10 I Love Lucy Episodes That Prove Lucille Ball Is A Comedic Genius md20

Most sitcoms from that era don’t hold up today; in terms of their social attitudes, cultural reference points, and the attention span of the average audience member, it’s a completely different world than we live in today. But I Love Lucy, along with The Dick Van Dyke Show and All in the Family, is a rare mid-20th-century sitcom that’s just as funny today.

Lucy & Harpo Marx

Season 4, Episode 28

It takes a special kind of comic performer to be able to do an iconic Marx Brothers routine with an actual Marx Brother and actually pull it off. But that’s exactly what Lucille Ball did in I Love Lucy’s season 4 episode “Lucy and Harpo Marx.” As the title would suggest, Lucy meets Harpo Marx.

While doing a series of celebrity impressions to fool a near-sighted old woman, Lucy dresses up as Harpo Marx and unexpectedly comes face-to-face with the real Harpo Marx. This leads to a hilarious recontextualization of Harpo’s classic mirror gag from Duck Soup.

Lucy Goes To The Hospital

Season 2, Episode 16

The pregnancy storyline in I Love Lucy’s second season was groundbreaking. It dealt with the subject of pregnancy in more depth than most TV shows dared to do at the time, and it marked one of the first times that a TV show covered a cast member’s real-life pregnancy with a fictional pregnancy for their character.

That storyline culminated in “Lucy Goes to the Hospital,” the episode that made I Love Lucy a true national phenomenon. The publicity of Ball’s real-life pregnancy overshadowed her performance in the episode, but she did a great job of playing the grueling process of childbirth for laughs.

The Quiz Show

Season 1, Episode 5

Ball gives a performance within a performance in this early episode. After going on a game show to win some prize money, Lucy ends up agreeing to introduce an actor to Ricky as her long-lost husband as part of an on-camera prank. But Lucy ends up bringing home the wrong guy.

This episode is masterfully acted, because there are so many perspectives to keep track of. A homeless man is pretending to be Lucy’s husband to see how far it gets him, Ricky believes this man is actually Lucy’s missing husband, and Lucy believes she has a ruse to maintain. Ball’s razor-sharp performance-within-a-performance holds it all together.

L.A. At Last!

Season 4, Episode 17

Season 4’s “L.A. at Last!” is another great episode where Lucy clashes with a celebrity. While Ricky is meeting with movie executives, Lucy goes celeb-hunting and bumps into William Holden at the Brown Derby restaurant in Hollywood.

The famously stoic Holden is a hilarious foil for Ball’s zany antics. The look on his face as he reacts to Lucy, when she’s just turned around from “fixing” her nose, gets one of the biggest laughs in the whole series.

Lucy Thinks Ricky Is Trying To Murder Her

Season 1, Episode 4

After getting engrossed in a good murder mystery novel, Lucy begins to suspect that Ricky is plotting to kill her. This is a timeless premise, because we’re still infatuated with murder mysteries (except now, that obsession takes the form of true-crime documentaries and podcasts).

This is such a ludicrous comic scenario that it takes a really great actor to sell it. But Ball not only sells Lucy’s paranoia; she spins it into comedy gold.

Lucy Tells The Truth

Season 3, Episode 6

Ricky and the Mertzes bet Lucy she can’t go a whole day without lying in the season 3 episode “Lucy Tells the Truth.” After she spends 24 hours telling them exactly what she thinks of them, they’re surprised by her candor.

Besides pre-empting the Jim Carrey vehicle Liar Liar, “Lucy Tells the Truth” presents Ball with a juicy comedic bit to chomp on. The inability to lie is an excuse to be brutally honest.

Lucy Is Enceinte

Season 2, Episode 10

During a routine checkup, Lucy is surprised to learn that she’s pregnant in the season 2 episode “Lucy is Enceinte.” Throughout the episode, she struggles to break the news to Ricky as she tries to come up with the perfect way to tell him.

Ball grounds her comic performance in an emotional reality. This episode epitomizes the real-life romantic chemistry that she and her husband Desi Arnaz brought to the screen. The ending is so sweet, and feels so real, because you’re really watching two people in love.

Pioneer Women

Season 1, Episode 25

When a born performer and monumental talent like Lucille Ball is handed a ridiculous prop, like a giant loaf of bread, or a ridiculous costume, like a dress from the 1800s, they can create magic. So goes the classic I Love Lucy episode “Pioneer Women.”

After Lucy asks for an electric dishwasher, Ricky bets her she can’t live like her ancestors did in the pioneer days, when you had to do everything for yourself. This setup gives Ball plenty to do.

Job Switching

Season 2, Episode 1

I Love Lucy’s season 2 premiere “Job Switching” is one of the earliest examples of a trading-places storyline. When Ricky and Fred become frustrated with Lucy and Ethel’s spending, they make a deal: Lucy and Ethel will go off to work, and Ricky and Fred will stay at home and do the housework.

It’s a great satire of gender politics, deconstructing traditional gender roles, but it’s also just a masterpiece of physical comedy. The sequence of Lucy and Ethel struggling to keep up with the conveyor belt at the chocolate factory is one of the funniest comedy scenes ever put on TV.

Lucy Does A TV Commercial

Season 1, Episode 30

This is the episode that everyone points to as an example of Lucille Ball’s comedic genius, and for good reason. In “Lucy Does a TV Commercial,” Lucy cons a professional actress in order to steal her gig on a TV ad for a ridiculous health product called Vitameatavegamin.

Lucy takes a few spoonfuls of the product in preparation for the role, and it turns out to have a hefty dose of alcohol. Most of the episode is just Ball performing for a camera, and it’s a joy to see. This is one of those I Love Lucy episodes that laid the groundwork for the entire sitcom genre.