“Ricky! It’s time!”
(S2;E16 ~ January 19, 1953) Directed by William Asher. Written by Jess Oppenheimer, Madelyn Pugh, and Bob Carroll, Jr. It was filmed on November 14, 1952 at General Service Studios. It was the 51st episode filmed. Rating: 71.8/92
Synopsis ~ With the baby due at any moment, Ricky and the Mertzes carefully rehearse the trip to the hospital. But when the fateful moment actually comes, things don’t go quite so smoothly.
PRE-NATAL CARE
This show’s action takes place all in one evening. This was Desi Arnaz’s favorite episode. At the time of filming, Lucille Ball was seven months pregnant.
For five episodes after this one, any scene featuring Lucy was filmed in advance to accommodate Ball’s leave, with book-ending scenes featuring only the other cast members filmed closer to the actual air date.
This is the episode that made “I Love Lucy” a national phenomenon. It is estimated that 72% of the American public who owned a television tuned in to see the birth of Little Ricky. To put that number into perspective: the “M*A*S*H” finale is the highest rated non-Super Bowl program of all-time with over 50 million viewers, but the percentage of households that watched the episode was just over 60%. The Beatles’ first performance on "The Ed Sullivan Show” in 1964 was seen by 73 million people, which accounted for roughly 60 to 70% of American households, slightly lower than “Lucy’s” 72%.
On April 3, 1953, infant Desi Arnaz, Jr. graced the cover of the very first national edition of TV Guide.
On January 19, 1953, Newsweek made Lucy’s baby the cover story – even though the article had to be written several weeks in advance.
- "Lucy Sticks To Script: A Boy It Is!” ~ New York Daily Mirror
- “TV Was Right: A Boy For Lucille” ~ New York Daily News
- “What The Script Ordered” ~ Life Magazine
This episode aired the day before the inauguration of President Eisenhower and five months before the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. More people watched this “I Love Lucy” episode than either one of those televised historic events!
On the morning of Monday, January 19, 1953, the “I Love Lucy Comic Strip” dealt with the birth of the Ricardo baby, and announced “It’s a BOY!”, about 14 hours BEFORE the episode aired at 9pm. Additionally, the baby’s sex was announced in many papers in a syndicated column the day before Lucille Ball had her baby and Lucy Ricardo had her Little Ricky.
Lucy’s obstetrician is Dr. Joe Harris, named after Lucille Ball’s real-life baby doctor. Lucy already knew she would have to have a C-section, since her first baby (Lucie) was born by Caesarean. Since Dr. Harris scheduled all of his C-sections to be done on Mondays, they were able to plan their second baby’s birth to coincide with this episode. Little Ricky and Desi, Jr. were both born on January 19, 1953. So many fans sent Lucy flowers and cards that her hospital room was filled, as was the hallway outside. Lucy and Desi sent thank-you notes to every fan.
It had been pre-decided that the Ricardo baby would be a boy, no matter what the gender of the Arnazes’ real-life baby turned out to be. Desi hoped Lucy would have a son, because he was the last male in his family line and wanted an heir to carry on the family name. Lucy and Desi thought that if they had a daughter on the show that it would confuse Lucie, their real life daughter, who would wonder why she wasn’t on TV with her parents. Had Lucy given birth to a girl, she would have been named Victoria Dolores. The night before Desi Jr. was born, Vivian Vance had a dream that Lucy came to her in a white dress and said, "Vivian, I had a boy.”
THE BLESSED EVENT
The scene of the gang trying to get Lucy to the hospital is included in flashback clips in the Christmas special during season six. In recent airings, the scene was colorized. The same scene was also used in a season 3 teaser trailer aired to get people excited about the new season.
Ironically, had Lucy’s address not put their apartment in the East River in real-life, she would only have one block to travel to the Weill-Cornell Medical Center, located at 525 East 68th Street.
The Desilu prop department must have been fans of the then-popular Paper-Mate Deluxe Ballpoint because a pen aficionado has spotted it as the pen Ricky uses to sign the hospital register. The eagle-eyed pen fan also spotted the same Paper-Mate in six other episode!
