the show was always filmed in one take, requiring Desi to catch it on the first try.
** A later episode made a CallBack to this. Ricky and Lucy decide to prove who has it harder by [[SwappedRoles swapping roles]], with Lucy getting a job and Ricky becoming a homemaker. This time Lucy sits behind the newspaper, Ricky launches the toast, and Lucy catches it effortlessly.

* RageBreakingPoint: In 'Ricky Loses His Temper,' Lucy tries to invoke this from Ricky.  Both have made a bet to see who can avoid their vice longer (Ricky getting angry at Lucy buying hats).  Lucy folds immediately unbeknownst to Ricky, so she spends the time before her hat is delivered to drive Ricky crazy so he would lose the bet.
* ReadingTheStageDirectionsOutLoud: "And your nose is continued on the next page."

** The "Home Show" episode in which Lucy wins the furniture was written because Lucy hated the furniture on the set and requested a believable way of changing it in-story.
** In one episode Lucy writes a novel called "Real Gone With The Wind" in which she tells a story involving thinly veiled versions of herself, Ricky, and the Mertzes.
* RebelliousSpirit: Lucy is one, big time.
* ReCut: During season 2 after it was discovered that Lucille Ball was pregnant, several episode that had been shot before hand were recut as flashbacks, with a new intro in which Ricky, Ethel and Fred while commenting on Lucy and the baby and how a current situation reminds them all of a previous similar event involving Lucy. This was done so that Lucy could take her maternity leave, without it affecting the program scheduling.

* RestaurantOwningEpisode: In one episode, Ricky decides to go into the restaurant business with his wife and the Murtzes after getting tired of show business. Unfortunately it ends in failure since the two couples couldn't work together.

** Lucy greeting Ethel in a sour mood or expressing disappointment, expecting someone else, and Ethel making to leave before Lucy aplogizes.

* TheScrooge: Fred is a mild one. [[FridgeBrilliance Makes sense when he brings up the Crash of '29, which is probably what made him such a miser.]]

* ASimplePlan

* {{Slapstick}}: A good rule of thumb: If Lucy enters a scene wearing pants, you are about to see some fantastic physical hijinx. Another rule of thumb: whenever Lucy's distinctive false eyelashes disappear, you know she's going to get drenched in something.

* SocialSemicircle: A staple on ''Series/ILoveLucy'', which pioneered the three-camera method and filming in front of a live studio audience. A typical dinner in the Ricardos' apartment would see Lucy and Ricky seated at opposite ends of the table, with the Mertzes seating side-by-side facing the audience. In the Connecticut episodes, they would all tend to crowd along one side of the circular dinette table. Oh well, the Mertzes were close friends after all!

** In "Lucy Becomes a Sculptress", Lucy disguises herself as a clay bust for a visiting art critic under Ricky's promise that she be allowed to continue sculpting if she can impress him. The disguise is so good, the critic wants to buy the "bust" on the spot, prompting Ethel to mess with Lucy's face to make like she's ruining the sculpture so he'll refuse. It doesn't work and he tries to grab the "bust", pulling Lucy to her feet and exposing the scheme.
** In "The Million Dollar Idea", Lucy and Ethel try to bottle Lucy's sald dressing for the market, and have a whirlwind success with an advertising spot where Lucy plays an "average housewife picked at random from the audience" to shill the stuff. When Ricky does some calculations and realizes the low price is going to put the girls further in the hole with every order, they try to "un-sell" their active orders with another TV spot where presenter Ethel and Lucy as another "random housewife" discover the dressing to be rancid and appalling. The mail bag delivered the next morning is full of ''increased'' orders praising the second spot as a clever comedy bit that sold them on the product. [[spoiler:Lucy and Ethel eat the loss and close up shop by slapping their own labels on dressing bought from the store.]]

** The Ricardos' living arrangements were also a subversion. They went from their initial apartment to a larger apartment in the same building, then eventually moved to Connecticut (along with the Mertzes).

