History Characters / ILoveLucy

* CatchPhrase: Lucy often says "Ewwwww!", or as Lucille Ball referred to it, "The Spider" sneer, when something goes wrong.

* HollywoodToneDeaf: Lucille Ball was no singer, but she sang just enough to star in the Broadway musical ''Wildcat'' after the show ended. Lucy's ability to carry a tune was far exaggerated from Ball's own, and seemed to run on RuleOfFunny.

* InformedFlaw: It would oftentimes be stated that along with being HollywoodToneDeaf, Lucy was a horrible dancer. Despite this, in many, many instances Lucille Ball demonstrated her real life background as a highly trained and skilled dancer, be it performing at the Tropicana/Club Babalo, waltzing with Van Johnson, tangoing with 6 dozen eggs in her blouse or just perfectly executing difficult comedic blocking.

* LoonyFan: Particularly during The Hollywood arc, in which she can't help herself from acting even zanier than normal around the Movie Stars. Her actions including accidentally pieing William Holden, breaking into Cornel Wildes's suite, trying to pick a Grapefruit from Richard Widmark's backyard, and stealing John Wayne's footprints from Graumen's Chinese Theater. Her reputation gets so bad, she becomes the ire of every actor in Hollywood. Eventually it even reaches international levels as while in Paris, Charles Boyer mentions having heard of her.
* {{Malaproper}}: Lucy misspoke words after getting drunk trying to film a commercial. That Vitameatavegamin is potent stuff.

* MasterOfDisguise: Lucy had a knack at this, being able to properly fool her husband and friends many times, if her schemes called for it.

* MsRedInk: While it never had any visible impact on the family finances, quite a number of plots involve Lucy outspending the limit on things like dresses, hats, and furniture.

* ZanyScheme: Constantly, a lot of the humor of the show comes from Lucy coming up with a crazy scheme to a situation and it spiraling into disaster.

* BilingualBonus: Since [[ActorSharedBackground Desi and Ricky were both from Cuba]], Ricky would sometimes dip into speaking Spanish whenever he would get excited or mad.[[note]]The writers always wrote out Ricky's rants in English, which Arnaz would then translate into Spanish. This was done to prevent Arnaz from accidentally swearing in Spanish, which he feared would happen if he improvised.[[/note]]

* FunnyForeigner: The series made a lot of jokes at Ricky's expense regarding things like his accent or other things related to his being from a different country. It was never malicious though and the show made sure to go out of its way to show that Ricky was a fast learner and accomplished entertainer and manager. Ricky's nationality and accent were also typically only referred to or poked at by his wife and the Mertzes, but not strangers, with the writers acknowledging jokes about his accent would be cruel otherwise.

* {{Malaproper}}: Ricky misspoke idioms at times, though this was due to English not being his first language.

* TheStraightMan: He's the normal guy who has to deal with his wife's (and sometimes his friends') crazy antics. Ricky was still able to play bits with his wife in romantic banter, though, and often came up with a ZanyScheme of his own.

* BigEater: Ethel enjoys her food, and eats the most heartily and shamelessly of the cast, always embracing the opportunity to eat food that's out in the open and being known for large portions. She was the butt of quite a few "fat" jokes from Fred. Rather hypocritical of him really, since, despite Ethel's enormous appetite, he was actually much more overweight.
* DeadpanSnarker: Ethel had a good amount of snappy retorts and was arguably the most sarcastic character on the show.

* InformedFlaw: Ethel is often on the receiving end of jokes regarding her weight and the size of her rear end, despite Vivian Vance having a perfectly healthy weight. (As Vance pointed out, jokes about her size would not have been funny if she was truly heavy, and tended to come across more as bickering marital banter than anything else.)

* ScrewThisImOutOfHere: Usually whenever Lucy hatched up one of her schemes, she'd tried to bail first chance she got. She would never get far though.
* {{Sidekick}}: Ethel was always Lucy's partner-in-crime on all her misadventures, with varying degrees of willingness.
* SmallNameBigEgo: Ethel would gleefully seize the spotlight whenever she had the chance and milk it for all it was worth. Just look at her constant boastful retellings of her confrontation with Mrs. Trumbull, or how she flat out lied to her father in Albuquerque about being the one to star in a movie and hogging all the press attention for herself.
* TrueCompanions: Despite all the headaches the crazed red-head would cost her, Lucy could always count on Ethel as a loyal and steadfast friend.

The Ricardos' Landlord and Ethel's sarcastic, money scrounging, but lovable husband, and Ricky's best-friend. Was once a renowned Vaudevillian with Ethel.

