Line #19 YMMV/ILoveLucy


1	* AdaptationDisplacement: While some people do know that ''Series/ILoveLucy'' was inspired by Lucille Ball's radio show ''My Favorite Husband'', it can be assumed that few but the most diehard fans have actually listened to that program, and thus don't know just how heavily the television series was drawn from it. Many early ''I Love Lucy'' episodes have a corresponding ''My Favorite Husband'' episode they were based on, and [[https://archive.org/details/MyFavoriteHusband/ if you do listen to the latter]], you will be surprised at how similar the plots are, down to some lines and jokes having been copied word for word.
2	* AndYouThoughtItWouldFail: Creator/{{CBS}} initially responded to Creator/LucilleBall's insistence that Creator/DesiArnaz play the husband in her TV show by saying they weren't sure if audiences could believe that a celebrity like Lucy was married to an obscure Cuban bandleader. In response, Lucy and Desi gave a vaudeville tour across the country. The tour became a success, proving to the networks that a TV show of the duo would be huge. 70 years later the show is still often lauded as one of the greatest and most important sitcoms of all time.
3	* AwardSnub: Desi Arnaz was the only one of the four main cast members to not be nominated for an UsefulNotes/EmmyAward despite being just as iconic and beloved as his costars.
4	* BetterOnDVD: For years, syndicated reruns would edit the episodes for time, and would lack the animated sponsor messages and bumpers. The DVD and Blu-ray releases restore every episode to their original running time (which, back in the '50s, would often mean 26 minutes per episode, virtually unheard of today) and included the animated bits. As a literal example of this trope, the 2007 Complete Series DVD boxset remains the most comprehensive ''I Love Lucy'' home media release, considering the Blu-ray sets stopped at season two, and the digital retailers skipped several episodes.[[note]]CBS/Paramount has since repackaged the boxset with more compact cases, and without the ''I Love Lucy: The Movie'' DVD, now sold separately.[[/note]]
5	* BrokenBase: CBS aired colorized versions of the ChristmasEpisode and "Lucy's Italian Movie" in December 2013. This didn't mark the first attempt to colorize ''I Love Lucy'', but it did prove divisive among viewers: Some liked the fact that the picture looked more natural than that of an early-'90s colorized print of the Christmas episode, and felt the color added to the humor. Others disliked the fact that the picture still looked less natural than the original monochromatic versions, and couldn't stand the mere thought of altering the picture in so drastic a fashion. In any case, the ratings proved high enough for CBS to make an annual tradition -- and later, ''bi''-annual tradition -- out of colorizing ''I Love Lucy'' episodes, and eventually apply similar updates to other black-and-white sitcoms in their library, with ''Series/TheAndyGriffithShow'' and ''Series/TheDickVanDykeShow'' getting the same treatment at least once each.
6	* CommonKnowledge: While it is true in later seasons, after Lucy's pregnancy, that Ricky and Lucy slept in separate beds, to the point when this happened in other media it was sometimes called "Lucy and Ricky Beds", in the first season the two actually slept in one bed.
7	* FirstInstallmentWins: While Lucille Ball made at least two other successful sitcoms, this is by far her most famous and popular.
8	* FridgeHorror: Though it is PlayedForLaughs, in "The Amateur Hour" the twin boys Lucy babysits tie her up while playing CowboysAndIndians, [[EnfantTerrible fully intending to]] [[ManOnFire actually burn her at the stake]] [[TroublingUnchildlikeBehavior for real]]. A call from their mother interrupts them, and when she learns what they've been up to she sternly warns them that their father will spank them both if they burn one more sitter at the stake. It can certainly be disturbing, then, to imagine what happened to their previous babysitters who weren't as lucky as Lucy!
9	* HarsherInHindsight:
10	** Any episode that involves a joke about philandering, or Lucy and Ricky's marriage being in trouble, [[MistakenForCheating or both]].
11	** In "The Audition", Ricky asks Lucy to deliver his will to the lawyer's office downtown. She is unsettled by this, but he assures her that he just wants things to be taken care of when he [[NeverSayDie "goes"]]. After she tearfully pleads with him (in a comical fashion) not to go, he responds that we all have to go sometime "unless you know something the rest of us dun't." In RealLife, Desi Arnaz ''did'' end up dying before Lucille Ball did.
12	** From 1951-1954, Phillip Morris cigarettes was the show's only sponsor. Desi Arnaz died of lung cancer at only 69.
