I'd like to start a thread on the funniest Lucy stories any of us have read over the years. Like the one where she did a Broadway show Wildcat, and the dog made a mess on stage, so Lucy came out and stopped the show, she carried a broom and a bucket and picked the stuff up, when the audience stopped laughing, she said, I READ THE SMALL PRINT IN MY CONTRACT!

When Desi toured with his band while Lucy was in Hollyweird making movies, their relationship was mostly on the phone. They spent so much money on long distance bills that they claimed the word WHAT alone had cost them thousands, as the line was always bad and they couldn't hear each other and were always shouting WHAT? The New York telephone operators were notorious for always listening in on phone conversations, so one time, Lucy and Desi were arguing as usual, and then they would hang up and one of them would give in and call back and apologize eventually. Except this one time, neither did, so the operator calls Lucy back and tells her to please call him back, you know he's such a baby, why don't you just forgive him and call back. Lucy could not wait to call him back and tell him that the operator had called him a big baby!

When the Friars roasted Lucy, they did not want to show disrespect as she was always known for her wholesome image, but the Friars were known for their total lack of respect when roasting someone, anyone! So Johnny Carson comes out first and tells the crowd they should show some respect and not be too raunchy, they should watch their language as Lucy must be treated with the utmost respect, then he introduced her as Lucille Testicule! She laughed loudly, but hated the fact that they could do that with her name and she even talked about it on a talk show a few weeks later, it was after a commercial break, and she got caught telling Merv Griffin, yeah, well, you don't care as they can't do that with your name!

How about the time Lucy played backgammon with a friend. She had been to the dentist, and had had her molars removed, she was in lots of pain, but played anyway. At one point, when she rolled the dice and threw the dice on the board, her two molars had replaced the dice, her friend gasped, even in pain, Lucy wanted to make her friend laugh!

Whenever Lucy and Desi fought, he would leave the house and go to a hotel until things calmed down, fed up with this routine, he decided to build a guest house so he could escape there instead. One time he left in a huff after a big fight and when he came back he went to the guesthouse and slipped into bed. Trouble was Lucy's mother had invited some old lady friends of hers over and they were staying in the guest house, worse still, they were occupying the bed Desi got into while drunk, apparantly you could hear the yelling and screaming all along Roxbury drive as the ladies saw this naked drunken man get into bed with them in the dark!

Desi always recognized that Lucy was the show and without her the show never would have been that successful. One time Lucy almost tripped over some wires at the studio, and Desi caught her just in time, before she could hurt herself. Desi yelled for everybody to hear, watch her guys, anything ever happens to her and we're all in the shrimp business!

At the end of her life, Lucy's every action sorta became a Lucy episode. She goes to the doctor and takes the elevator (apparently one of her favorite things to do), one of the other passengers recognized her even in her oversize glasses and natural hair. He asks her ARE YOU LUCY, she whispers yes, i am, so he jumps and yells OH MY GOD, YOU'RE LUCY, and she does that YOU SCARED ME routine she did so well on the shows and the whole car rocks with laughter from the other passengers. Lucky devils, i would have stopped the elevator, and insist she attempt the Vitameatavegimin routine before i'd let her out!

Lucy's hairdresser Irma Kusely once had a run in with Desi. She spilled a big glob of dye on his favorite golf shirt, so he blew up at her and told her to get the spot out. She took a pair of scissors and cut out the offending part. Well, she DID get the spot out that way. Lucy was in histerics laughing her head off. They didn't mention how Desi reacted, but knowing him, he probably saw the humor in it!

Gary claimed that when Lucy got out of the shower, she would shake herself off like a dog!

Lucie Arnaz told the story that her mom's favorite thing to do in a group of women was to wait for one of them to leave, and when she got back, Lucy would say loudly, well, why don't you tell her that to her face. The whole group would get quiet, until the joke was explained, and they would all have a good laugh!

When Lucy was running Desilu, she had this one guy working for her that she didn't like at all, might have been the fact that he HATED Gary, don't know for sure, anyway, he went to her office where she was sitting with her attorney and he pitched this idea for a new logo for their studio, letterhead and so on. She listened to him patiently and after he had made his case, he thanked her for her time and before he left, she thanked him and told him she would give a lot of thought to his idea. The man left and she turned to her attorney and asked, Art, what's a logo?