* StylisticSuck: Lucy's operetta, ''The Pleasant Peasant'', boasts several {{Painful Rhyme}}s, as well as a contrived plot. Not to mention the characters. Ethel played the secretly-a-princess peasant Lily... of the Valley. Fred was Squire Quinn who ran the Inn, down by the River Out. Ricky was rehearsing his song, "I am the good Prince Lancelot. I love to sing and dance-a-lot." When the check bounced and the movers came in to repossess the props and costumes ''in the middle of the play,'' no one was really concerned.
* {{Suburbia}}: The Ricardos and Mertzes move to Westport, Connecticut in season 6.

%%* SwappedRoles: "Job Switching"

* TableclothYank: Lucy does this in one episode (much to the delight of the audience).

* TropeTelegraphing: If the episode begins with the Ricardos and the Mertz gushing about what great friends they are to each other then it's a safe bet that the episode is going to about them getting into some kind of feud.

* ThisIsMySide: "Men Are Messy", "The Diner".
* ThreeCameras: Again, a first for television.

* TricksterArchetype: Lucy is the female example of this.

%%* UglyGuyHotWife: Fred and Ethel.

** Ethel is having difficulty getting a passport and threatens to report an Obstructive Bureaucrat to Washington and get him fired, but he counters that as a civil servant, he wouldn't lose his job until he died.
** Ricky enjoys massive job security as a bandleader. Even when he does get fired in Season One's "Ricky Asks for a Raise", he gets a license to pretty much choose his own job when his former workplace, the Tropicana, has trouble keeping its guests when they find out that Ricky isn't working there anymore.

* UnexpectedPositive: Lucy forces Ricky to go to the eye doctor where they find out that his eyes are perfectly fine...it's Lucy who can't see the eye chart correctly! In typical Lucy fashion, wackiness ensues.

* UnknownRival: Xavier Cugat is often mentioned as a rival to Ricky since they are both Cuban bandleaders. However, Cugat never made an appearance on the show. Also ironic in that, in RealLife, Cugat helped give Desi Arnaz his start in show business as a guitar player in his orchestra.
* UnusualEuphemism: ''"Enciente"'' and "expecting" for "pregnant"; it was the Fifties, and you weren't allowed to ''say'' "pregnant" on television. Not even in the episode titles that the audience did not see.

* VetinariJobSecurity: Ricky and Fred make a complete mess of the kitchen involving [[NoodleImplements some bad math and a great amount of rice]], while Lucy and Ethel... well, make a chocolate factory.

* WeNamedTheMonkeyJack: Little Ricky named his dog Fred.

* YouWereTryingTooHard: Lucy and Ricky are on a TV quiz show. After Lucy blows the first two questions, the third asks what George Washington said while crossing the Delaware. Ricky, who has no idea, says to Lucy, [[spoiler:"Please let me sit down, this is making me sick."]]

The show's plot often hinged on Lucy trying to convince her bandleader husband Ricky Ricardo (played by Arnaz) to let her appear in his mambo-centric variety show. Ricky insisted on his wife [[StayInTheKitchen remaining home to do wife things...]] because he didn't have the heart to tell her she had no talent. Lucy would come up with a ZanyScheme to subvert his authority, by either making her own money or sneaking into the show. HilarityEnsues (and this time, it really means it), and a lot of the humor in the episodes' last acts were built around Lucille Ball, in ''real life'', being a very gifted physical comedian.

* PullingOutScarvesTrick: A variation is done in Lucy's clown routine in "The Audition". In the character of "the Professor", Lucy takes off her gloves to play cello, but the left glove she's wearing is revealed to be several feet long as she takes a while to pull it off and then wads it up into a ball.

* RunningGag: Several, including Lucy's hair being dyed (henna rinse was an old-fashioned hair colorant).
-->'''Lucy:''' I need to get my hair dyed-''[[LastSecondWordSwap WASHED!]]''