13	** Watching all the tender moments that Lucy and Ricky shared together can be hard to watch when you learn that Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz's real life marriage ended in divorce literally the day after filming wrapped on the final episode of ''Series/LucyDesiComedyHour''.
14	** The dream sequence in "Ricky's Old Girlfriend" is tearjerking in some ways because it foreshadows three major events in Lucille Ball's life: her divorce from Desi in 1960, having to raise both Lucie and Desi Jr on her own (until she remarried) and her final film role as a homeless woman in the 1985 telefilm ''Stone Pillow''.
15	** Fred and Ethel's constant bickering and AwLookTheyReallyDoLoveEachOther moments become a lot harder to watch when you learn that William Frawley and Vivian Vance despised each other. At the time William Frawley was considered difficult to work with in general, being known in Hollywood for his alcoholism and personal instability. Desi Arnaz's threat to fire him if he caused any trouble at least kept him sober on set. Vance, who was 41 when the show began filming, was furious that she had to play against the 64-year-old Frawley (she once complained "He should be playing my father, not my husband"). Frawley would call her cruel nicknames off-camera. When the show wrapped, Desi Arnaz approached the two about creating a spin-off featuring the Mertzes--which, given ''I Love Lucy's'' success, was a guaranteed hit--but Vance refused because she couldn't bear working with Frawley a moment longer. Hollywood legend goes that Vance was at a restaurant when she heard of Frawley's death--and she immediately cried out "Champagne for everyone!" to celebrate.
16	** The cast died in reverse order of their billing: William Frawley (1966), Vivian Vance (1979), Desi Arnaz (1986), and Lucille Ball (1989).
17	** Creator/GeorgeReeves appearing in costume in "Lucy and Superman" and exclusively being referred to as [[Series/TheAdventuresOfSuperman Superman]] rather than his real name (as a way of not spoiling the illusion for younger audience members) ends up being sadly reminiscent of the {{Typecasting}} he struggled with later in his career and which may have played a role in his untimely death.
18	* HilariousInHindsight:
19	** In the episode "Lucy Gets Ricky on the Radio", Lucy says that there are 46 states. Ethel corrects her with the right number at the time the episode was made, 48. Then Lucy responds that she forgot Alaska and Hawaii. That line used to be funny because they ''weren't'' states then. Now they ''are''.
20	** The back of the 2007 Complete Series DVD, when listing the contents of the bonus disc, refers to "Lucy Goes to Scotland" as "the first ''fully-colorized I Love Lucy'' episode". Three years later, CBS/Paramount repackaged the disc by itself, and updated the "Scotland" description to, "the only full-length colorized episode". It only took one more year -- when ''The Essential I Love Lucy Collection'' DVD revealed a colorized version of "Lucy's Italian Movie" -- before the first description began sounding more accurate, and now most people have likely lost count of how many episodes CBS had "fully colorized".
21	* HollywoodHomely: Downplayed with Ethel, and to a lesser extent, Lucy herself. While neither were ever referred to as ugly (in fact many times there would be a reference to how attractive the two are, especially Lucy), however when put next to the younger, fancier Marilyn Monroe-esque types that occasionally appeared in Ricky's shows, the two would come off as tacky, out-of-shape and sloppy. This is ironic as both Lucille Ball and Vivian Vance began their careers as models and showgirls.
22	* HollywoodPudgy:
23	** Lucy thinks that she is fat on learning that after eleven years of marriage she has gone from 110 pounds to 132. Rick also says she can't be his dancing partner makes the mistake of saying she can if she can fit into the skinny outfit.
24	** UrbanLegend has it that Vivian Vance (Ethel) was contractually obligated to remain overweight, which was born out of a mock contract that Lucy presented to Vivian strictly as a joke, and which Vivian later read for laughs on ''[[Creator/DinahShore The Dinah Shore Show]]''. Ethel's stockier appearance was obtained by dressing Vivian in unflattering costumes and too-small undergarments, not by intentional weight gain on Vance's part (at her insistence, the character's wardrobe and style would become more flattering as the series progressed). Vivian fought against Ethel being too heavy, arguing that if Fred called her a fat old bag if she were ''really'' overweight, the scene would fall flat because you'd feel sorry for her; whereas if he called her that when she clearly wasn't fat or ugly, the dissonance of it would instead makes it funny.
