Existing comment:
Television's Baby
When Ball learned in the spring of 1952 that she was pregnant, she and Arnaz assumed that I Love Lucy would be suspended for a time -- or perhaps cancelled entirely. Producer Oppenheimer is credited with the suggestion that the pregnancy be written into the show. Executives from CBS, the Biow Advertizing Agency, and Philip Morris Cigarettes (the sponsor of I Love Lucy's first seasons) initially opposed the idea. Only with an agreement that a priest, a minister, and a rabbi would approve each of the "baby show" scripts did the executives concede. Still, the word "pregnant" was never used in any of the scripts. This new plot twist only increased I Love Lucy's enormous popularity. When "Little Ricky" was born on January 19, 1953, more than forty-four million viewers watched. |