15 Funniest I Love Lucy Episodes

I Love Lucy is one of the funniest sitcoms of all time. The great writing and performances came together to create a comedy masterpiece that spanned six seasons and 180 episodes. They maintained this high level of quality so consistently that even the bad episodes were good.

Because of this, choosing the funniest episodes is a difficult task. Every episode has at least one or two great scenes. Every episode gets a laugh from the audience. However, there are a few episodes that might be said to be among the best. They hit all the beats just right, they’ve got great dialogue and one-liners, and the actors are at the top of their game. Even better, some of these episodes were bold enough to try things that television shows haven’t tried before.

15.“The Diet”

Season 1, Episode 3

When Lucy goes on a diet, Ricky motivates her by promising she can be in his show if she fits into a size 12 dress. However, Ricky underestimates his wife’s determination. After ten punishing days of dieting, Lucy waltzes onto the stage in the dress to her husband’s alarm.

This episode is famous for the iconic “Cuban Pete” dance number, which Lucy and Ricky perform flawlessly. However, the rest of the episode is funny as heck. Lucy’s efforts to lose weight are both relatable and hilarious in their extremity. The best part, though, is Lucy’s rivalry with Ricky’s dance partner. At the end of the episode, the woman is found locked in the closet, bound and gagged, where Lucy put her. This is one of the funniest punchlines in the entire series.

14.“Pioneer Women”

Season 1, Episode 25

Lucy, tired of doing the dishes by hand, asks Ricky to get her an electric dishwasher. After Ricky refuses, he and Fred bet Lucy and Ethel that they could survive longer without anything made after 1900. Per usual, things to not go as planned for either.

This episode is best remembered for the classic moment when Lucy and Ethel’s loaf of bread explodes out of the oven, hilariously making for one long loaf of bread. The bread was actually real and was custom-made by a bakery in Los Angeles. This episode has proved so popular that it was rebroadcast in color in 2018 on CBS.

13.“Lucy Does a TV Commercial”

Season 1, Episode 30

Once again, Lucy’s desire to be onstage lands her in trouble. She successfully commandeers a role in a TV commercial. Unfortunately, the role consists of drinking a nasty health tonic and pretending that she likes it. Poor Lucy has to keep drinking the stuff until she gets it right and ends up drinking so much that she gets tipsy due to it being 23 percent alcohol.

Everything about this episode is comedy gold. The face Lucy makes when she first tastes the concoction is priceless. Her line delivery as she gets tipsier and tipsier is on point, and Ricky’s efforts to save the situation while Lucy is singing at the top of her lungs is the icing on the cake. Lucille Ball was at her best in this episode.

12.“Ricky Thinks He’s Getting Bald”

Season 1, Episode 34

As the title says, Ricky becomes worried about losing his hair and resolves to fix it. Lucy doesn’t think it’s a big deal and tries to help him feel better about it. However, being gentle doesn’t work, so she resorts to increasingly creative and painful hair loss treatments. Ricky remains undeterred, and the episode ends with him choosing to do the hair treatments every night.

The “Ricky Thinks He’s Getting Bald” episode is a funny subversion of the usual I Love Lucy plotlines. This time, it’s Ricky becoming obsessed over something while Lucy is the one being supportive and trying to talk him out of it. The actors’ performances make it even funnier. They land every joke perfectly and play the roles with a lot of heart. Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz are amazing in this episode.

11.“Job Switching”

Season 2, Episode 1

Lucy and Ethel make a bet with their husbands to switch roles for the day to see if they can do each other’s job better. In the end, both sides screw up. Ricky and Fred ruin the laundry, the kitchen, and dinner, while Lucy and Ethel struggle to keep up in a candy factory.

The physical comedy in this episode is in a league of its own. Lucy and Ethel resort to stuffing their mouths and blouses with all the candy they couldn’t wrap while Ricky and Fred scramble to keep the rice from boiling over. The funniest part is when Ricky and Fred talk about cooking. Everyone knows that the meal’s going to end in disaster, but it’s even better when the viewer has experience in cooking. The episode might have old-fashioned ideas, but it will never get old.

10.“Lucy Is Enceinte”

Season 2, Episode 10

In the episode, Lucy discovers that she’s pregnant. She’s ecstatic, of course, but keeps getting interrupted whenever she tries to tell Ricky. Finally, she anonymously requests a song from his band to announce the pregnancy.

This episode is sweet and emotional and is mostly known for being one of the earliest shows to work a pregnancy into the story. It’s also perfectly funny. Lucy’s failed attempts to tell Ricky are humorous. However, they also build up the audience’s expectations so that they’ll think that Ricky’s going to find out in a joking way. Instead, those attempts lead to the most poignant scene in the entire show.

9.“Ricky Has Labor Pains”

Season 2, Episode 14

During Lucy’s pregnancy, Ricky starts to develop psychosomatic pregnancy symptoms as a result of feeling lonely and overwhelmed. Lucy decides he needs some attention, too, and arranges a men-only “daddy shower” for him. However, she and Ethel get curious and gate-crash the party in disguise.

