I Love Lucy
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173 free I Love Lucy trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
69 free I Love Lucy trivia questions with answers. I Love Lucy ran for 180 episodes on CBS between 1951 and 1957 and is still the show every sitcom gets measured against. This I Love Lucy trivia quiz covers the episodes everyone remembers (the chocolate factory, Vitameatavegamin, the grape vat, Superman on the ledge, William Holden and the pie) plus the story behind the show: how Lucille Ball fought CBS to cast Desi Arnaz, why the series was shot on film in front of 300 people, the pregnancy that broke a ratings record, and the Desilu studio that later greenlit Star Trek. The questions range from easy ones any fan can answer to expert-level details about the cast, the sponsors, the theme song and the 2021 film Being the Ricardos. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the show, its stars and its individual episodes, and each question shows its source, so you can settle arguments with the citation in hand. Play it solo, use it for a classic-TV night, or share your score and see who in your family is the real Lucy expert.
30 of 173 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is Lucy Ricardo forever scheming to break into, against her husband's wishes?
Show business
Show business: Ricky believes a woman's place is in the home, so Lucy has to scheme her way into his act, with a reluctant Ethel Mertz roped in to help.
Q 02Which trait of Fred Mertz is a running joke throughout I Love Lucy?
Stinginess
Stinginess: Fred pinches every penny and grumbles at any expense, yet he turns out to be a soft touch underneath, above all with Little Ricky.
Q 03Who played Ethel Mertz?
Vivian Vance
Vivian Vance won the part at 42 on the recommendation of director Marc Daniels, after Arnaz saw her in a 1951 La Jolla Playhouse production of The Voice of the Turtle.
Q 04Fred and Ethel Mertz are the Ricardos' best friends and also their what?
Landlords
Landlords: the Mertzes own the Ricardos' apartment building, and the writers gave the young couple this older pair as foils and accomplices.
Q 05What was Lucy Ricardo's maiden name?
McGillicuddy
Her mother, Mrs. McGillicuddy, was played by Kathryn Card and never managed to get Ricky's name right.
Q 06Which sitcom was next after I Love Lucy to end its run at number one in the ratings?
The Andy Griffith Show
The Andy Griffith Show went out on top in 1968, as I Love Lucy had in 1957, when Ball and Arnaz chose to give up the weekly half-hours while still the most-watched show on air.
Q 07Which cigarette brand was I Love Lucy's original sponsor?
Philip Morris
Philip Morris had Lucy and Ricky smoke its cigarettes on screen and pitch them in the breaks; the plugs were cut once the episodes went into repeats.
Q 08In the I Love Lucy episode 'Job Switching', where do Lucy and Ethel take jobs after swapping roles with their husbands?
A chocolate factory
A chocolate factory, in 'Job Switching': the wrapping belt speeds up until Lucy and Ethel are cramming chocolates into their mouths and blouses to keep pace.
Q 09On the flight home from Europe, what does Lucy disguise as a baby to avoid paying extra?
A huge Italian cheese
A huge Italian cheese: the gang must fly back so Ricky's band can open at the Roxy, and Lucy swaddles her 25-pound souvenir like an infant to sneak it aboard.
Q 10In the famous commercial episode, what does Lucy call her tonic of meat, vegetables and vitamins?
Vitameatavegamin
Vitameatavegamin is 23 percent alcohol, so Lucy grows tipsier with every take of the commercial she is rehearsing in 'Lucy Does a TV Commercial'.
Q 11What was actually in the bottle Lucy drank from during the tonic commercial scene?
Apple pectin
Apple pectin filled the real bottle; in the script the tonic is 23 percent alcohol, which is why Lucy's pitch slurs further with every spoonful.
Q 12Which comedian's 'Guzzler's Gin' routine did Ball borrow for her drunken TV-commercial scene?
Red Skelton
Red Skelton had done his tipsy-pitchman bit on stage for years, and in the 1946 film Ziegfeld Follies, before lending it to Ball for the scene.
Q 13In I Love Lucy's 'Lucy's Italian Movie', how does Lucy research her film role?
Stomps grapes in a vineyard
Q 21The Ricardos' Manhattan address, 623 East 68th Street, would really put their building where?
In the East River
In the East River: house numbers on East 68th Street stop in the 500s, where the street runs out at the water's edge, so number 623 exists only on television.
