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Movie Analysis : I Love Lucy

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On Monday, January 19, 1953, I Love Lucy made history. It was the night Americas favorite Hollywood couple Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz gave birth to their second child. But, it was also the night Americas favorite fictional couple, Lucy and Ricky Ricardo, were giving birth to their first on the CBS hit, I Love Lucy. The show, already living in its reign as the number one show on American television, managed to receive forty-four million views on the episode, “Lucy Goes to the Hospital,” making it the highest rated program at the time. The episode received a, “71.7 Nielsen rating, mere hours after the real Ball-Arnaz baby had been born,” Berklee Cultural Studies professor Lori Landay pointed out in her book I Love Lucy. While not a big deal in television today, in the 1950s a pregnant woman playing pregnant was groundbreaking. Ball managed to become the first pregnant (or as CBS had them call it ‘expecting’) woman on television. Regardless of how nervous CBS was at the time, to this day, the birth of Little Ricky is still considered to be an iconic moment in American television. It is hard to believe that I Love Lucy, which is considered to be Americas first classic sitcom was originally doubted by CBS to actually be successful. CBS had faith in Lucille playing the role of the wacky, screwball housewife Lucy and with good reason. But, just about every other component that managed to make the show so iconic, was originally brushed off as a one way street to failure in the

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