The BEST Episodes of I Love Lucy
Every episode ever - ranked by fan votes!
Last Updated: Apr 5, 2021
Network: CBS
Cuban Bandleader Ricky Ricardo would be happy if his wife Lucy would just be a housewife. Instead she tries constantly to perform at the Tropicana where he works, and make life comically frantic in the apartment building they share with landlords Fred and Ethel Mertz, who also happen to be their best friends.
#1 - Lucy's Bicycle Trip
Season 5 - Episode 24 - Aired Apr 23, 1956
The Ricardos and Mertzes pedal their way from Italy to the French Riviera. It's a bumpy ride, thanks (of course) to Lucy, who left her passport in her purse, which she locked in a suitcase, which she sent ahead to their hotel in Nice. That presents problems when they get to the Italian-French border.
9.19 
#2 - Ricky's Hawaiian Vacation
Season 3 - Episode 22 - Aired Mar 15, 1954
Ricky's band is to play in Hawaii-and guess who wants to go also? Lucy's plan: to go on a game show that gives away airline tickets. It calls for some trickery, and Lucy just *might* meet her match in the show's host, Freddie Fillmore, a prankster par excellence.
9.16 
#3 - Lucy Makes Room for Danny
Season 8 - Episode 2 - Aired Dec 1, 1958
The Ricardos prepare to go out of town for two months and decided to rent their home out to Danny Williams and his family. But when their plans fall through, Lucy and Ricky are forced to move in with Fred and Ethel in their guest house! Lucy, however, drives Danny crazy with her constant visits, and things get a bit out of hand. Danny Thomas, Marjorie Lord and Gale Gordon guest star.
9.13 
#4 - Lucy and Harpo Marx
Season 4 - Episode 28 - Aired May 9, 1955
Lucy decides to impersonate some Hollywood notables to impress nearsighted Caroline Appleby, who is visiting from New York. A mixup occurs when Lucy, having introduced her friend to "Gary Cooper," "Clark Gable," "Marlon Brando," and "Jimmy Durante," decides to impersonate Harpo Marx just as the real Harpo arrives at the apartment with Ricky.
9.13 
#5 - Lucy Misses the Mertzes
Season 6 - Episode 17 - Aired Feb 11, 1957
As the Ricardos get settled in their new country home, they immediately wind up in a mix-up with their old friends Fred and Ethel Mertz. Missing their old friends already, Lucy and Ricky decide to visit the Mertzes. At the same time, the Mertzes decide to trek to the country to visit the Ricardos, and what began simply becomes complicated.
8.95 
#6 - Housewarming
Season 6 - Episode 23 - Aired Apr 1, 1957
Fred Mertz installs an intercom system between the Mertz guest-house and the Ricardo main house. The intercom causes some confusion when Lucy and Ricky overhear what they believe to be plans for a housewarming party given for them.
8.94 
#7 - Lucy Raises Tulips
Season 6 - Episode 26 - Aired Apr 29, 1957
Suburban living gets Lucy into a flower-show competition, and she raises tulips with a vengeance as she tries to beat out her neighbor, Betty Ramsey, for first prize. Lucy asks Ricky to mow the lawn so that her garden will look just right. But he only mows half before taking off for a baseball game, leaving Lucy and Ethel to tiptoe through the tulips -- with the lawnmower.
8.93 
#8 - First Stop
Season 4 - Episode 14 - Aired Jan 17, 1955
The Ricardos and Mertzes have a hard time finding accommodations that will please everyone on their trip to California. They finally hit a greasy restaurant where stale cheese sandwiches cost them a dollar apiece. Hoping to find something better elsewhere, Ricky pays the check. The couples leave -- only to return several hours later, fooled by some purposely misleading road signs.
8.80 
#9 - Bull Fight Dance
Season 4 - Episode 23 - Aired Mar 28, 1955
Lucy literally blackmails Ricky into getting her a part in one of his guest appearances on television. He does get her a role -- as a bull. When Lucy is displeased with the turn of events, she transforms the bull's image from that of a snarling beast to a mincing creature resembling Elsie, the Borden Cow. Look for the classic scene where Lucy upstages Ricky in this episode.
8.63 
#10 - Lucy Does a TV Commercial
Season 1 - Episode 30 - Aired May 5, 1952
Desperate to be in Ricky's new television commercial, Lucy makes every attempt to get her way; which eventually pays off. But her one-and-only chance flops when she is forced to test the sponsor's product over-and-over, a vitamin syrup called Vitametavegimin, which is 25% alcohol.
8.52 
#11 - The Great Train Robbery
Season 5 - Episode 5 - Aired Oct 31, 1955
Lucy gets mixed up with a jewel thief on a cross-country rail trip that marks the end of the series' Hollywood sojourn. That's not the only reason it's a bumpy ride. Another is that Lucy keeps pulling the emergency-brake cord.
8.52 
#12 - Job Switching
Season 2 - Episode 1 - Aired Sep 15, 1952
Ricky wants Lucy to try working for a week, so she and Ethel get jobs at a candy factory, where they are totally inept-especially at wrapping chocolates-due to a speeding conveyor belt that has them stuffing chocolates in their mouths, blouses, and hats.