The fathers’ waiting room at the hospital is outfitted with a candlestick phone without a dial. For businesses with a central switchboard like a hospital, this type of phone often remained in use throughout the 1950s, despite being replaced by desktop rotary telephones for residential use. The waiting room also permits smoking and Ricky nervously lights up (probably a Philip Morris cigarette) while waiting for the big news. It wasn’t until 1993, 40 years later, that smoking inside hospitals was banned by a Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Health Care Organizations (JCAHO).
This is the first appearance of character actor Charles Lane (Mr. Stanley, the other father in the waiting room). He was one of several actors considered for the role of Fred Mertz. Lane later went on to create memorable characters like Mr. Hickox in “The Business Manager” (S4;E1) as well as the clock-watching passport office clerk in “Staten Island Ferry” (S5;E12). He made a total of four appearances on “I Love Lucy” and two more on “The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour.” In 1962, Lucille Ball cast him as banker Barnsdahl in the first season of "The Lucy Show.” He died at the ripe old age of 102.
The waiting room scene was inspired by one of Lucille Ball’s early films, Carnival (1935) starring Jimmy Durante. Lee Tracy (left) plays a nervous man who’s wife is about to give birth to their first child. He encounters a calmer man, who has already had six children! Sadly, the mother dies in childbirth. Lucille Ball plays a nurse who locks lips with Durante while Tracy smuggles his child out of the hospital.
The Tropicana Maitre D’ is played by William R. Hamel. This is his second of three appearances in this role during season two.
The nursing staff includes Barbara Pepper (in her fourth of nine appearances on the show), Ruth Perrott (second of three appearances), Peggy Rea (first of four appearances), Hazel Pierce (Lucy’s stand-in and frequent extra), and Adele Longmire (first and only appearance). Desi’s stand-in and frequent extra Bennett Green plays the orderly. Ralph Montgomery (the Policeman) had appeared with Lucy in the 1949 film Sorrowful Jones.
James John Ganzer plays newborn Enrique Alberto Ricardo IV (aka Little Ricky). Although he was technically the first of eight actors to play the role, this is his first of only two appearances, the other in the flashback opening of “The Club Election” (S2;E19) likely taken from this same shoot. He was five days old at the time.
The scene of Ricky singing in his voodoo costume was filmed the following week because there wasn’t enough room on the sound stage for the hospital set and the Tropicana set.
Oops! In “Lucy and Superman” (S6;E13), Lucy tells Caroline that Little Ricky was born at 11 o’clock in the morning, but here Ricky is in mid-performance at the Tropicana NIGHTclub when the baby is born!
When this episode originally aired, Philip Morris had a special announcement regarding the birth of the Ricardo baby after the episode ended and before the credits rolled. The film shows baby Ganzer in a bassinet as Little Ricky.
"Yes, there’s a new baby, a wonderful baby at the Ricardos’, and we at Philip Morris rejoice in the blessed event. We know that all our millions of friends join us in extending congratulations and good wishes to the Ricardos. May their lives together be filled with as much joy and laughter and carefree happiness as they have brought all of us week after week. To Lucy, to Ricky, and to the new baby: love and kisses from Philip Morris and from all America.”
POST-NATAL EXAM
In 1969′s “Lucy and Harry’s Tonsils” (HL S2;E5),
expectant father Mr. Phillips (Jack Collins) is similar to the character of Mr. Stanley (Charles Lane).
In a strange coincidence, on January 19, 1996, exactly 43 years later, Marlee Matlin gave birth to her daughter at the same time that the evening’s episode of “Picket Fences” was being aired in which her character on the show, Mayor Laurie Bey, was giving birth!
In 2006, the Ricardo baby was used to define the excitement surrounding the Tom Cruise / Katie Holmes baby by ABC News. In a lengthy discussion, ABC News acknowledged “The hoopla over the baby girl born Tuesday to Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes recalls another highly anticipated birth 53 years ago arguably, one of the most-covered births of the 20th century.”
TV Guide and TV Land rank this episode #59 out TV’s 100 most memorable moments.
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