The daddy shower is considered the highlight of the episode. It’s one of Lucy and Ethel’s most creative shenanigans on the show, and their husbands’ reactions are priceless. However, the ice cream with hot fudge and sardines is an easy second. Ricky is horrified by Lucy’s weird cravings at first. At the end of the episode, though, he gets a craving, too, and steals a spoonful from her. It’s a fantastic punchline to a great episode.

8.“Lucy Goes To The Hospital”

Season 2, Episode 16

After finding out she was pregnant a few episodes prior, Lucy finally has her baby. The episode begins with Ricky and the Mertzes meticulously planning out the trip to the hospital when the baby comes. When Lucy does go into labor, the plan goes awry.

This episode had a then-record 44 million viewers, which included over 70% of American households tuning in. There was a lot of attention on the series in the press because Ball herself was pregnant in real life. Ironically, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz’s son, Desi Arnaz Jr, was born on the exact same day.

7.“Lucy Tells the Truth”

Season 3, Episode 6

After Lucy has been less than honest several times, Ricky makes a $100 bet with her that she can’t go 24 hours without telling a lie. The chaos that this bet causes might not be fun in real life, but it’s a riot to watch. Lucy’s friends learn about the bet and try to gang up on her. However, she turns the tables on them by telling them exactly what she thinks and how she feels about them.

The pinnacle of the episode is when Lucy auditions for a role at the club. She finally breaks and lies about understanding Italian, only to end up in a terrifying knife-throwing act. This episode is one of the wildest shenanigans that Lucy and Ricky have ever gotten into.

6.“The Diner”

Season 3, Episode 27

Ricky decides to quit show business, so the Ricardos and the Mertzes go into business together and buy a diner. The business was doomed to fail from the start, as it led to the couples splitting the restaurant right down the middle.

One half of the restaurant is “A Little Bit of Cuba,” while the other half is “A Big Hunk of America.” The couples vie for the attention of their customers, the few that they have, to their respective side of the restaurant. Funnily enough, the first customer is a drunk and the couples still fight over him, much to the audience’s amusement.

5.“L.A., At Last!”

Season 4, Episode 17

In the series’ fourth season, the Ricardos and the Mertzes move out to Los Angeles for an extended stay after Ricky travels there for work. After a few episodes of traveling across the country, the group finally makes it to Hollywood. Lucy sets out to see celebrities at the Brown Derby restaurant.

This leads to Lucy seeing William Holden, and annoying him to no end while he tries to enjoy his lunch. It culminates in Lucy accidentally getting a pie all over him. After Ricky meets Holden, he brings him to meet Lucy who then must disguise herself. Ball does some great comedic work in this episode, especially when thinking she has Holden fooled with her disguise, which includes a fake nose that ends up catching on fire.

4.“Harpo Marx”

Season 4, Episode 28

Lucy and Ricky meet many celebrities in the show who unwittingly get involved in their hijinks. This includes Harpo Marx, one of the famous Marx brothers who were popular in the early 1900s. In the episode, Lucy hosts a party in which she and several other main characters dress up as celebrities. However, the real Harpo Marx unexpectedly shows up and performs the mirror skit with Lucy.

This episode was a meeting of comedic legends. Lucille Ball does an incredible job of keeping up with her fellow comedian, and they shot the entire scene in one take. It’s not just one of the funniest scenes in the series. It’s one of the most legendary scenes in television history.

3.“Lucy And John Wayne”

Season 5, Episode 2

In the previous episode, Lucy and Ethel have made off with Hollywood legend John Wayne’s footprints from the front of Grauman’s Chinese Theater and accidentally destroy them. The theater agrees not to charge the pair if they are returned, so Ricky invites Wayne to meet and make a new set.

Wayne guest-stars as himself and hilariously has to keep redoing his footprints after several misunderstandings and mishaps, including Lucy erasing one of them because she thinks Fred made them. Lucy then ends up pretending to be Wayne’s masseuse to get the footprints but runs out before she can get them. Wayne proves to be very understanding in the end and jokingly supplies Lucy with a six-month supply of footprints.

2.“Lucy’s Italian Movie”

Season 5, Episode 23

Lucy’s love of show business has gotten her into trouble many times over, but this incident takes the cake…or, more appropriately, the grapes. Lucy is offered a small role in an Italian film called Bitter Grapes, but she misunderstands the title and works at a vineyard to research for the role. Unfortunately, she gets into a grape fight with a coworker. She arrives on set stained blue from head to toe and loses the role to Ethel.

This episode sees Lucille Ball flexing her chops to the fullest. Not only is the slapstick great, but her facial expressions as the fight begins are just hysterical. She delivers laughs from start to finish.

1.“Lucy and Superman”

Season 6, Episode 13

With so many celebrities appearing on the show, it’s only natural that Superman would fly in eventually. In this episode, Lucy hires George Reeves, one of the most famous actors to play Superman, to appear at her son’s birthday party. When he’s delayed, however, she dresses up as Superman and tries to “fly” in through the window. Unfortunately, she gets stuck on the ledge.

In flies Superman to save the day. Not only does he rescue the party, but he obligingly helps Lucy as well. This episode is both iconic and riotous as Lucy’s good intentions cause mayhem yet again. This time, though, it’s Superman who delivers the punchline with one of the sassiest burns in the show.