8.51 
#13 - The Ballet
Season 1 - Episode 19 - Aired Feb 18, 1952
Even after all this time, Lucy still longs to get into one of Ricky's shows. When she learns that there is an opening in one of Ricky's acts for a ballet dancer,as well as a burlesque comedienne, Lucy decides to take a ballet class-which leads to some pretty disastrous results. Fed up, Lucy then hires a teacher to teach her the art of burlesque comedy. It is then that Lucy learns that Ricky still has one spot available in his act. Falsely assuming that it is the burlesque comedienne, not the ballet dancer, that Ricky needs for his act, Lucy goes to the club and mayhem ensues.
8.51 
#14 - The Star Upstairs
Season 4 - Episode 25 - Aired Apr 18, 1955
Cornel Wilde becomes the one-hundredth movie star Lucy has seen in Hollywood; he is living in the penthouse directly above the Ricardo suite. Determined to get a glimpse of the handsome actor, Lucy disguises herself as a bellboy, then hides under the star's luncheon cart to gain entry into Wilde's suite. Things go smoothly until she finds herself locked out on Cornel's terrace and must make her way down the side of the building using a few blankets as rope. Swashbuckler Cornel Wilde guest-stars as himself in this episode.
8.50 
#15 - Sentimental Anniversary
Season 3 - Episode 16 - Aired Feb 1, 1954
Lucy and Ricky want to spend their 13th wedding anniversary alone, but the Mertzes have another idea: a surprise party.
8.48 
#16 - California, Here We Come
Season 4 - Episode 13 - Aired Jan 10, 1955
The Ricardos and Mertzes head for California. But first, of coures, there are complications. The chief one: Lucy's mother, who shows up and wants to accompany them. Ricky objects (to put it mildly), and when Fred and Ethel overhear him complaining about too many people on the trip, they take it personally. And when the dust from that blowup finally settles, there's packing to do.
8.45 
#17 - Bon Voyage
Season 5 - Episode 13 - Aired Jan 16, 1956
Ricky, Ethel, and Fred are aboard their ship to Europe when Lucy rushes down the gangplank for one last goodbye to Little Ricky, who will be in Lucy's mother's care while she is in Europe. The ship heads out to sea, leaving Lucy frantically trying to catch up with it.
8.42 
#18 - The Charm School
Season 3 - Episode 15 - Aired Jan 25, 1954
It's time for charm school for Lucy and Ethel when their men eye a pretty woman at a party. But Ricky and Fred are anything but charmed by the results.
8.41 
#19 - Don Juan is Shelved
Season 4 - Episode 22 - Aired Mar 21, 1955
Ricky's movie is shelved, so Lucy schemes to get Ricky another role. The plan: impress MGM studio boss Dore Schary by any means necessary, even if it means that Schary must impress himself. But first, there are 500 fan letters to write.
8.40 
#20 - Equal Rights
Season 3 - Episode 4 - Aired Oct 26, 1953
Lucy and Ethel demand equal rights for women. Okay, say Ricky and Fred at the restaurant: separate checks for the four of them. Thus begins Lucy and Ethel's careers as restaurant dishwashers. So they plot revenge: they'll scare their husbands by claiming to have been robbed.
8.38 
#21 - Ricky's European Booking
Season 5 - Episode 10 - Aired Dec 12, 1955
Ricky’s band is going on a European tour but he can’t afford to take Lucy — who’s not about to take this lying down. Her plan: raffle off a TV set to benefit “Ladies Overseas Aid.” “We’re ladies,” Lucy tells Ethel (who’s scheming to go, too). “We want to go overseas. And, boy, do we need aid.” The Pied Pipers perform the theme from Ball and Arnaz’s 1956 movie Forever Darling.
8.36 
#22 - Lucy Has Her Eyes Examined
Season 3 - Episode 11 - Aired Dec 14, 1953
Lucy finally gets her chance to be in show business, when she tricks Ricky into letting her do the "Jitterbug" in one of his shows. She's terrific during rehearsals, but problems occur when Lucy accompanies Ricky (who's been suffering from headaches) to the eye doctor just before the show. There, the doctor decides to examine Lucy's eyes, as well. He puts some eyedrops in Lucy's eyes which "relaxes" them, but Lucy's vision is blurry for the next twenty four hours. Naturally, this causes problems since Lucy has to perform that night.
8.36 
#23 - Lucy's Italian Movie
Season 5 - Episode 23 - Aired Apr 16, 1956
En route to Rome by train, Lucy is spotted by a famous Italian cinema director and chosen to play a part in his new movie "Bitter Grapes." Lucy sets out to immerse herself in the role. When she nonchalantly wanders into a vineyard inhabited by a motley assortment of Italian-speaking women, she is dispatched to the wine-making area to crush grapes with her feet.
8.36 
#24 - The Freezer
Season 1 - Episode 29 - Aired Apr 28, 1952
Where's the beef? It's in Lucy and Ethel's new walk-in freezer (according to Lucy, the "human popsicle"). Of course, Ricky and Fred have a beef with their wives, because they paid $483 for it. The meat company won't take it back, and they can't sell it to customers waiting in the local butcher shop, so they're stuck with it. And speaking of stuck, Lucy gets herself locked in the freezer!
8.33 
#25 - The Diner
Season 3 - Episode 27 - Aired Apr 26, 1954
The Ricardos and the Mertzes buy a diner, name it "A Little Bit of Cuba" and go to work. Well, the Mertzes go to work; the Ricardos "greet." Not surprisingly, relations are soon strained. Can a food fight be far behind?
8.33