Middle-class housewife Lucy Ricardo marries Cuban-American singer Ricky Ricardo and despite her limited talents, spends her days cooking plans to get famous. Lucy and Ricardo’s landlords Fred and Ethel Mertz are their best friends and in every episode, we see Lucy try a new foolhardy way to get popular. By all means, I Love Lucy had a pretty simple template. However, it was a template that worked for the audiences and combined with the cast members’ excellent comedy timing, it made I Love Lucy the most popular show of the 50s. At the height of its popularity, the show had 67.3 million loyal viewers. It is also the first TV series to get broadcast repeats.
When it comes to comedy, I Love Lucy certainly pushed the envelope and relinquished the prevalent notion that women aren’t funny. In fact, women comedians, in particular, owe it big time to Lucille Ball, who not only opened the medium to women performers but also served as the perfect model to be imitated by both male and female comedians around the world.
I Love Lucy: Job Switching
The episode titled ‘Job Switching‘ which features the incredibly famous I Love Lucy chocolate factory scenes was the premiere episode of season 2 of the show and aired on September 15, 1952. In the episode, also popularly known as the Chocolate Factory episode, Lucy and her best friend Ethel argue that a job is far easier to handle than housework and the couples, therefore, switch jobs. While the boys at home end up burning clothes and dinner, the women end up stuffing their face and clothes with chocolates. In this video, we tell you all the about everyone’s favourite the I Love Lucy Chocolate Factory episode.
In the I Love Lucy chocolate factory episode, Ricardo discovers a few of Lucy’s bounced cheques and loses his temper. He accuses Lucy of having it easy in life. Lucy, in turn, tells Ricardo that the job of a housewife is far more difficult than any job in the world. The conversation quickly escalates into an argument and Lucy challenges Rick and Fred to manage the house for a week. The boys, in turn, tell the women to go out and experience a man’s world.
Most Lavish Breakfast For Lucy
On his first day as the house husband, Ricky surprises Lucy with the most lavish breakfast. She impresses until she gets a call from the corner drugstore and comes to know that Ricky leaves his hat there by mistake when he had gone to pick up breakfast for two. Still angry with Ricardo, Lucy and Ethel go out in search of work. At the employment agency, Mr Snodgrass offers Lucy and Ethel different options to choose from and the two decide to work at a chocolate factory.
The forewoman at the factory gives Lucy and Ethel the task of rolling candies. While Lucy is trying to create candies, she ends up making a mess of herself. Hilarity ensues when a fly lands on the face of the woman working next to Lucy and Lucy smacks the women with her chocolate-covered hands to kill the fly. The woman retaliates by slapping Lucy back and the two eventually become embroiled in a fight.
I Love Lucy: Lucy And Ethel
The forewoman then sends Lucy and Ethel to the wrapping department where they receive the task of picking chocolate candies from a conveyor belt and wrapping them neatly. The forewoman warns them that if they miss even a single candy, they fire. The candies initially come at a slow speed and therefore, the two women are able to do the newly-assigned task well. However, as the speed doubles, they start missing candies. Afraid of getting fired, Lucy and Ethel stuff their mouths and blouses with candies they are unable to wrap. The forewoman comes to check and on finding that Lucy and Ethel haven’t missed any candy, instructs to speed up the belt. Once the conveyor belt picks more speed, Lucy and Ethel once again start stuffing their already aching mouths with more candy.
Meanwhile, at home, the audiences can see Ricky and Fred struggling with household work. The two have burned clothes while ironing and completely ruined dinner. When the two women return home, Ricky and Fred confess that they are lousy househusbands and that a woman’s job isn’t easy at all. The women hide the day’s events from the boys and Ricky and Fred ask Lucy and Ethel to take back their role of housewives. The women immediately agree and the men give to them boxes of chocolates as a token of their love and appreciation.
Some Facts About I Love Lucy: Chocolate Factory Episode
So, are you enjoying this video on I Love Lucy’s chocolate factory episode? If yes, do not go anywhere because we are about to tell you some interesting facts about the episode. Meanwhile, if you are enjoying this episode, do not forget to like and subscribe to our channel.
