I Love Lucy

Trivia

• Gale Gordon and Bea Benaderet were originally approached for the roles of Fred and Ethel, but neither could accept due to previous commitments.
• At various times, Ethel's middle name was Mae, Roberta, and Louise.
• The Mertz's kitchen was never shown except in the episode, "Never Do Biz With Friends".
• Lucille Ball liked naming supporting characters after real-life people. Carolyn Appleby was one of her teachers, and Marion Strong was a friend in Jamestown, New York.
• Kathryn Card, who played Lucy's scatterbrained mother, first appeared in the series as a slovenly housewife who mistakenly believes Ricky Ricardo has invited her to join him on a date at the Tropicana.
• Barbara Pepper, later featured as Doris Ziffel on the series Green Acres, frequently had one or two lines in a crowd scene. Her friendship with Ball dated back to the film Roman Scandals, in which both appeared as Goldwyn Girls.
• Many true facts about Ball and Arnaz made it into the series. Like Ball, Lucy Ricardo attended high school in Celeron, New York, and the Ricardos were married at the Byram River Beagle Club in Greenwich, Connecticut, just as the Arnazes had been.
• Reportedly, the longest laugh in any sitcom ever - 65 seconds - was heard in the episode Lucy Does the Tango, during which Lucy - her jacket filled with raw eggs - slams into Ricky and breaks them while rehearsing a tango routine for the PTA show.
• The show was one of the first programmes made in the USA seen on British television which became more open to commerce with the launch of ITV in September 1955, a commercial network that aired this series.
• Ball and Arnaz capitalized on the series' popularity by starring in Vincente Minnelli's 1953 film The Long, Long Trailer as Tacy and Nicky Collini, two characters very similar to Lucy and Ricky.
• I Love Lucy is commonly spoofed, including on an episode of The Fairly Oddparents, in which Cosmo and Wanda go into a TV and star in a fictional show called I Love Wanda and a recent episode of the That 70's Show feature
• Ethel Mertz née Potter is originally from Albuquerque, New Mexico
• Ethel Mertz and Betty Ramsey, the neighbor from the later seasons, were childhood friends.