Lucy Meets the Queen
I Love Lucy

Five writers give a succession of funny lines interspersed with situations devised out of the location and the character, arriving at a final understanding, or else the other way around.

The strange customs of English subjects are broached with currency and speech, the palace guard and the Queen, who was at the hotel charity luncheon yesterday, today it’s Ricky signing autographs.

The Palladium is another chance. Curtseying gives Lucy a charley horse, the trained pony number is very difficult for her. But she won’t be balked, and stuck in a curtsey she is borne aloft by two attendants to meet the Queen.

The Fox Hunt
I Love Lucy

Angela Randall is a great English fan of Ricky’s. After a great deal of bother, they’re all at the country estate of the famous cinema producer Sir Clive Richardson, her father, with Fred and Ethel (who announce the hunt by striding into the Ricardos’ London hotel room in pinks with a set of hounds).

Now it’s another matter of comprehending the English and the curious sport, as Angela tries to wangle a cocktail party with Ricky at a neighbor’s, and horse-shy Lucy rides to hound. The result of this is her transformation into foliage (cf. It’s a Wonderful Life) shared with the fox, showing its brush even though the master had concluded it was gone to ground.

Lucy Goes to Scotland
I Love Lucy

In her dream, Lucy is back in the country of her forefathers, where the McGillicuddy clan is a richly expected feast for the dragon with two heads. Ricky sings “I’m in Love with a Dragon’s Dinner”, Fred and Ethel in costume look like Albee’s Seascape played by Siamese twins.

The town’s name is Kildoonan, Ricky promises to lay him “doon and dee,” until it’s explained to him. The entire dream is in the style of a musical with numbers, when it’s all over Lucy wakes up with a start and gives sleeping Ricky something to dream about for the abysmal cowardice he has just shown in the old country (where they haven’t time to stop between London and Paris).

Paris at Last
I Love Lucy

Lucy doesn’t want a tour, but to see the sights on her own. It’s a painter she sees first outside the American Express office. She changes twenty dollars for nine thousand old francs nearby, and buys the painting for a thousand.

She orders les escargots de Bourgogne at a sidewalk café, and is greatly surprised to see snails on the plate. The chef is angry when she asks for ketchup, she asks for l’addition and leaves. Waiter and chef call a gendarme, the bill is counterfeit.

“I’m in the Bastille,” she tells Ricky from the police station. The situation is explained by means of a gendarme who speaks French and German, a drunk with German and Spanish, and Ricky who translates for Lucy.

Back at the Hôtel Royale, Lucy shows the tourist view she’s bought. Ricky has one just like it, so have Fred and Ethel.

Deep Sea Fishing
I Love Lucy

Miami Beach, the Eden Roc Hotel. Ricky and Fred are having no luck fishing, Lucy and Ethel spend every day buying beach clothes.

The boys ask the girls fishing to save money, the girls ask to go fishing so they’ll be refused and can spend money.

A bet is made on the outcome of a fishing contest. Two 100-pound tunas carry the weight of this, as each side puts an emergency catch in the bathtub, and both are switched, then discovered.

Aboard a cabin cruiser, the men catch a minnow, Lucy catches Ricky, whose line is entangled in hers. He’s practically keelhauled, but comes up with a fish in his jacket, her prize.

Desert Island
I Love Lucy

A bathing beauty contest at the Eden Roc in Miami Beach is scheduled for five o’clock, with Ricky and Fred as judges. Ricky and the band (Fred is the manager) have been asked to appear in a documentary, The Florida Story, covering the state’s history from Ponce de Leon to the present.

Two bathing beauties convince Lucy that “supervised ogling” is worse than it appears. At three-thirty, the two couples and Little Ricky take a rented boat for a short cruise with half a tank of gas. Lucy has the other half stowed in a Thermos below for a belated surprise, but Ricky has it safely placed on the dock.

They drift to an island, meet a terrible savage, who introduces himself to Ricky and Fred as Claude Akins, shooting The Florida Story. He carries Lucy off for a gag, then all go to a cast-and-crew luau, joined by the two bathing beauties.

Little Ricky Gets a Dog
I Love Lucy

Little Ricky’s menagerie of parakeets, turtles, goldfish and a frog is increased by one puppy.

This is enough to cause an international incident, in a manner of speaking. It’s a lovable pet, Lucy and Ricky are won over, but Fred has a clause in the lease, so... however, Little Ricky has named the puppy Fred.

It cries all night in its bed (June Foray, they say), waking the neighbors. Lucy gives it a clock for company, which works until the alarm goes off.

It’s now a defensive position. Lucy hides the puppy in a hat, which trots out into the living room, and then in the piano, which begins playing what she explains as “progressive jazz”.

The new neighbor, Mr. Stewart, threatens to move out. Fred tears up his rent check, saying, “I’d rather have a little dog than a big grouch,” and faints when Ethel reminds him how much it was.