- The Job Switching episode is more popularly known as the Chocolate Factory episode. Technically, this name is wrong as in the episode Lucy and Ethel find work at Kramer’s Kandy Kitchen and not Kramer’s Chocolate Factory, indicating that the company made all kinds of candies and not just chocolate candies.
- In our opinion, the Chocolate Factory or the Job Switching episode is the most entertaining episode of the series. However, in a poll, I Love Lucy fans voted the episode the second most entertaining episode after the Lucy Does a Commercial episode.
- Through the entire series, Lucy wore her Vitameatavegamin (from the Lucy Does a Commercial episode) only thrice and all the three episodes, in which she wore the dress became massive hits. In the Chocolate Factory episode, Lucy wore the Vitameatavegamin the third and the final time.
Scenes Happen By Accident
- During one of the scenes of the episode, Ricky slips on the rice by mistake. This scene wasn’t a part of the script and happened by accident. However, when Desi Arnaz, who portrayed Ricky on the series, noticed the audience’s reaction, he kept purportedly kept slipping the rice. Though this led to a memorable scene, Desi went home with bruised ribs.
- Probably one of the funniest scenes of the episode is the one where Lucy smacks her co-worker on the face. For the scene, a real candymaker named Amanda Milligan from the See’s Candies store was hired to play the part.
- The expression one sees on Lucy’s face when candymaker Amanda Milligan hits her during the scene was genuine. Amanda didn’t know who Lucille Ball was but she was afraid of hitting a TV star. Therefore, during rehearsals, she refused to hit Lucy, even when asked to do so. However, Lucille Ball was a fine actress and knew how to get proper reactions out of her co-actors. Therefore, when the camera started rolling, she delivered to Amanda a very hard slap. Amanda was surprised and angry and in her anger, slapped back Lucy as hard as she could.
Amanda Milligan
- Amanda Milligan had never seen I Love Lucy. In fact, she hadn’t seen any TV program. However, she used to watch wrestling on Monday nights. Thus, she had no interest in being on the sets of the show. In fact, Amanda even told someone that the day she had spent on the sets of I Love Lucy was one of the most boring days of her life. Funny it is that her most boring day got her a place in the annals of television history.
- In the episode, Lucy and Ethel meet Mr A. Snodgrass, who represents the Acme Employment Agency. Mr A Snodgrass offers the two women many different jobs, including that of a stenographer, dental technician, insurance adjuster, comptometer, bookkeeper and PBX operator, before the two decide to go with the job of a candy maker.
- At Kramer’s Kandy Kitchen, Lucy gets kicked out of three departments. She gets kicked out of the boxing department after the manager finds her pinching different candies to see their flavour. While sitting next to the conveyor belt, Lucy tells Ethel that the wrapping department is her fourth department.
Become A Trivia Game
- The show was so popular that it even led to a trivia game. However, the game had some flaws. For instance, one of the trivia cards read that in the episode Fred says that the chicken should be cooked for an hour. Actually, the time that Fred mentioned was one and a half hours. Similarly, another card asks the player to recite the quote written on the card. Though the quote was from I Love Lucy, the card attributes it to The Business Manager.
- Food Network’s Cutthroat Kitchen aired an episode called the Alton and The Chocolate Factory. The episode took inspiration from I Love Lucy’s conveyor belt scene and asked chefs to take five minutes off cooking to wrap chocolates on the conveyor belt. The chef would incur a fine of $100 for every chocolate piece that fell off the belt.
- In Family Guy’s episode titled The Courtship of Eddie’s Father, one can see some of the show’s characters sitting together and watching TV and on the TV is the Job Switching episode. One can clearly see Lucy and Ethel stuffing their faces and blouses with chocolates.
Most Memorable Scenes
I Love Lucy was an iconic show and the conveyor belt scene from the episode Job Switching or Chocolate Factory is one of the most memorable scenes from the series. Lucille Ball and Vivian Vance gave a memorable performance in the entire series but their comedy timing especially stood out in many scenes of this particular episode. We hope you enjoyed this little compilation on I Love Lucy’s Chocolate Factory episode. Are there any facts that we have missed out and you would want us to add to the list? If yes, please leave a comment — we love hearing from you guys.
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