I have two funny interview stories, one with a male reporter, the other one with a female. The man interviewing her could not take his eyes off her breasts, this was when she was just starting out and she was always self concious about that so it irratated her to no end. Finally when she could take it no longer, she removed the padding from her bosom and dropped it on the table in front of him and left, his eyes bugged out as he stared at her walking away. The female reporter had this huge mop of hair and the whole time she's asking Lucy questions, all Lucy, (The frustrated hairdresser) can think of is where she could get some scissors and tackle that mop. So, in the middle of answering the questions, Lucy gets up and goes to find a pair of scissors, comes back and cuts the reporter's hair until the girl had practically none left, then Lucy sits down and says, ok, now that's better, what were we saying, while the female reporter stared daggers at her!

Lucy once went with another actress to a show of some kind and Lucy mentionned she had to go home to wash up and change, so the other performer suggested she do it at her house. While the other actress was in the shower, Lucy had one of her cigarettes, but she noticed they tasted great but had no printing on them. When she complimented the actress on her great tasting ciggies, the actress just said they were menthol. Lucy had had menthol ciggies before and knew that's not what they were. Wonder if she inhaled them!

A mother story and a mother in law story. When Lucy had her condos in Snowmass, one was hers, the other two, one belonged to her kids, and the other one was her mom's. They always ate together though, so the food would be prepared at Lucy's but eaten at mom's place. One night Lucy lost track of time and yelled to the people there. Oh my God, look at the time, and dinner's not ready, my mother's going to kill me! Another time Lucy was preparing to meet her new mother in law, Gary's Jewish mother. She had prepared the meal herself and was just about ready to greet her mother in law when she decided to clean the chicken livers under the water fawcett, except she dropped them as they disintegrated and fell in the drain. They ended up having steaks instead and Lucy was mortified. Doesn't that remind you of the ILL episode where she was cleaning out the hall closet when her mother in law showed up unexpectedly!

When Lucy got one of her first cars in Hollywood, it was a nice shiny convertable. Unfortunately, her grandfather hated the tree in front of the house, it blocked his view of the world going by. Bujt the City of Los Angeles would not give permission to cut it down. So every night, he'd hack at the roots, and replace the sod until the first rainstorm would bring down the tree, and he was right, it did, right smack dab onto Lucy's brand new convertable!

On a Dinah Shore talk show once, actor George Segal came on straight fdrom a plane and said on the air that he was starving. Every time they came back from commercials he would go on and on about the fact that he was hungry. At the end of the show, Lucille Ball comes out to the shock and amazement of the audience in the studio and at home. She's all dolled up in a gown and pushing a cart of gourmet foods, she doesn't say a word, and when the audience laughs start dying down, she puts a napkin to George's chin and starts feeding him. After a while, with the audience wondering what the heck is going on, Lucy tells him. You know if you came on MY show, you'd get money too!

Once while Lucy was getting interviewed at the Pierre Hotel in NYC, with Desi and the president of RKO at her side. Desi came in with his zipper down and Mr. Schaefer, the head of the studio was frantically waving his arms trying to signal Desi about the open fly, but Desi wasn't getting the message, and the man was getting desparate as Desi almost NEVER wore underwear, guess he wanted to be ready for action at all times. Finally, Lucy, who noticed everything, said Desi dear, Mr Schaefer is trying to tell you your zipper is open. Then she turned to Mr Schaefer and added, HE BELIEVES IN ADVERTIZING!

Desi, in his autobiography, told a similar story where he was asked by the studio to do these screen tests with all the major stars of the era like Judy Garland and Lana Turner to name just two. It was a kissing scene, and Desi was getting more excited by the minute and then he noticed his fly had been open the whole time, and again, the no underwear thing played into it!

There was a sign on Desi's office or dressing room door that said ENGLISH BROKEN HERE. Lucy would get calls from Desi practically every day of her life, even after the divorce, whenever the help would tell her that her husband was on the phone, she'd say WHICH ONE? Maybe that's why Gary would call Desi his husband in law. Gary always said of Lucy, SHOW BUSINESS IS MY WIFE! For the kids out there too young to know, the real expressions are English spoken here and show business is my life!