Shortly after its launch, I love Lucy ranked in one TV index, as second only to Godfrey in popularity. Let's take a look on how the show was done.

Red-haired Lucille Ball is an actress with a fine face, a stunning figure and a flair for deft comedy. As a film star for many years, she displayed her versatility in 55 movie ranging from melodramas to musicals, to westerns and farces. This year Miss Ball plunged into television with her own show, a domestic comedy called I Love Lucy (CBS-TV, 9 p.m. E.S.T., mondays). And this is what has happened to her on TV: her fine face has been battered with pies, her stunning figure has been obscured by baggy-pants costumes; her adeptness at comedy has been translated into slapstick pratfalls, and her versatility has been almost completely ignored.

Such use of beauty and talent might seem wasteful but for the fact that I Love Lucy now ranks, in at least one TV index, as second only to Godfrey in popularity, and is seen by 20 million people per show. Like the Groucho Marx show, I Love Lucy is filmed in Hollywood before a live audience, is expensively ($25.000 pe show) and expertly done. Mrs. Ball is deliriously happy with TV. She works only four days a week, she costars with her husband, Desi Arnaz, and they own their show. "This is fun, not work," says Miss Ball. 

In her television show "I Love Lucy" Miss Ball wears baggy costume and a goofy expression, and brandishes some of her typical tv props.

Beaned with a bladder, Lucille Ball in I Love Lucy is taught burleque routines by a clown, so she can win a job in her husband's nightclub. 

Doused with seltzer, Lucy starts to regret her idea, but the clown is beginning to enjoy his work. He picks her up like a rag doll and shakes her.

Bashed with a pie, Lucy survives the comedy workout and makes her way, groggy but determined, to the cafe where she hits her husband with a pie.

Snagged on a bar as she attepmts to become a ballet dancer, Lucy gets hopelessly entangled and calls for help from her teacher. She gives up ballet.

Drenched at home as show comes to a wet end, Lucy is hit by pail of water which husband (Desi Arnaz) put over door to teach her not to be a pest.