How Lucille Ball Inspired a Record-Breaking 67-Second Laugh

Picture this: Lucille Ball, the tango, and a shirt full of chicken eggs.

What could go wrong?

If you’re familiar with the iconic 1951 sitcom I Love Lucy, you know the answer to that question is “everything.”

This episode takes place in Season 6, the very last season of the show. Fans of I Love Lucy may remember that Lucy and Ricky—played by real-life married couple Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz—moved to a farmhouse in rural Connecticut. Eager to make the most of her new homesteading lifestyle, Lucy buys some hens to start an egg business. However, the hens won’t lay eggs. Frustrated, Fred (William Frawley) threatens to move back to New York if the hens don’t start producing eggs. In classic Lucy Ricardo fashion, the character concocts a scheme so harebrained it might just work. Lucy and Ethel, portrayed by the incomparable Vivian Vance, buy dozens of eggs so they can sneak them out to the henhouse and pretend their hens laid them.

And that’s where the trouble starts.

Right when Lucy and Ethel finish stashing the eggs beneath their clothes, Ricky comes home and asks Lucy to practice the tango for an upcoming PTA talent show.

The result?

A shirt full of broken eggs and the longest recorded live audience laugh in television history.

That’s right—when Ricky tugs Lucy into his chest and smashes the eggs, the audience laughed for a record-breaking 67 seconds. The laugh was so long that it had to be cut for television.

Who but Lucille Ball could inspire such uproarious laughter?