25	* Homage: In the show ''Series/DrakeAndJosh,'' the boys need to make money quickly in the episode ""I Love Sushi"," so take jobs packing sushi, an homage to the candy making episode. In a ''FreezeFrameBonus,'' the name of the company is the "Ball and Vance Sushi Company."
26	* HypeBacklash: It could be argued that "Lucy Does a TV Commercial" and "Job Switching" apply. They are commonly regarded as being [[QualityByPopularVote the best episodes of the show]], though it's quite possible that the reason is the simple fact that they are so often commemorated with merchandise and highly praised in the media (they were also among the most repeated episodes on early VHS compilations prior to the complete series coming to DVD). Other episodes are just as funny (perhaps even more so), yet they're all overshadowed by these two. Even some hilarious portions of "Job Switching" ''itself'' involving Ricky and Fred's antics at home don't get the recognition they deserve in comparison to Lucy and Ethel's famous candy factory scene.
27	* MainstreamObscurity: Not as extreme an example as other shows, but nowadays try asking a modern viewer about the show; they'll probably cite the most famous episodes that everybody knows (chocolate factory; drunk on tonic; fake nose on fire, etc.) but if you describe the less-famous episode plots, they'd stare blankly.
28	* MemeticMutation:
29	** From ''The Young Fans'' episode: "Keep jiggling, Peggy."[[note]](a RunningGag in the final act has Lucy instructing Peggy to constantly jiggle Ricky's legs "or his arteries harden")[[/note]]
30	** "Are you tired, run down, listless? Do you pop out at parties? Are you unpoopular? The answer to all your problems is in this little bottle!"[[note]](part of the famous monologue from "Lucy Does a TV Commercial")[[/note]]
31	* OnceOriginalNowCommon: This show ''invented'' the modern sitcom, and every single sitcom that has ever existed since has borrowed something from the lexicon it created, to the point where things that were groundbreaking in the '50s are not even noticeable, let alone edgy.
32	* RetroactiveRecognition: Actors who appeared on this show early in their careers include Richard Crenna, Bart Braverman and Creator/BarbaraEden.
33	* SeasonalRot: ''Series/LucyDesiComedyHour'' didn't have nearly as positive of reception as the original series; the overuse of guest stars and vacation plots took away from what was arguably the strength of the original show: The chemistry between the four leads. And Ricky had less energy in these episodes.
34	* SignatureScene:
35	** Lucy and Ethel working in the candy factory.
36	** Lucy doing the "Vitameatavegamin" commercial.
37	** Lucy making wine the old fashioned way.
38	* ToughActToFollow: In her later sitcoms, Ball always played a widow, knowing that any actor who played her husband would be unfavorably compared with Desi Arnaz.
39	* UnintentionalPeriodPiece: Some unintentional examples really ''really'' scream "TheFifties":
40	** The candy factory showing Lucy and Ethel working, handling food, ''without gloves''. That would ''not'' happen today.[[note]] High-level chefs to this day still do not wear gloves, but they're trained to know how to avoid contamination. In places like candy factories, gloves are required.[[/note]]
41	** Telephones. Notice how every telephone in the series looks the same? That's because the show was made back when AT&T required you to use their phones, which came in two styles, both black. It took no less than the Supreme Court to step in and say third-party phones were legal.
42	*** Also the phone numbers. "Circle-7" and "Murray Hill-5" make absolutely no sense to modern audiences. The latter of course is still occasionally used instead of FiveFiveFive as a ShoutOut to this show.
43	** Almost any mention of money. Occasionally a joke simply doesn't work anymore thanks to inflation completely ruining the frame of reference. It's hard to understand Ricky getting angry at Lucy for spending so much money on something since, at this point, everything on the show sounds incredibly cheap.
44	*** Inverted for the episodes set in Paris. When the show was made, France was still using the old Franc, the value of which had utterly collapsed thanks to two world wars – the going exchange rate at the time was 350 francs to the dollar and would soon rise. France switched it out for the New Franc in 1960, which had much saner exchange rates (around [=7F=1USD=] at the time they adopted the Euro).
45	*** Of course the episodes set in the UK make reference to UsefulNotes/OldBritishMoney, which wasn't "old" then; Sterling would be decimalized in 1971, fifteen years after the episodes aired.
46	** One particular sequence – where Lucy gets stuck at the border between France and Italy and can't cross to join everyone else – makes no sense in post-Schengen Europe.
