Country Club Dance — I Love Lucy season six, episode 177, originally aired April 22, 1957
Frankly, Country Club Dance is my favorite episode of season 6 of I Love Lucy, for several reasons. It starts with the ‘boys’ (Ricky Ricardo (Desi Arnaz), Fred Mertz (William Frawley) and their new neighbor, Ralph Ramsey (Frank Nelson)) being nagged by their wives into attending a country club dance. Once there, they meet a very young, and very attractive, Barbara Eden (I Dream of Jeanie)—22 years old at the time of this episode. The men immediately fall over themselves vying for the dance time of the shapely blond, and ignore their wives for the rest of the evening.
The wives (Lucy Ricardo (Lucille Ball), Ethel Mertz (Vivian Vance) and Betty Ramsey (Mary Jane Croft)) make no bones about their hurt feelings, and decide to fight fire with fire for the dance that they’ve already agreed to for the next night—Betty douses herself in perfume, Ethel tries a new hairdo, and Lucy wears a far-too-tight dress—and imitates Barbara Eden’s character’s voice as well. Lucille Ball demonstrates her physical comedy skills here in the dress that’s so tight that she can’t sit down in it—and later in the evening when she forgets, and bends over to pick something up! The men, in the meantime, feel bad about how they treated their wives, and determine to spend every dance that night with their wives. But Lucy’s suspicious nature flares up, and she gets the other wives to march out in a huff with her.
In a very sweet ending to the episode, the wives come back hours later, and from a hiding spot see the husbands talking about their failed evening, and how they can’t win no matter what—and how they’re going to try to preserve their egos by presenting a brave face about their ‘wonderful’ evening … and the wives decide to uphold their husbands egos by pretending that they haven’t heard, and dragging their ‘misbehaving’ husbands home.
Country Club Dance is available as part of the I Love Lucy season 6 DVD collection.
Funny movie quotes from I Love Lucy – Country Club Dance
Ricky Ricardo (Desi Arnaz): You heard, there were three ‘ayes’.
Lucy Ricardo (Lucille Ball): There’ll be three black eyes if you don’t sit down.
Harry: Diana, this is Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Ramsey.
Ralph Ramsey (Frank Nelson): How do you do?
Diana (Barbara Eden): Hello.
Harry: This is Mr. and Mrs. Ricky Ricardo.
Ricky Ricardo (Desi Arnaz): Hello.
Diana (Barbara Eden): How do you do?
Fred Mertz (William Frawley): And I’m Freddie Mertz.
Diana (Barbara Eden): Well hello.
Fred Mertz (William Frawley): Well hello.
Ethel Mertz (Vivian Vance): I’m Mrs. Mertz.
Fred Mertz (William Frawley): Oh, yeah.
[The men leave Lucy, Ethel, and Betty to go dance with Diana]
Betty Ramsey (Mary Jane Croft): Well, what are we supposed to do?
Lucy Ricardo (Lucille Ball): Well, I suppose we could dance with each other (imitating Diana) My… mother… told… me… to… pick… (points at Ethel) YOUUUU!!!!!
Lucy Ricardo (Lucille Ball): There’s no reason wives can’t be as glamorous as other women. After all, we were once women ourselves.
[Betty Ramsey, Lucy and Ethel discuss their husbands falling all over Diana Jordan]
Betty Ramsey (Mary Jane Croft): You think they’d never seen a blonde before!
Lucy Ricardo (Lucille Ball): They still haven’t! If she’s a blonde, I’m a redhead!
Ethel Mertz (Vivian Vance): If I could’ve looked like Diana, do you think I’d have married Fred?
Lucy Ricardo (Lucille Ball): Why not not a glamorous hairdo, like the one that makes you look like Grace Kelly?
Ethel Mertz (Vivian Vance): Do you think it would work?
Lucy Ricardo (Lucille Ball): It worked for Grace Kelly!
Ralph Ramsey (Frank Nelson): I had to sleep in the rumpus room. We call it that because whenever there’s a rumpus, that’s where I sleep.
Ricky Ricardo (Desi Arnaz): I’ve never seen Lucy so angry before! She was mad, shouting, angry—she was acting like me!
Fred Mertz (William Frawley): Cute – wait till you get a look at Ethel.
Ralph Ramsey (Frank Nelson): Wait till you get a whiff of Betty.
Ethel Mertz (Vivian Vance): Fred hasn’t been this nice to me since he thought my aunt left me 500 dollars.
Ricky Ricardo (Desi Arnaz): What’s wrong with being sweet?
Lucy Ricardo (Lucille Ball): When you’re this sweet it means that there’s something rotten in Cuba?
Ethel Mertz (Vivian Vance): Fred, why are you being so nice to me?
Fred Mertz (William Frawley): Husbands are supposed to be nice to their wives.
Ethel Mertz (Vivian Vance): That’s the flimsiest excuse I’ve ever heard.
Ricky Ricardo (Desi Arnaz): I had to spend half and hour trying to listen to her high school Spanish.