Lucy Ricardo (Lucille Ball)
The titular main character, Lucy's a perky housewife who often attempts wacky schemes so her husband allows her to play in his club.
- Can't Hold Her Liquor: The famous "Vitameatavegamin Girl" bit where Lucy gets drunk from the alcohol in the medicine after repeated takes. In her defense, it was 23% alcohol by volume – not proof, percent (46 proof).
- Catchphrase: Lucy often says "Ewwwww!", or as Lucille Ball referred to it, "The Spider" sneer, when something goes wrong.
- Did Not Think This Through: More often then not, her plans tend to go off the rails due to not really thinking about the details all the way and running into unforeseen circumstances.
- Fiery Redhead: Subverted. Lucy is 60% screwball, 40% spitfire and 0% redhead — she dyes her hair.
- Guile Heroine: Lucy usually tries to use her wiles rather than her muscles to achieve her goals. How successful she is (and how long before it backfires) varies by the occasion.
- Hollywood Tone-Deaf: 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 Rule of Funny.
- Housewife: Common for most women during this decade; while Lucy does hold a few jobs throughout the series (including but not limited to candy maker, dress shop co-owner, and selling her own salad dressing) these jobs usually only lasted a single episode. Throughout the series, Lucy usually plays the part of an unorthodox, albeit still very loving and caring, 1950's wife and mother.
- Informed Flaw: It would oftentimes be stated that along with being Hollywood Tone-Deaf, 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.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: 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, a steadfast friend and in general a warmhearted woman.
- Loony Fan: 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.Lucy: Do you pop out of parties? Are you unpoopular?
- Mama Bear: 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.
- Master of Disguise: Lucy had a knack at this, being able to properly fool her husband and friends many times, if her schemes called for it.
- Red Baron: Often cited as "That Crazy Redhead" by most who meet her, especially celebrities.
- Ms. Red Ink: 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.
- Woman Child: Arguably the first example in western media; Lucy certainly had a knack for embracing her inner-child such as sticking out her tongue and those who annoy her, penchant for wacky schemes, being something of a naive idealist, and her trademark wail when something went wrong. This was quite groundbreaking for the time too as Lucille Ball subverted many traditional female gender roles with her Lucy character and paved the way for future women-children.
- Zany Scheme: 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.
Ricky Ricardo (Desi Arnaz)
Lucy's Cuban husband, a famous bandleader constantly having to deal with many of his wife's Zany Scheme.- Bilingual Bonus: Since
Desi and Ricky were both from Cuba, Ricky would sometimes dip into speaking Spanish whenever he would get excited or mad.note - Catchphrase: "Aye-yi-yi-yi-yi!" In one of the England shows, he translates it as 'Blimey!' to a confused Englishman. Hilariously, later on it turns out the phrase needs no translation for Italian.
- Funny Foreigner: 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.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He has a fiery temper and having to deal with the constant messes his wife gets them into doesn't help, but he loves Lucy more than anything, and is a devoted and caring father and friend.
- Malaproper: Ricky misspoke idioms at times, though this was due to English not being his first language.
- Signature Laugh: His distinct, hardy (almost wheezing) laugh.
- Signature Song: In-universe, "Babalú" is the song most associated with and most often performed by Ricky over the course of the series, and other characters reference and quote the song frequently as his signature.
- The Straight Man: 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 Zany Scheme of his own.
Ethel Mertz (Vivian Vance)
The Ricardos' landlady and one of their best friends, most often allied with Lucy during plots. A former vaudevillian with her husband, she often finds herself getting dragged into Lucy's messes.- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Ethel and Fred have a number of these moments, for all their bicker and back-and-forth nagging but 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".
- Big Eater: 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.
- Deadpan Snarker: Ethel had a good amount of snappy retorts and was arguably the most sarcastic character on the show.
- Honorary Aunt: As his Godmother, Little Ricky refers to her as Aunt Ethel.
- Informed Flaw: 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.)
- Nice Girl: While she can be a bit of a gossip, gets self-inflated, and can snark with the rest of them, she's definitely 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 The Scrooge like Fred.
- Older Than They Look: Ethel is supposed to be around the same age as her husband Fred who’s quite older than Ricky and Lucy. But the women looks the same age as her two friends. (Which she is. Vivian hated that Ethel was supposed to be twenty years older than she was).
- Sarcastic Devotee: Ethel may be a faithful friend to Lucy, but she's not above making sarcastic comments.
- Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: 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.
- Small Name, Big Ego: 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.
- True Companions: Despite all the headaches the crazed red-head would cost her, Lucy could always count on Ethel as a loyal and steadfast friend.
Fred Mertz (William Frawley)
The Ricardos' Landlord and Ethel's sarcastic, money scrounging, but lovable husband, and Ricky's best-friend. Was once a renowned Vaudevillian with Ethel.- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Fred and Ethel have a number of these moments, for all their bicker and back-and-forth nagging.
- In "Equal Rights", he (and Ricky) rush down to a restaurant to protect Ethel and Lucy after the two trick their husbands into believing they're being attacked by armed robbers.
- It reaches hilarious proportions in one episode, where Ricky is entertaining on a cruise ship; in earlier episodes with scenes set near large bodies of water, Fred mentions his seasickness (and once even got woozy on a ship that was tied off at the dock); however, Fred suddenly does a 180 degree turn, and actually turns into a romantic. Ethel is actually concerned about Fred's unusual behavior at first, but is eventually entranced at the idea of her and Fred having a second honeymoon, and basically spend the rest of the episode enjoying various different activities on the ship in a lovey-dovey manner.
- Deadpan Snarker: Fred was sometimes prone to making dry, sarcastic quips.
- Honorary Uncle: To Little Ricky, as his Godfather, who he refers to as Uncle Fred.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: 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.
- The Scrooge: Fred's tightfistedness about money was a Running Gag throughout the show.
Ricky Ricardo, Jr. (Richard Keith)
Born in the second season, Ricky Ricardo Jr., aka Little Ricky, is the son of Lucy and Ricky, and Godson of Ethel and Fred.- Babies Make Everything Better: From the moment he's born Lucy and Ricky become much happier people. As the song Ricky writes for Lucy and Little Ricky states "...he has changed our happy house, into a home."
- Only Known by Their Nickname: He's seldom called anything but "Little Ricky."