47	** When preparing to drive to Hollywood, Fred buys a 1923 Cadillac, which Lucy and Ethel treat as TheAllegedCar (and to be fair, it isn't in the best condition). Today that car, even in the less-than-ideal shape it was in in that episode, would be worth a ''lot''.
48	** As mentioned above, the episodes where the cast visit Cuba seem absolutely bizarre in an era where Americans have been banned from travelling to the island for over half a century and counting. The regular series ended two years before Castro and the communists took over (even if the ''Comedy Hours'' are included, the series wrapped a year before the embargo happened). The plot ''Comedy Hour'', broadcast on April 1, 1960, revolves around Ricky possibly returning to Cuba to run a family tobacco plantation.
49	** The whole idea of Ricky "wanting a wife who's just a wife". Sure, Lucy (the character) doesn't have any actual talent but if the show were written today either Lucy would be needed to run the business side of Club Babalu or have an outside job so the family can have health insurance.
50	** Ricky speaks to Little Ricky in his broken, heavily-accented English. In the 1950s it was thought babies' language development would be "confused" by early exposure to multiple languages; that's now known not to be the case, they can pick up two languages as easily as one and current parenting advice would have Ricky speaking with his kid in Spanish.
51	** Ricky's remarks about Lucy's attempt at a show while inside the TV during "Lucy Does a TV Commercial", mainly about how clear the picture is and the fact that it's in 3D when she accidentally drops the carton of cigarettes outside the TV. While televisions that touted 3D capabilities proved to be a bit of a fad in the early 2010's, televisions are now capable of producing VERY high definition images.
52	** In one episode, Lucy says there are 46 states before being corrected by Ethel that there are 48.[[note]]By the time the episode aired, there had been 48 states for over four decades, the last new ones added being New Mexico and Arizona in 1912. There were 46 states between 1907, when Oklahoma was admitted, and 1912[[/note]] - Nope, ever since 1959 there have been ''50'' states. This is brought up again in a ''Comedy Hour'' plot with the group heading to the newly-added Alaska to look for oil.
53	** "Ricky and Fred Are TV Fans" is all about Ricky and Fred being so obsessed with a boxing match on TV that they don't realize Lucy and Ethel are absent. Boxing matches? On network television? Unheard of nowadays outside of gimmick programs like ''Celebrity Boxing''.
54	* ValuesDissonance: Being made in TheFifties, this would be a given.
55	** In "The Girls Want to Go To A Nightclub," Lucy and Ethel lie that they have dates to make an excuse to go without their husbands. In the twenty-first century, they'd be able to go on their own without needing a date.
56	** "The Diet": Ricky has CondescendingCompassion about Lucy wanting to go into show business, telling her that it's no good due to her "weight problems". Lucy in the climax shows that she ''can'' sing and dance well and even Ricky is surprised. These days, he'd be more likely to point out the practicalities that performing has high energy demands.
57	** In "Equal Rights," the girls demand to be treated equally. The group goes out for dinner, and Lucy and Ethel's confusion when their husbands don't help them with their coats and pull out their chairs is PlayedForLaughs. The hilarity mounts when Ricky and Fred leave without paying for Lucy or Ethel, leaving them to wash dishes to pay off their half of the bill.
58	** In "Lucy Cries Wolf" Lucy is offended that Ricky doesn't rush back home when she falsely claims that she's being stalked by a mysterious stranger (Ricky instead just sends Fred and Ethel to check on her). In retaliation, she stages an elaborate kidnapping; pretending to be forcibly abducted over the phone to Ricky, trashing their apartment to make it appear that there was a struggle, and only decides to hide out on the ledge outside the window and not just run out into the street after overhearing Ethel state that Lucy wouldn't ever leave the baby alone. She then happily eavesdrops on the three as they lament not having listened to her when they think she's been taken and then stubbornly sticks to her story after she is discovered. This is played for laughs but given the inordinate number of fake kidnappings concocted by people either seeking to get even or just seeking attention (among them Sherri Papini, Carlee Russell, Katie Sorensen, and Jennifer Wilbanks), diverting the resources of law enforcement away from legitimate missing persons cases, Lucy's actions would be judged much more harshly contemporarily. Had Ricky actually gone through with getting the police involved, this would have been even more true.