* SpringtimeForHitler: In "The Million Dollar Idea", Lucy and Ethel try to bottle Lucy's sald dressing for the market, and have a whirlwind success with an advertising spot where Lucy plays an "average housewife picked at random from the audience" to shill the stuff. When Ricky does some calculations and realizes the low price is going to put the girls further in the hole with every order, they try to "un-sell" their active orders with another TV spot where presenter Ethel and Lucy as another "random housewife" discover the dressing to be rancid and appalling. The mail bag delivered the next morning is full of ''increased'' orders praising the second spot as a clever comedy bit that sold them on the product. [[spoiler:Lucy and Ethel eat the loss and close up shop by slapping their own labels on dressing bought from the store.]]

* SpringtimeForHitler: An attempt to stop people from ordering Aunt Martha's Old Fashioned Salad Dressing with a tv commercial featuring an audience member picked at random (Lucy) dissing the product instead created three times as many orders from people saying "Keep up with the comedy bits!".

** "Lucy and Ethel Buy the Same Dress" on Season 3 keeps to the fact that Lucy and Ethel were elected co-presidents of their women's club back in Season 2's "The Club Election", with Lucy reminding Ethel (eager to lead the meeting) that it's ''her'' turn to he president and later handing leadership to Ethel when she dissents with the meeting and wants to speak her mind "as a citizen".

* ContinuityNod: In the episode in which Ricky and Lucy decide to buy the house in Connecticut, Fred mentions and produces the "99-year lease" the Ricardos signed at the end of the episode "Breaking the Lease". Later on in the same episode, Lucy and Ethel remind each other of past events happening in the apartment, such as Lucy wallpapering Ethel into the wall. [[note]] this also kinda doubles as a continuity error as that particular memory happened in their old, smaller apartment upstairs. [[/note]]

* AbsentAnimalCompanion: One episode shows that Ethel and Fred have a dog. It never appears or gets mentioned again.
* AbuseMistake: The episode "The Black Eye" revolves around Lucy getting a black eye after Ricky tried to toss her a book, but it ended up hitting her in the face. Fred and Ethel are both convinced that they got into a fight and he slugged her, refusing to believe them when they say it was just an accident.
* AccidentalMisnaming: Lucy's mother constantly calls Ricky "Mickey" (and, on at least one occasion, "[[UnknownRival Xavier]]")[[note]]Xavier Cugat was a Spanish-born, Cuban-raised bandleader of the era[[/note]]. At one point, she tells her daughter she couldn't find her in the phone book. She was looking under "Richardson."
** Though it might actually be MaliciousMisnaming, since she correctly calls their son "Little Ricky". Lampshaded with Ricky saying: "How do you like that? He's Little Ricky and I'm Big Mickey."

* AfterShow: ''The'' ''Series/LucyDesiComedyHour''
* AgeInsecurity: In one episode, Lucy can't find her birth certificate to get her passport, so she tracks down her childhood babysitter to vouch for her age while getting some forms signed. The other woman's husband happens to be a notary, but as soon as he sees the age Lucy is, he refuses to sign the forms. It then becomes clear the woman has been lying about her age, as according to her husband, she's younger than Lucy and therefore could not have been her babysitter and he cannot sign off on a lie. Lucy is understandably upset when the woman continues to lie about her age.

* ApologyGift: Fred tries to play peacemaker between a quarreling Lucy and Ricky, by having a bouquet of roses and a box of candy delivered to Lucy on Ricky's behalf.

* AssemblyLineFastForward: The TropeCodifier, from the famous chocolate factory scene.

