The BEST episodes of I Love Lucy season 4
Every episode of I Love Lucy season 4, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of I Love Lucy season 4!
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 and Harpo Marx
Season 4 - Episode 28 - Aired 5/9/1955
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.
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#2 - First Stop
Season 4 - Episode 14 - Aired 1/17/1955
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.
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#3 - California, Here We Come
Season 4 - Episode 13 - Aired 1/10/1955
The Ricardos and Mertzes head for California. But, there are complications. 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.
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#4 - Bull Fight Dance
Season 4 - Episode 23 - Aired 3/28/1955
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.
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#5 - Don Juan is Shelved
Season 4 - Episode 22 - Aired 3/21/1955
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.
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#6 - Lucy Learns to Drive
Season 4 - Episode 12 - Aired 1/3/1955
Lucy learns to drive — then teaches Ethel everything she knows. The crash course begins as Ricky buys a brand new convertible for their California trip. Lucy wants to learn to drive it and Ricky reluctantly agrees to teach her. And with that experience under her belt (she can't really be blamed for that U-turn in the Holland Tunnel, can she?), she sets out to teach Ethel to drive. It's a good thing the car's insured. It is insured, isn't it?
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#7 - The Hedda Hopper Story
Season 4 - Episode 21 - Aired 3/14/1955
Lucy takes a dive in an effort to further Ricky's career by creating a big splash in Hedda Hopper's Hollywood column. Her scheme turns out to be "all wet" in an adventure that could only happen to Lucy and Ethel. Hedda Hopper, the renowned Hollywood gossip columnist, guest-stars as herself.
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#8 - The Fashion Show
Season 4 - Episode 20 - Aired 2/28/1955
Lucy's a model at a charity fashion show, but the redhead — wearing a scratchy tweed suit — is red all over from too much time in the California sun.
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#9 - L.A. at Last
Season 4 - Episode 17 - Aired 2/7/1955
Lucy arrives in Hollywood with stars in her eyes. She heads for The Brown Derby, a celebrity hangout, where she encounters Eve Arden and William Holden -- and inadvertently presents Holden with a custard pie in the face. Hollywood legends William Holden and Eve Arden guest-star as themselves.
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#10 - The Dancing Star
Season 4 - Episode 27 - Aired 5/2/1955
Lucy begs Van Johnson to let her dance a number with him at the nightclub to impress her rival Caroline Appleby, who is visiting from New York. Van accepts the challenge by waltzing her across the ballroom floor as his dance partner. Movie star Van Johnson guest-stars as himself.
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#11 - The Star Upstairs
Season 4 - Episode 25 - Aired 4/18/1955
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.
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#12 - Ethel's Home Town
Season 4 - Episode 16 - Aired 1/31/1955
The Ricardos and the Mertzes stop at Ethel's hometown: Albuquerque, New Mexico (Vivian Vance's real-life hometown). Under the impression that Ethel has been called to Hollywood and not Ricky, the townsfolk accord her a monumental ovation. When Ethel refuses to disillusion them -- and even goes so far as to put on a "celebrity act" -- Lucy takes matters into her own hands.
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#13 - Ricky's Movie Offer
Season 4 - Episode 6 - Aired 11/8/1954
A Hollywood talent scout is coming over to the apartment to audition Ricky for a movie role. But Ricky won't be the only one looking to attract the scout's attention. (Who's that gal in the Marilyn Monroe getup?).
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#15 - Getting Ready
Season 4 - Episode 11 - Aired 12/13/1954
California, here they come: Lucy and movie-star-to-be Ricky, plus Fred and Ethel, who are tagging along. Their mode of transport: a used Cadillac that Fred bought. And used it is — it's 25 years old and California's a long way away.
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#16 - Hollywood Anniversary
Season 4 - Episode 24 - Aired 4/4/1955
Frantic over having forgotten the date of their wedding anniversary, Ricky tells Lucy that he has a big party planned in a famous nightclub. He doesn't tell her when it is, desperately wiring their marriage license bureau for the correct date. This episode is based on an actual surprise anniversary party that Desi Arnaz threw for Lucy.
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#18 - Ricky Needs an Agent
Season 4 - Episode 29 - Aired 5/16/1955
Ricky needs an agent, Lucy figures, so she nominates herself (unbeknownst to Ricky, of course) and heads off to negotiate with a studio executive to land him a role in a movie. Her strategy: use a nonexistent Broadway musical as a bargaining chip. It works too well.
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#19 - Ethel's Birthday
Season 4 - Episode 9 - Aired 11/29/1954
Despite Ricky's qualms, Lucy decides to help Fred pick out a birthday present for Ethel. The present turns out to be toreador pants, which Ethel decides are not only unflattering but "unfitting." Relations between the two women become strained almost to the shattering point.
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#20 - Mr. and Mrs. TV Show
Season 4 - Episode 5 - Aired 11/1/1954
Ricky is initially reluctant to host a new TV show when he learns that the sponsor prefers a husband-and-wife format. Nonetheless, he agrees to do the show. But when Lucy learns that he hadn't wanted her in the show at all, she decides to get even by sabotaging the "Breakfast with Lucy and Ricky" dress rehearsal. What Lucy doesn't know is that the so-called rehearsal is actually being broadcast to the entire city of New York in an effort to achieve an unrehearsed, spontaneous look.
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#21 - The Tour
Season 4 - Episode 30 - Aired 5/30/1955
Lucy and Ethel are abandoned by their sightseeing bus tour when they try to get a grapefruit from Richard Widmark's garden. When Lucy is stranded inside the garden wall, she and Ethel, who is outside, launch plans to get Lucy out -- but without comparing notes on how. Film star Richard Widmark guest-stars as himself.
#22 - In Palm Springs
Season 4 - Episode 26 - Aired 4/25/1955
Lucy and Ricky and Ethel and Fred are bored with each other so the gals head off to Palm Springs for a break. Rock Hudson guests as himself (and has a hand in getting the couples back together).
#23 - Lucy's Mother-in-Law
Season 4 - Episode 8 - Aired 11/22/1954
Ricky's mother comes to visit, and poor Lucy can't speak Spanish. So she finds a Spanish-speaking mindreader and it works like a charm — as long as he's around.
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#24 - Tennessee Bound
Season 4 - Episode 15 - Aired 1/24/1955
The Ricardo-Mertz westward trek faces a delay — they're all thrown in jail for speeding — in Bent Fork, Tenn., home of Lucy's "cousin" Ernest, who'll do all he can to get them out of the pokey, even if it means marrying one of the sheriff's two daughters, Teensy and Weensy.
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#25 - Don Juan and the Starlets
Season 4 - Episode 18 - Aired 2/14/1955
Lucy is forced to lend Ricky to five dazzling starlets for a proposed evening of publicity pictures. She tries to wait up for him but falls asleep on the sofa and doesn't awake until late the next morning. When she finds Ricky's bed unused, she jumps to the conclusion that he spent the night out with the starlets and decides she wants a divorce.
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