Once upon a time there was a famous American television show that aired from October 15, 1951 to May 6, 1957. The sitcom became the first time a lot has happened. This was the first time a TV series was filmed with a 35mm film in front of a live studio audience. It was also the first time a series used the three-camera format. This series is none other than I Love Lucy. Surprisingly, these first few times weren't even the most impressive parts of the series. Here are some corridor noises that you must discover as soon as possible. We bring you these 40 fun facts about the I Love Lucy series that you've never heard of before.

It was planned to call Desi Arnaz: Larry Lopez when planning the series. The name was changed only to Ricky Ricardo because the directors thought Larry and Lucy's names were a horrible alliteration.

William Frawley and Vivian Vance, who played the roles of Fred and Ethel, were more than two decades apart in real life and this disparity caused real friction on set. Apparently, they didn't get along and kept swinging insults at each other. It was only after several years after the end of the shooting of the series that the directors realized the tension that there was every day.

Lucille Ball waited until 1942 before dyeing her hair in this iconic red. She dyed them for the filming of the movie The Barry Was a Lady. Originally, it was chestnut. She dyed her hair blonde when she landed in Hollywood. Certainly she became famous thanks to her beautiful red hair, but it was simply not her natural color.

The series was shot in front of a live audience that included 300 viewers. And this live audience was present from the first to the last scene of each episode. Surprisingly, there were a lot of scenes that were done in one take. Desi Arnaz said long after filming ended that Lucille Ball would rather work if there were real spectators attending her performance.

You can actually hear the lyrics of the theme song in the episode "Lucy's Last Birthday". This is the only episode to broadcast it in full!

The lyrics are: "I love Lucy and she loves me. We're as happy as two can be. Sometimes we quarrel but then. How we love making up again. Lucy kisses like no one can. She's my missus and I'm her man. And life is heaven you see. 'Cause I love Lucy, Yes I love Lucy and Lucy loves me. (I love Lucy and she loves me. We are as happy as two people can be. Sometimes we quarrel but then what do we like about our reunion. Lucy kisses like no one else because it's Lucy I love, yes I love Lucy and Lucy loves me).

Desi Arnaz was probably the best in his field when we talk about being prepared for each scene. His phenomenal memory allowed him to read and memorize each of his lines in a single reading of the script. The people who worked alongside him said that he never forgot his lines despite his little preparation for each scene.

Do you remember the famous grape crushing scene with Lucy? It turns out that Lucille was choking in the tank, but continued to film. Once the cameras stopped filming, the film crew finally realized that she was choking and came to her rescue. If you want to find the scene again, it's in the episode "Lucy's Italian Movie".

Lucille Ball was the celebrity on the cover of the very first issue of TV Guide magazine. However, she did not only make the cover of this issue. In fact, she has appeared on the cover of 39 issues of the magazine throughout her career. This makes him more covers in TV Guide magazine than any other celebrity. Considering that she revolutionized sitcoms, she certainly deserves this honor. Thanks to its great success, the series has accomplished what no other series has ever reproduced.

This is one of the most popular scenes in the series and perhaps in the entire history of television. When Lucille Ball claimed to be getting more and more drunk on this special product, she was currently taking down a bunch of apple pectin. Lucille Ball really didn't enjoy shooting that scene and it wasn't until years later that she admitted it was really a funny moment on the show.

The Ricardos' best friends and neighbors actually had the same name as Relatives of Lucille Ball. The name Fred comes from the star's brother (who was named after their grandfather) and Ethel was named after Ball's Broadway friend Ethel Merman. Coincidentally, the actress who played the role of Ethel, Vivian Vance, was a backup for Merman years earlier.

Frawley's portrayal of Fred Mertz in I Love Lucy has a well-deserved place in the history of television comedy, but he didn't have a good memory at all to remember his text. He was so frustrated with his text, that he sometimes ripped entire pages out of the script and always complained about having so many lines in each episode.

The last episode of I Love Lucy aired in 1957, still ranked No. 1 in the audience. This series is now a monument of American popular culture and continues to grow in popularity even today. It still airs in syndication all over the world, with episodes followed by 40 million Americans a year in the United States alone. In addition, goods with Lucy's iconic red tignasse continue to proliferate.

Whenever Lucy found herself in a crazy situation, you could hear someone off-screen shouting, "Uh-Oh!" This person is Lucille Ball's real mother and she was present at every shoot. The sound engineer for the series, Glen Glenn, even used this "Uh-Oh!" for other series!

Both Ball and Arnaz agreed to pay cuts so the production team could afford to film them with the new technologies available.

The series was so popular throughout its initial broadcast that entire sectors of American business would shut down while it was airing. Telephone and water consumption decreased significantly for the duration of the half-hour program, and even department stores closed earlier due to the lack of customers.

Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz demanded that the series be filmed on a 35mm film, which is expensive, and in Hollywood instead of New York. The American television channel CBS was not convinced, but the couple settled this disagreement by becoming owners of the series. The company Desilu Productions, formed by them, made about $ 40 million in profit thanks to this decision, which is much more nowadays... that gives you about $256 million in the current economy.

The episode of Lucy giving birth to "little Ricky" was watched by more than 70 percent of all American households and had higher ratings than President Dwight D. Eisenhower's inauguration. Ironically, the story coincided with Lucy's actual pregnancy of Desi Arnaz, Jr.

