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(More customer reviews)It is interesting to rewatch the 1951-52 first season of "I Love Lucy," where the scripts were exploring the screwball possibilities of Lucy Ricardo (Lucille Ball) trying to break into the world of entertainment like her husband, Ricky (Desi Arnaz), bandleader at the Tropicana Club. The first half of the season was okay, but the second half finds the cast and writers Jess Oppenheimer, Madelyn Pugh, and Bob Carroll, Jr. really hitting stride. The theme of Volume 7 is on more about husbands and wives (or husbands versus wives) rather than on Lucy's show business aspirations:
Episode 24, "The Gossip" (March 24, 1952) offers another battle of the sexes as Fred (William Frawley) and Ricky bet they can keep from gossiping longer than Ethel (Vivian Vance) and Lucy. The outcome is predictable, but the journey is half the fun.
Episode 25, "Pioneer Women" (March 31, 1952) is, quite simply, the one with the twelve-foot loaf of bread. Everybody remembers the sight gag, but do you remember the premise? Fred and Ricky challenge Ethel and Lucy to a contest to see who can survive the longest without the conveniences of modern life. This means having to bake your own bread and figuring out how much yeast to use.
Episode 26, "The Marriage License" (April 7, 1952) has Lucy finding out that her marriage license to Ricky is not legally binding. The simple thing to do would be to have the paperwork done right, but Lucy insists that Ricky play out their entire courtship. Not as funny as the how the same situation played out on "The Dick Van Dyke Show" ("Laura's Little Lie," October 9, 1963), but then Petrie's had a kid, which gave that classic episode a bit more edge. Note: Elizabeth Patterson, who would play Little Ricky's baby-sitter Mrs. Trumbull appears in this episode, but as a different character.
Episode 27, "The Kleptomaniac" (April 14, 1952) hinges on Ricky finding a whole bunch of goods that Lucy has collected for a charity bazaar. Since Ricky does not know about the bazaar, he jumps to the conclusion that Lucy is a kleptomaniac and needs psychiatric help. The psychiatrist is played by Jospeh Kearns, who would go on to play Mr. Wilson on "Dennis the Menace."
This solid quartet puts Volume 7 in the top four of the nine volumes that collect the first season and the original unaired pilot (36 episodes in all). However, the top volume is the next one up, which contains one of the most famous "I Love Lucy" episodes of all time, "Lucy Does a TV Commercial." Still, what we have here is ample reason why every Monday night literally half of the nation's television sets were tuned to this classic situation comedy.
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