* DeadpanSnarker: Fred was sometimes prone to making dry, sarcastic quips.
* HonoraryUncle: To Little Ricky, as his Godfather, who he refers to as Uncle Fred.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: He's a tightwad with money, usually makes dry humored quips about his wife, but that doesn't stop him from being a loyal husband, a good friend to the Ricardos and a doting Godfather to Little Ricky.
* TheScrooge: Fred's tightfistedness about money was a RunningGag throughout the show.

* FunnyForeigner: The series made a lot of jokes at Ricky's expense regarding things like his accent or other things related to his being from a different country. It was never malicious though and the show made sure to go out of its way to show that Ricky was a fast learner and accomplished entertainer and manager.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: He has a fiery latin temper and having to deal with the constant messes his wife gets them into doesn't help, but make no mistake he loves Lucy more than anything, and is a devoted and caring father and friend.

* TheStraightMan: He's the normal guy who has to deal with his wife's (and sometimes his friends') crazy antics -- not that he couldn't sometimes be pulled into a ZanyScheme.

The Ricardos' landlady and one of their best friends. A former vaudevillian with her husband, she often finds herself getting dragged into Lucy's messes.

** Also Ethel (and her actress Vivian) were actually thin with Ethel, being only one size bigger than Lucy at most.

* InformedFlaw: Ethel is often on the receiving end of jokes regarding her weight and the size of her rear end, despite Vivian Vance having a perfectly healthy weight. (As Vance pointed out, jokes about her size would not have been funny if she was truly heavy, and tended to come across more as marital banter than anything else.)
* NiceGirl: While she can be a bit of a gossip, and can snark with the rest of them, she's defiantly the sweetest of the group, as she isn't a consummate schemer like Lucy, nor does she have a quick temper like Ricky, nor is she TheScrooge like Fred.

* {{Sidekick}}: Ethel was always Lucy's partner-in-crime on all her misadventures.

* BilingualBonus: Since [[ActorSharedBackground Desi and Ricky were both from Cuba]], Ricky would sometimes dip into speaking Spanish whenever he would get excited or mad.

* BigEater: Ethel enjoys her food, and eats the most heartily and shamelessly of the cast, often embracing the opportunity to eat food that's out in the open and being known for large portions. She was the butt of quite a few "fat" jokes from Fred. Rather hypocritical of him really, since, despite Ethel's enormous appetite, he was actually much more overweight.

* BigEater: Ethel enjoys her food. She was the butt of quite a few "fat" jokes from Fred. Rather hypocritical of him really, since, despite Ethel's enormous appetite, he was actually much more overweight.

The Ricardos' Landlord and Ethel's sarcastic, money scrounging, but lovable husband, and Ricky's best-friend.

* [[BabiesMakeEverythingBetter Babies Make Everything Better]]

* LoonyFan: Particularly during The Hollywood arc, in which she can't help herself from acting even zanier than normal around the Movie Stars. Her actions including accidentally pieing William Holden, breaking into Cornel Wildes's suite, trying to pick a Grapefruit from Richard Widmark's backyard, and stealing John Waynes footprints from Graumen's Chinese Theater. Her reputation gets so bad, she becomes the ire of every actor in Hollywood. Eventually it even reaches international levels as while in Paris, Charles Boyer mentions having heard of her.

* AwLookTheyReallyDoLoveEachOther: Ethel and Fred have a number of these moments, for all their bicker and back-and-forth nagging, but Ethel more so in general. Any slight indication that Fred may be spending time with another woman, Ethel starts sobbing at the prospect of losing her "Beautiful, fat-old-goat Fred".

[[quoteright:313:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lucy_ricardo.png]]

* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: All her scheming, lying and selfish moments aside, at the end of the day Lucy was still portrayed as a loving wife, an exceptional mother and a steadfast friend.

* BaldOfAwesome: Debatable, but the lovable curmudgeon has his moments.

* MamaBear: Her love for her son is so strong, that even after being told by the hospital she will not be allowed to stay the night with an ill Little Ricky, even though she promised him, won't stop her. She disguises herself as a nurse and of course creates havoc, but after catching the sight of a sleeping Lucy protectively cuddling Little Ricky in his hospital bed, the hospital is so touched by her maternal instincts, they stop Ricky from waking her up, and allow her to stay with her son for the night.

* CatchPhrase: Lucy often says "Ewwwww!", or as Lucille Ball referred to it, "The Spider" sneer, when something goes wrong.

* SecondBanana: Ethel was always Lucy's partner-in-crime on all her misadventures.

* HollywoodToneDeaf: Lucille Ball was no diva, but she was no slouch either, as seen when she starred in ''Mame''. Lucy's ability to carry a tune seemed to run on RuleOfFunny.