Men Are Messy – I Love Lucy, episode 08, season 1, originally aired 12/3/1951
In Men Are Messy, Lucy and Ethel decide that they have had enough of Ricky (and by extension, Fred’s) messy habits. It begins with a very funny silent segment, where Lucy has just finished cleaning up the living room. And when she leaves the room, Ricky enters, and within a minute has completely trashed the room, not out of pettiness, but simply by living in the living room, i.e. spreading out his newspaper as he digs through the sections for the portions that he’s interested in, taking off his jacket and tie, etc. Given the two strong personalities in conflict, one thing quickly leads to another, and soon they’ve split the apartment in half, one for each of them. Fred, of course, agrees with Ricky and Ethel sides with Lucy, setting up the final conflict.
Since Ricky’s agent has been promising him a photographic spread in a musician’s magazine, Lucy and Ethel decide to give Ricky and Fred a taste of their own medicine, utterly trashing the Ricardos apartment and dressing as a pair of slovenly hillbillies. Their joke backfires on them, however, when they find out that the photographer that comes is from a very different magazine …
Men Are Messy is available as part of the season 1 I Love Lucy DVD collection.
Trivia about Men Are Messy
- Kenny the press agent was played by Desilu press agent Kenny Morgan.
Songs
- At the club rehearsal, Desi Arnaz performs “The Straw Hat Song“
Quotes from Men are Messy
Lucy Ricardo (Lucille Ball): Men are nothing but a bunch of messcats.
Lucy Ricardo (Lucille Ball): How can a cyclone hit in here and not hit in the kitchen?
Ricky Ricardo (Desi Arnaz): There’s nothing sloppy and dirty about this room. It just looks lived in.
Lucy Ricardo (Lucille Ball): That’s a good answer if you’re a pig.
Lucy Ricardo (Lucille Ball): Look, honey, there’s a new invention you’ll just love. It’s a hole in the wall, has a long pole in it with a little metal things hanging on it, and it’s called a coat closet.
Ricky Ricardo (Desi Arnaz): Well, what won’t they think of next?
Ricky Ricardo (Desi Arnaz): A man’s home is his castle. And this is my castle!
Lucy Ricardo (Lucille Ball): I bow to Ricardo the First, king of the pigsty.
Ricky Ricardo (Desi Arnaz): I just want a cigarette.
Lucy Ricardo (Lucille Ball): Half of what’s in this pack is mine. [crumples package]
Ricky Ricardo (Desi Arnaz): You mean that’s the only cigarette we have in the house?
Lucy Ricardo (Lucille Ball): Yes, you get Phillip and I get Morris. [splits cigarette in half]
[Lucy tells Ricky he needs to put on a tie.]
Lucy Ricardo (Lucille Ball): Because company is coming.
Ricky Ricardo (Desi Arnaz): It isn’t company; it’s Fred and Ethel.
Lucy Ricardo (Lucille Ball): Pull up some debris and sit down, Fred.
[After the Mertzes watch the Ricardos answer the phone]
Ethel Mertz (Vivian Vance): If I hadn’t seen it, I wouldn’t have believed it.
Fred Mertz (William Frawley): I saw it, and I still don’t believe it.
Lucy Ricardo (Lucille Ball): Come back in a couple of weeks, Ethel. We’ll still be here – a starving Cuban and a dirty brunette.
[After seeing Lucy dressed as a hillbilly] Jim: Do you know who this is?
Ricky Ricardo (Desi Arnaz): I don’t even know what it is. Get me a stick and I’ll kill it.
Ricky Ricardo (Desi Arnaz): [talking about their apartment] It’s a regular pig pen.
Lucy Ricardo (Lucille Ball): It ain’t a regular one, but it’ll do.
Lucy Ricardo (Lucille Ball): It must have been quite a trip coming through the washing machine.
Ethel Mertz (Vivian Vance): I didn’t mind the washing machine, but I darn near passed out coming through the ringer.
Lucy Ricardo (Lucille Ball): This’ll give your musician fellers a laugh, huh?
Photographer: What do you mean, ‘musician fellers?’
Ethel Mertz (Vivian Vance): Well, who else reads your darn magazine but musician fellers?
Lucy Ricardo (Lucille Ball): Yeah!
Ricky Ricardo (Desi Arnaz): Lucy . . .
Lucy Ricardo (Lucille Ball): Huh?
Ricky Ricardo (Desi Arnaz): This man is not from ‘Half Beat’ Magazine
Lucy Ricardo (Lucille Ball): He ain’t?
Photographer: No, I’m from ‘Look’ Magazine!
Lucy Ricardo (Lucille Ball): Eeeeewwww!