This Real-Life Development Turned Into Behind-the-Scenes CHAOS on ‘I Love Lucy’

Picture this: It’s 1952. Your sitcom is a sensation and the first of its kind to reach #1 in the Nielsen ratings. What could possibly go wrong?

Everything.

At least, that’s probably how the producers of I Love Lucy felt when they found out Lucille Ball was pregnant with her second child. Modern-day sitcoms have clever workarounds for unexpected pregnancies: conveniently placed props or genius wardrobe tricks. However, Ball’s pregnancy challenged the Code of Practices for Television Broadcasters, which set the ethical standards that television programming had to adhere to between 1952 and 1983. This code made it clear that anything even remotely suggestive was forbidden…including the subject of pregnancy.

Arnaz and Ball, however, were nonplussed. In fact, the real-life husband and wife not only decided against hiding Ball’s pregnancy on the show; they planned to focus the season around it. Philip Morris, the sponsor of I Love Lucy, opposed the notion. Producer Jess Oppenheimer, who agreed with Arnaz and Ball’s artistic vision, wrote about the experience in his memoir Laugh, Luck…and Lucy: How I Came to Create the Most Popular Sitcom of All Time.

“Desi sat down and fired off a letter to Alfred E. Lyons, chairman of the board of the Philip Morris Company. In it, he pointed out that until then, with the creative decisions in our hands, we had managed to give Philip Morris the number-one show in the country. If Lyons agreed with the people at Philip Morris who were telling us what not to do, Desi told him, then Philip Morris must also take responsibility from then on for telling us what to do—and for whatever consequences that might have on our ratings.”

But did it work?

The sponsor and the network caved, with one small caveat. No one could use the word “pregnant.” Instead, substitutions like “expecting” or “with child” were written into the scripts. Still leery of potential backlash, Oppenheimer came up with an idea to assuage CBS’s fears.

“I was in my office at the studio one morning, preparing for another in what seemed like an endless series of meetings on the subject, when I had an idea that I thought would go a long way toward making CBS more comfortable,” Oppenheimer penned in his memoir. “Why not arrange for a priest, a minister, and a rabbi to approve each of the ‘baby show’ scripts, and to attend each of the screenings? If any of them found anything objectionable, we would simply remove it!”

The risk paid off in a big way. On January 19, 1953, the episode “Lucy Goes to the Hospital” premiered to the tune of 44 million viewers. The episode got so much traction that it overshadowed the inauguration of 34th President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Now, what other sitcom but I Love Lucy could have achieved such a feat?

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^{Photo Courtesy: ‘Lucy’s Big Surprise – Hilarious Pregnancy Announcement | I Love Lucy Classics′ | @Kinette via YouTube}