Q 22What word did CBS bar from the scripts while Lucy Ricardo was carrying Little Ricky?
Pregnant
'Pregnant' was off limits, so the scripts said 'expecting', and a priest, a minister and a rabbi vetted each episode of the storyline.
Q 23'Lucy Is Enceinte', the episode in which Lucy tells Ricky a baby is coming, takes its title word from which language?
French
French: 'enceinte' is the French for with child, though viewers never saw the word, because the show did not display episode titles on screen.
Stomps grapes in a vineyard: Lucy takes the film's title, Bitter Grapes, literally, then brawls with a fellow stomper and loses the part, stained blue from the vat.
Q 14Which actor turned up as Superman at Little Ricky's birthday party in a 1957 episode?
George Reeves
George Reeves, TV's Superman, first sends word that he can't make the party, which is why Lucy tries to play the hero herself before he turns up after all.
Q 15In 'Lucy and Superman', where does Lucy get stranded in her home-made Superman costume?
On the ledge outside the window
On the ledge outside the window: she means to climb in and surprise Little Ricky's party, gets shut out there instead, and has to be rescued by the real Superman.
Q 16Which movie star gets a pie in the face because of Lucy at Hollywood's Brown Derby restaurant?
William Holden
William Holden catches Lucy staring at him over lunch and ends up wearing a waiter's pie; when Ricky brings him home, her putty-nose disguise catches fire as he lights her cigarette.
Q 17Whose footprint slab from Grauman's Chinese Theatre do Lucy and Ethel try to steal as a souvenir?
John Wayne
John Wayne's slab: in 'Lucy Visits Grauman's' (1955) they pry it up and break it, and in 'Lucy and John Wayne' he good-naturedly presses fresh prints to replace it.
Q 18Which Marx brother catches Lucy dressed up as him in the famous mirror routine?
Harpo
Harpo arrives just as Lucy, who has been posing as film stars to fool a near-sighted friend, is dressed as him, and the two replay the mirror routine from Duck Soup.
Q 19In 'The Freezer', how much beef do Lucy and Ethel accidentally order from Ethel's butcher uncle?
700 pounds
700 pounds: two sides of beef at 69 cents a pound came to $483, and the pair try to unload it on customers at a butcher shop.
Q 20Where do the Ricardos and Mertzes move in the sixth season?
Westport, Connecticut
Westport, Connecticut: in 'Lucy Wants to Move to the Country' (1957) the Ricardos buy a house there, and the Mertzes soon follow them into the guest house.
Q 24In 'Lucy Goes to the Hospital', what is Ricky wearing when he startles the maternity-ward staff?
Voodoo stage makeup
Voodoo stage makeup: with the birth dragging on he goes to open his new show, then races back from the club in full face paint when the hospital calls.
Q 25What real-life event coincided with the broadcast of the episode in which Lucy gives birth?
Ball's caesarean delivery of Desi Jr.
Ball's caesarean delivery of Desi Jr. was booked in advance and the episode timed to air the same day; the writers had already made the TV baby a boy, and the real one matched.
Q 26Which Hollywood cinematographer devised the flat, even lighting that let several cameras film I Love Lucy at once?
Karl Freund
Karl Freund, who had shot Metropolis and Dracula, had to be talked into the job by Desi Arnaz; the multi-camera method his lighting made possible became the sitcom standard.
Q 27Shooting I Love Lucy on film, not live, helped create which TV staple?
Reruns
Reruns: live shows survived only as blurry copies filmed off a monitor, but Lucy's crisp prints could be broadcast again for decades, which is why nearly every episode still exists.
Q 28What did Ball and Arnaz gain by taking a pay cut to film I Love Lucy?
Episode ownership
Episode ownership: the couple gave up $1,000 a week for the films, then sold them back to CBS for millions, enough to help buy a Hollywood studio.
Q 29In 'Pioneer Women', what comes out of Lucy's oven many times bigger than she planned?
A loaf of bread
A loaf of bread: the wives have bet their husbands they can live without modern conveniences, so Lucy bakes from scratch and her loaf comes out many feet long.
Q 30I Love Lucy's original openings featured what kind of imagery, later replaced for syndication?
Animated matchstick figures of the stars
Animated matchstick figures of the stars opened each episode, with the sponsor's cigarettes worked into many of the sequences, which is why the syndicated prints open on the heart on satin instead.