Who here likes Little Ricky? I don't. He is cute and all but I think he's kind of annoying..you know the show is of 4 adults, and then this little boy comes along....just an opinion I had to share

We can assume Little Ricky had to be in the show because of Lucy's pregnancy in the second season. If the pregnancy and birth were not to be part of the progress of events, then they would have had to deny something obvious enough to make the whole setup seem ridiculously freakish, or else ended the show after the first season.

So then, with the birth of a son (they played that part 50/50 and won the flip), what were they to do? He was born on the show, so he had to grow on the show. It would hardly have worked for them to ship him off somewhere, and it would have destroyed the show to have him killed. So they just had to have a babysitter who showed face and was referred to more often than she appeared, and then they could continue the adult comedy they had successfully devised for the first season.

But babies do grow and they start to talk and run around, so eventually they had to put a kid on the screen doing those things, or else it would be inferred Little Ricky was very slow or something. So the character in the final season was simply the product of the events of the second season. I think he was seldom 'annoying' because they still had devices to have him occupied elsewhere-- the playground, kindergarten, or just out of sight taking a nap.

But if they had cut the series after the first season because Lucy was so obviously pregnant, it could not have been resumed a year later with the same actors and writers, who would have become involved in other endeavors (and Vance and Frawley would likely have taken the chance to get away from each other and from their self-perceptions as "peons" to the Arnaz' [from MEET THE MERTZES]). So I think they played it the right way in having the birth of a child to their TV characters while that was happening in real life. If Little Ricky was "annoying," that is just reality too. Kids are annoying at times!

WHOAH! That was a longer reply than I expected...LOL...I meant if he were never born...never shown or mentioned on the show..