I LOVE LUCY

When Lucy learns that Ricky is going on a European tour with his band, she naturally assumes she will be included. Not so, contends Ricky, the extra cost would be prohibitive.

However, she can go along if she can raise the money to pay her own "spenses." Ricky decides to take Fred along to act as band manager and he, like Lucy, is thrilled about the prospect of going to Europe. Says Ethel, conspicuously left out: "I don't want to see Europe anyway … It's so old!"

Ethel can go as well if she raises her own expense money. Ricky estimates that the wives need a total of $3,000. Desperate for money, they search under the cushions of the furniture, empty pockets, clean out cookie jars, but the take is only $200.16.

To raise the other $2,800, the gals decide to raffle off a television set, claiming the proceeds will benefit a worthy charity, the just-formed (by Lucy and Ethel) Ladies Overseas Aid. Lucy justifies the nefarious scheme: "We're ladies. We want to go overseas. And, boy, do we need aid!"

They approach kind Mr. Feldman, a local store owner, about purchasing a set. The shopkeeper, impressed with the virtue of the plan, offers to donate the TV set and hold the drawing in his shop. But as Lucy is about to leave for the drawing, a representative from the D.A.'s office, Mr. Jamison, arrives and informs Mrs. Ricardo that she will be imprisoned for fraud if the raffle takes place. Lucy: "I can't go to prison! I'm going to Europe!"

Rushing to the raffle in hopes of halting the drawing, Lucy appears doomed until Mr. Feldman surprises everyone by producing Dorothea Wolbert, President of the real Ladies Overseas Aid charity, who happily accepts the $3,000 cash.

The girls' trip to Europe appears unlikely until Ricky is offered free passage by a steamship company in return for the band's playing on the transatlantic trip. Now he can afford to take along Lucy and Ethel and the four friends are officially Europe bound!

Special Notes: A little early publicity for Lucy and Desi's film, Forever Darling, was generated when the Pied Pipers appeared in a scene in this episode recording the film's theme song. It is in this setting that Ricky receives the call from a steamship company with the favorable passage offer. No mention of the Constitution yet because the deal had not been firmed up at this point. This episode begins the first of 17 episodes and the remainder of season #5 that are devoted to the Ricardos' and the Mertzes' trip to Europe.

Bloopers: Lucy holds a sign "Ricky Ricardo Unfair" through the living room and an audience member can be heard repeating it.