| "I Love Lucy" episode | ||||
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| Season 1, Episode #4 #4 in Series | ||||
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| Series: | I Love Lucy | |||
| Network: | CBS-TV | |||
| Air date: | November 5, 1951 | |||
| Written by: | Bob Carroll, Jr., Madelyn Davis, & Jess Oppenheimer | |||
| Guest stars: | Jerry Hausner Hector and His Pals Johnny Jacobs | |||
| Directed by: | Marc Daniels | |||
| Production code: | 1x4 / 001 | |||
| Episode guide | ||||
 IMDB
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Lucy Thinks Ricky Is Trying to Murder Her | |||
| Episode chronology | ||||
| ← Previous | Next → | |||
| "The Diet" | "The Quiz Show" | |||
Lucy Thinks Ricky Is Trying to Murder Her is the fourth episode of the Season 1 of I Love Lucy, also the 4th overall. Directed by Marc Daniels, the episode, which was co-written by Bob Carroll, Jr., Madelyn Davis, and Jess Oppenheimer, originally aired on CBS-TV on November 5, 1951.
| "Lucy Thinks Ricky Is Trying to Murder Her" | ||
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| Also see: | ||
| Full Credits | Transcripts | More Images |
Synopsis[]
Lucy read a murder mystery. She listened to Ethel's fortune-telling, and thinks Ricky is trying to kill her.
Plot[]
Ethel learns how to tell fortunes from playing cards, and when she tells Lucy's fortune, death comes up for the future. Because of this, along with reading "The Mocking Bird Murder Mystery", Lucy jumps to the conclusion that her husband, Ricky, is planning on murdering her, at first Lucy thinks that Ricky wants to strangle her. Then she thinks that he is going to shoot her, and when Ricky gives her a sleeping pouch to calm down her hysterical behavior, she thinks for sure that she has been poisoned. So before she "dies" she goes down to the studio to confront the murder, Ricky, about trying to kill her. She tells him how she found a gun in their house and that he is going to kill her with it. Ricky pulls out the gun that she is talking about and points it at her, Lucy screams, Ricky pulls the trigger and a little flag pops out that says BANG on it. So Lucy and Ricky make up for all of the confusion and they go home.
Trivia[]
- The title of the book Lucy is reading in this episode is The Mockingbird Murder Mystery.
- It sounds like Ricky is just scheduled to be the Tropicana performer for four weeks. He said that they might get to stay "another four weeks." Clearly, his appearance there started out tentatively. His popularity is what allowed him to stay there permanently.
- Lucy mistakes her jar of cheese dip for the jar of cold cream while intensely reading. She dips her cracker in the cold cream and gets a nasty-tasting surprise. The reaction from this gag was the first laugh ever recorded on the show.
- When Ethel read her fortune, Lucy was represented by the Queen of Hearts. Her card was beside the Ace of Spades, which represents death.
- Since this was the first episode ever filmed, the cast and crew didn't know exactly how to work out costume changes yet. They originally wanted to run through the episode like a play, with no long breaks. So, this is why Lucy wears layers of clothes throughout the episode. After this episode was filmed, everyone agreed that this "no breaks" method wasn't going to work, but they still were afraid of the 300-person audience getting bored while the actors changed costumes and got sets ready for the next scene. This problem was solved by having Desi's orchestra play for the audience during intermission times.
- During the scene with the switching of the glasses, if you watch closely, Ricky actually ends up with the glass containing the sleeping pill.
- The end scene with Lucy having a string to retrieve her book after it goes out the window is cut from the syndication version.
- This episode was rerun during Lucy's maternity leave in season 2. The new "flashback" beginning has Lucy telling Ricky about the great new murder mysteries she just bought that they can read instead of watching TV: Murder at Midnight, The Blood-Stained Stiletto and Gore. Ricky tells her she shouldn't be reading this kind of book, and he reminds her about what happened in this episode.
- This episode was shot with four cameras, instead of three. This was part of the "no breaks" method used only for this first episode. The fourth camera was abandoned for the following episode.
- The title of the show reportedly was picked so Desi could have top billing, since he is supposed to be the "I" in I Love Lucy.
Cast (in credits order[]
Starring[]
- Lucille Ball as Lucy Ricardo
- Desi Arnaz as Ricky Ricardo
- Vivian Vance as Ethel Mertz
- William Frawley as Fred Mertz
Guest Starring/Recurring cast[]
- Jerry Hausner as Jerry (Ricky's agent)
- Hector and His Pals as Themselves
- Johnny Jacobs as Announcer