59	** "Pioneer Women" has TheBet happen when Lucy and Ethel ask for their husbands to buy a dishwasher, only to be called "spoiled" despite Lucy handwashing 219,000 dishes during their marriage. Ricky condescendingly says that all they have to do is press a button or flip a switch while their grandparents worked without any electrical appliances. Now try imagining how many partners would get away with calling their spouses "lazy" or spoiled when they're doing all the housework and requesting a dishwasher.
60	** "Job Switching" has the inciting incident where Ricky tells off Lucy for emptying their shared bank account at the hair salon. He and Fred start complaining about their wives spending their wages; Lucy and Ethel naturally take offense. Women at the time couldn't hold their own bank accounts, but with changing times Lucy could have a separate account and that would have avoided the problem.
61	** On that note, at an employment agency, the man helping Lucy and Ethel find jobs doesn't ask for their resumes as they get into a DuckSeasonRabbitSeason argument. That might have avoided the candy fiasco if they had shown up with papers for their skills.
62	** Multiple times, Ricky's club stages shows where non-native performers play natives (African or American) with stereotypical costumes, and Lucy has one scheme posing as an Orientalist "maharincess" caricature with Ethel to give Ricky publicity. While these scenarios, in-universe and out, were fair entertainment in their time, they're more likely to be considered ignorant and offensive today, compounded by the caricatures being performed by ethnic outsiders. In addition to ethnic caricatures portrayed by outsiders, "The Indian Show" also indulges in period-typical narratives of Native Americans as terrifying brutal savages and makes jokes with TontoTalk, which all comes across as horrfiyingly offensive as cultural awareness has shifted.
63	** Much like ''Series/TheHoneymooners'', Ricky would occasionally make an empty threat to hit Lucy, which would never be seen today even at that level. Desi Arnaz actually mocked this himself when he hosted an episode of ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' and presented a series of "failed concepts" for the show, including one where Ricky was openly physically abusive called "I Loathe Lucy."
64	** When miming the concept of "rice" (ItMakesSenseInContext) Lucy acts out some Chinese stereotypes that would be considered offensive now.
65	** The ''entirety'' of "The Black Eye" would cause massive controversy if it aired today. The basic plot of the episode: Lucy and Ricky are both excited about a new thriller novel, and, because they can't wait for the other to finish, opt to read it aloud like a play. Unfortunately, Ethel overhears them reciting the lines of a fight scene and thinks they're ''actually'' arguing. Ricky then gets overeager and accidentally drops the book; it flies across the room and gives Lucy a black eye. We as the audience know that it's totally innocent, but Ethel is convinced that Ricky [[DomesticAbuse deliberately punched his wife]] and becomes terrified for her. Later, when Ethel comes to get details about what happened and refuses to believe the odd but true incident, a frustrated Lucy concocts "a real juicy story" about Ricky grabbing, punching, and kicking at her, and reenacts the fictional battle, including her cowering in fear and begging for mercy. ''And this is all PlayedForLaughs''. The audience goes wild at Lucy's antics, but it's genuinely disturbing to see her realistically whimpering in fear and crying as she describes being ''brutally beaten by her husband'', even she's just pretending.
66	*** Even Ethel's concerned attitude has problematic elements--while she is genuinely worried about Lucy, she's also clearly [[GossipyHens excited to hear her gossip about Ricky]] and eagerly fills in more aggressive details herself. The notion of ''anyone'', let alone someone's best friend, treating domestic abuse of any kind so flippantly is shocking.
67	*** In the same sequence, Lucy remarks "You know how wild those Cubans are" regarding Ricky's temper, a rather racist notion that, [[SpicyLatina tropes aside]], likely wouldn't fly today.
68	** One early episode, "Lucy Thinks Ricky is Trying to Murder Her," sees Ricky straight-up drugging Lucy's drink with a sleeping pill (at Fred's suggestion, this being something he often does to Ethel); absolutely no one sees a problem with this. Like "The Black Eye" above, it's used as a joke in conjunction with the episode's overall plot (Lucy has crime on the brain because of a novel she's reading, and circumstances make her jump to the conclusion that Ricky is going to murder her and marry another woman)--Lucy assumes that the pill she saw Ricky drop into her glass is poison, so she does some [[PoisonedChaliceSwitcheroo cup switching]] to keep herself safe. Again, it's all PlayedForLaughs, and the audience thinks it is hilarious that a man is attempting to drug his wife.