* AwLookTheyReallyDoLoveEachOther: Fred and Ethel have a number of these moments, for all their bickering and back-and-forth nagging. In fact, it reaches hilarious proportions in one episode, where Ricky is entertaining on a cruise ship; in earlier episodes with scenes set near large bodies of water, Fred mentions his seasickness (and once even got woozy on a ship that was tied off at the dock). However, Fred suddenly does a 180-degree turn and actually becomes a ''romantic''. [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness Ethel is actually concerned about Fred's unusual behavior at first]], but is eventually entranced at the idea of her and Fred having a second honeymoon, and they spend the rest of the episode enjoying various activities on the ship in a lovey-dovey manner.
** Ethel more so in general. Any slight indication that Fred may be spending time with another woman and she starts sobbing at the prospect of losing her "beautiful, fat, old goat Fred."
** Averted in real life, as Vance and Frawley's working relationship could more accurately be called "Oh, Wow! They Really Do Hate Each Other."
* BadlyBatteredBabysitter: In "The Amateur Hour," Lucy is in need of money. She finds a babysitting job that pays five dollars an hour (a large sum in the 1950s). Suspicious, she asks why she is being paid so much but is only told that she'll be taking care of a little boy. When he arrives, Lucy is confused and begins to doubt her sanity when it seems like the boy is able to be in two places at once. As it turns out, there are in fact ''two'' boys, twin brothers. They prove extremely difficult to deal with, constantly kicking her and at one point they even attempt to burn her at the stake while playing CowboysAndIndians.

* BedsheetLadder: In "Fred and Ethel Fight," Lucy uses one to escape from a staged fire that Ricky and Fred set up. Unfortunately, she fails to tie it to anything and falls out the window.
* BickeringCouplePeacefulCouple: The Mertzes (bickering) and Ricardos (peaceful).

* ForeignCussWord: Ricky's Spanish tirades when Lucy pushes him beyond the brink are often thought to be these... but in actuality, he's usually saying something to the effect of "What am I going to do with this crazy redheaded girl?" In one particular episode, he and Fred get into a shouting match and he calls him something in Spanish. After they make up, Fred asks him what it meant.

* ContinuityNod: In the episode in which Ricky and Lucy decide to buy the house in Connecticut, Fred mentions and produces the "99-year lease" the Ricardos signed at the end of the episode "Breaking the Lease". Later on in the same episode, Lucy and Ethel remind each other of past events happening in the apartment, such as Lucy wallpapering Ethel into the wall.

* PopCultureUrbanLegends: For years, it was reported that both Lucie Arnaz and Desi Arnaz, Jr., appeared in the crowd scene at the end of “The Ricardos Dedicate a Statue.” Lucie Arnaz later confirmed that while Desi Jr. does appear, the little girl standing next to him is NOT her (though even she believed the story for years, as syndication reruns tended to remove that shot).

* PostKissCatatonia: One that affected both parties in "Lucy is Jealous of the Girl Singer," when Ricky is planted one on Lucy to convince her that he's not fooling around with a new dancer at the club.

** In, "Lucy Goes to Scotland," Lucy has a near-entire episode [[ImagineSpot dream sequence]], in which being the last of the [=McGillicuddy=] Clan, she's to be fed to a cantankerous two-headed dragon (Fred and Ethel) that awakens every thirty years and eats only [=McGillicuddy's=]. At one point in the dream, she meets Scott [=McTavish=] [=McDougal=] [=McCardo=] (Ricky), who falls in love with her, and vows to prevent the dragon from eating her, even if it means sacrificing his own life... but when the dragon is brought to the village for its meal, Scotty chickens out at the last minute, and Lucy is thrown to the dragon. Lucy then wakes up, and proceeds to hit Ricky with her pillow in a fit of rage, despite Ricky not knowing why she's upset with him.

** Doris Singleton's role as "Lillian Appleby" was changed to "Carolyn Appleby" for all subsequent appearances - except for one occasion in Hollywood where Ricky referred to her as Lillian.

%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.

* RuleOfThree: In the episode involving the jewel thief on the train, the Mertzes go to the dining car three times. All three times [[spoiler: Lucy pulls the emergency brake, splattering them with food.]] Subverted: [[spoiler: The fourth time they go, they wear rain slickers, anticipating an emergency brake pull by Lucy. It happens.]]

* AbuseMistake: The episode, "The Black Eye" revolves around Lucy getting a black eye after Ricky tried to toss her a book, but it ended up hitting her in the face. Fred and Ethel are both convinced that they got into a fight and he slugged her, refusing to believe them when they say it was just an accident.