Initially, Lucille Ball did not want to move from film to television. But afterwards, she had a dream in which there was her deceased friend Carole Lombard (a comedic actress) who convinced Ball to "seize this chance" with the TV series. Ball followed her friend's advice in the dream, and it obviously worked.

Desi Arnaz's accent drew a lot of attention to the show, but if anyone other than Lucy made fun of the way he spoke, those jokes were usually greeted with a leaden silence from the audience. It was an unspoken rule of the series that only Lucille Ball could make fun of Desi's pronunciations.

When CBS executives approached Lucille Ball to turn her popular radio show "My Favorite Husband" into a TV series, she immediately agreed if her condition was accepted. Her condition was that her real-life husband Desi Arnaz would have the role of her husband on screen. The leaders thought there was no way that everyone would come to believe that she was married to a "foreign" man with an accent they could not understand. At that time, Lucy and Desi had already been married for over 10 years.

William Frawley was a big baseball fan — of the New York Yankees — and his contract stipulated that he could miss a day of work if the Yankees played in a World Series game.

Although Lucille Ball and Vivian Vance ended up becoming close friends, it didn't start that way. In fact, Ball started the series by asking himself if Vance could play his role in a comical way without stealing the show. The good news is that they reconciled their difference before the series began.

William Frawley had a reputation for having crazy parties during which he always ended up completely drunk, which made other actors hesitate a lot to work with him. Desi Arnaz, however, knew frawley was the best casting choice, but he still gave her the ultimatum to never be late. Frawley, for the duration of the filming of the series, never missed a day.

The four main actors received great recognition for their work, but it was Desi Arnaz who never received an Emmy nomination. William Frawley received five nominations, but never won an Emmy. Lucy and Vivian Vance both won an Emmy for their roles, although Vance was far behind Lucy who won four out of 13 nominations.

The directors of I Love Lucy had to constantly change the phone number used in the series so that it wasn't a number in service that the audience was trying to call. The Ricardos had two phone numbers, while the Mertzes ended up having four different numbers during the series.

One of the traditions of the series that lasted until the end of it, was that whenever an actor could spontaneously applaud the audience, that person would receive a dollar bill after the scene.

Desi Arnez often skipped rehearsals and group readings to take care of Desilu Studios' business. However, the actor was always able to memorize his lines after reading the script the first time, and delivered them perfectly during filming. Arnaz would even memorize another character's lines to make sure everything went according to plan.

During filming in 1952, Lucy became pregnant and regulations were put in place to use the English expression "waiting for a child" rather than "pregnant". So a pastor, a priest, and a rabbi (no kidding) reviewed each episode in order to make sure viewers wouldn't be offended by the pregnancy.

After Lucille Ball gave birth to their son, Arnaz wanted to give his wife a chance to rest at home without having to film the next episode. So he convinced the TV station to rebroadcast previous episodes. Since that day, TV rebroadcasts have become a key part of the industry.

When Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz broke up in the early seventies, she took control of Desilu and became the first woman to run a large television studio on her own. She ran her business very well, spawned many successful series and eventually sold the studio for millions of dollars.

When Ball began her acting career, she thought a name that sounded familiar would help her get new roles on Broadway. She chose the name Diana Belmont, after the famous Belmont Stakes racetrack on Long Island, New York.

The reason there were rarely second takes was because every line of dialogue in the sitcom came from the script. Lucille Ball later revealed: "We never improvised during filming. Everything was already there. Even during the famous scene of Ball's Vitameatavegamin, every word was written and tracking cards (like in a real commercial) were used to make sure Ball didn't forget a single line. By the way, the "Vitameatavegamin" was actually apple pectin.

The directors' initial plan was to create a series for Ball and Arnaz that would reflect their real lives. However, the stars did not agree. They thought the audience wouldn't be able to identify with their life as a star. Instead, they wanted to create something new and unique.

After the series wrapped up and while Ball and Vance were on the American talk show circuit, Lucille revealed that she had written contracts for fun that required completely crazy things such as "Vance has to gain two pounds a week and should never make the audience laugh more than Ball." Imagine all the desserts Vance could have put on?

While some celebrities like to feature their children in episodes or other productions, Lucille Ball was opposed to the idea. That's why her children — Lucie and Desi, Jr. — never appeared in an episode of I Love Lucy. Years later, the kids still had no regrets about not being part of the show, which some parents should take as an example.

Lucy was the first pregnant woman to play a pregnant woman on TV. Before this series, the idea of intimacy was often excluded from the screen, but Ball absolutely did not want to hide her pregnancy.

When it came to naming characters in the series, Lucille Ball seemed to prefer the personal touch. Throughout the filming of the series I Love Lucy, the characters were named after her grandfather (Fred), a roommate (Marion Strong), a teacher (Lillian Appleby) and a close friend (Pauline Lopus).

When they weren't filming or minding the business of their production studio, Ball often led a very normal life as she loved gardening, painting, and swimming in her pool. It looks like their "everyday" character from the series was translating into real life.

In order to keep the illusion for young viewers of the series, in the episode titled "Superman", the famous actor George Reeves appeared as the titular character, but instead of giving credit to this actor, Ball preferred that his name be displayed "Superman" in the credits. Reeves fortunately agreed.

When President Eisenhower was sworn in, millions of Americans listened to his speech. But when Lucy gave birth to little Ricky in the episode "Lucy Goes to the Hospital," more people watched that than Eisenhower's inaugural speech. Lucille Ball, celebrity of the small screen favorite of the Americans.