69	** One episode at the beginning of the Ricardos planning a trip to California indulges in "crazy women drivers" jokes on Lucy's behalf, though the reason that Lucy and Ethel haven't learned to drive (because they live in Manhattan) is justifiable. However, [[CharacterDevelopment several episodes later]] in "First Stop", [[ValuesResonance Lucy is shown to drive capably]] through unfamiliar country roads at night, after she has likely had several more lessons that have gone better.
70	** Many times, the women on the show would be introduced exclusively by their husband's names ("I'm Mrs. Ricky Ricardo, this is Mrs. Fred Mertz..." even in cases when Lucy '''isn't''' trying to name drop to take advantage of Ricky's success. Notably, none of the movie stars' wives seem to ''ever'' have their real names used in "The Fashion Show," always being Mrs. Dean Martin, Mrs. William Holden, etc.) Once rather common, it now comes across either painfully archaic or even downright sexist.
71	** On a Meta Level, to help alleviate Keith Thibodeaux's anxiety to play Little Ricky, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz hired a hypnotist that would visit him in his dressing room before shooting his scenes, placing him in a trance and helping him relax during shooting. While it was, as he described it, done out of concern the two had for him, it does seem rather creepy on some level. Especially given that his parents were never informed that their young son was being hypnotized without their knowledge, something that clearly would never fly today.
72	** One of the Hollywood episodes has Lucy and Ethel finding the story of a woman hitting her husband’s knuckles with a baseball bat after he was cracking them to be hilarious. Although it’s mitigated somewhat by Ricky not finding it funny, DomesticAbuse for such a petty reason probably wouldn’t be PlayedForLaughs today.
73	* ValuesResonance:
74	** Ricky Ricardo is a Latino character who isn't an offensive stereotype and plays the role of StraightMan. They managed to write him as a character with different traits without erasing or exaggerating his Cuban heritage. Ball and Arnaz actually had to fight the network a bit to be allowed to play a married couple, despite actually being married.
75	** In somewhat of an odd twist, the fact that Lucy and Ricky sleep in separate beds. For decades this was mocked as ridiculously prudish ("They couldn't depict even the ''suggestion'' of a ''married couple'' having sex!"). This is not to say prudery ''wasn't'' the reason they were depicted sleeping separately in the show (it was), but in recent years people have become more open to the idea of a happily-married couple sleeping separately, for various reasons (preferring different mattresses, one or both partners shifting in their sleep, jobs with different hours, etc.)
76	** Ricky and Lucy raise Little Ricky in a household that is bilingual, in a time when Latino students would be punished for speaking Spanish at school. There's an excellent sequence where Ricky retells Little Red Riding Hood to Little Ricky in Spanish, with enough overacting so the audience can follow along.
77	** Early on, it was decided that no one but Lucy would be allowed to make fun of Ricky's accent, a decision that likely made the show a lot more watchable for future generations.
78	*** Even today, Lucy's jabs (themselves often responses to criticism or joke at her expense) feel more like good-natured marital banter not out of place on a sitcom today.
79	** Though Lucy is often Little Ricky's primary care provider, Ricky is also a relatively active father for the time. His first reaction when his son needs something tends to be to, well, provide that something, rather than looking to Lucy.
80	** The title character. Unlike most sitcom housewives in that period, she wasn't a "perfect" woman whose main thing is being a housewife. Instead, she had her own adventures, personality, and life.
81	*** Building on the above, culture scholars have argued that Lucy is a proto-feminist character, in that she ''never'' stops trying to succeed in show business and have a life outside of being a housewife and mother. Even though Ricky discourages her, she continually concocts schemes to get into his shows and funds those schemes with endeavors of her own. The desire to have a career and be free from societal expectations of being a wife and mother would become major themes of the women's liberation movement and beyond; Lucy expressed those desires in the 1950s.
82	** Even besides that, Lucy is allowed to be a pro-active female protagonist without going too far the other direction, making her as much a flawed and colourful sitcom protagonist that is allowed to have jokes at her expense as many iconic male counterparts, something a lot of works still dither with to this day (granted partially because [[FairForItsDay a lot of the humour in the show targeting the female characters]] would be looked upon ''far'' more gingerly in later years).
83	** The very early episode "The Diet" unambiguously depicts trying to rapidly lose weight through starving yourself and other extreme methods as unequivocally unsustainable and dangerous. As eating disorders became more prominent and more recognized over future decades, this message increased in importance.

Context YMMV / ILoveLucy