7 Things You May Not Know About How ‘I Love Lucy’ Started
On October 15, 1951, I Love Lucy premiered on CBS with an episode about Fred and Ethel Mertz’s wedding anniversary. 75 years later, Lucy, Ricky, Fred and Ethel remain some of television’s most recognizable characters.
But the show almost looked very different. CBS had concerns about casting Desi Arnaz, a cigarette company helped get the series on the air, and the familiar heart-shaped opening wasn’t even part of the original broadcasts. Here are a few things you might not know about how I Love Lucy got its start.
1 It started as a radio show
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Before I Love Lucy, Lucille Ball starred in a CBS radio comedy called My Favorite Husband. She played Liz Cooper, a housewife married to a banker played by Richard Denning. When CBS wanted to bring the show to television, Ball insisted that her real-life husband, Desi Arnaz, play her husband on screen. The network wasn’t convinced audiences would accept the Cuban bandleader in the role, but audiences loved him.
According to the Library of Congress, the new series brought over producer Jess Oppenheimer and writers Madelyn Pugh and Bob Carroll Jr. from the radio show.
2 Lucy and Desi had to prove they could work together
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CBS wasn’t immediately sold on Ball and Arnaz as a television couple, so the two took their act on the road. In the summer of 1950, they toured theaters across the country, combining Arnaz’s music with Ball’s comedy. They were successful, which helped convince CBS the pairing could work. Desi Arnaz biographer Todd Purdum discussed the tour in a 2025 interview with NPR, explaining how the couple’s success onstage helped get the television project moving.
3 A cigarette company was the original sponsor
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It might seem strange today, but Philip Morris cigarettes were the original sponsor of I Love Lucy. In the early days of television, it was common for a single advertiser to sponsor an entire show. Philip Morris agreed to back I Love Lucy after Ball and Arnaz demonstrated their appeal as a team. The company was featured prominently in the original broadcasts. Viewers saw Philip Morris advertising during the program, and the stars even appeared in cigarette commercials.
The Television Academy shared an amusing detail from the show’s hairdresser, Irma Kusely, who recalled that Arnaz actually smoked Chesterfields, not Philip Morris.
4 The original opening was animated by the creators of Tom & Jerry
If you’ve watched I Love Lucy in reruns, you’re probably familiar with the satin heart opening. However, that’s not what audiences saw in 1951. Instead, the series originally featured animated versions of Lucy and Ricky, created by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, who were working on MGM’s Tom and Jerry cartoons at the time. The cartoon characters danced and played around a package of Philip Morris cigarettes, promoting the show’s sponsor right from the beginning.
The familiar heart opening came later, when the episodes were being shown in reruns.
5 Desi Arnaz helped change how sitcoms were filmed
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Most television programs were broadcast live from New York when I Love Lucy was being developed. Ball and Arnaz wanted to stay in Los Angeles, where they lived. Philip Morris wasn’t happy with the idea of East Coast viewers watching poor-quality kinescope recordings of a show produced in California. Arnaz came up with a different plan. Rather than move to New York, the series would be filmed on 35mm film in front of a live studio audience. Cinematographer Karl Freund helped solve the technical problems of filming with multiple cameras.
According to the Directors Guild of America, Ball and Arnaz agreed to reduce their salaries to help cover the additional production costs. In exchange, CBS agreed that they would own the episodes after they aired. That arrangement eventually helped make Desilu Productions one of television’s most successful independent production companies.
6 The first episode aired wasn’t the first one filmed
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The first episode viewers saw on October 15, 1951, was “The Girls Want to Go to a Nightclub.” However, it wasn’t the first episode the cast had filmed. The very first episode was actually “Lucy Thinks Ricky Is Trying to Murder Her,” which eventually aired as the fourth episode on November 5, 1951. The Library of Congress even has the original rehearsal and shooting schedule for that first filmed episode in its collection. The first season ran for 35 episodes and included one of the show’s most famous moments. “Lucy Does a TV Commercial,” featuring the unforgettable Vitameatavegamin routine, originally aired on May 5, 1952. According to the Television Academy, writers Madelyn Pugh Davis and Bob Carroll Jr. recalled that Ball completed the famous routine in just one take.
7 Lucy’s Baby Appeared on the Very First Cover of TV Guide
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Although this happened shortly after the show’s first season, it’s a good example of just how popular I Love Lucy had become. When the national edition of TV Guide launched on April 3, 1953, its very first cover featured Lucille Ball’s newborn son, Desi Arnaz Jr., with a small picture of Lucy herself. The headline called him “Lucy’s $50,000,000 Baby,” referring to the enormous interest surrounding his birth and the popularity of the show. Desi Jr. had been born on January 19, 1953, the same day Lucy Ricardo gave birth to Little Ricky on television.
The real-life couple made another TV Guide cover appearance on July 17, 1953, just a few months after the magazine debuted. In total, Lucille Ball has graced the cover 45 times!
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Classic TV Shows of the ’50s & ’60s
September 2020
Test your knowledge, from Bonanza and Gunsmoke to I Love Lucy, I Dream of Jeannie, Star Trek and more fun TV of the 1950s and 1960s.
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