I LOVE LUCY

In Florence, Italy, four thousand miles away from Little Ricky on his third birthday, Lucy suddenly has the motherly urge to phone New York and speak to her son.

Making the transatlantic call is a problem in itself, compounded by the fact that the hotel's only phone is located in the lobby and the Ricardos' "Bridal Suite" (Room 47) is on the fourth floor.

While Lucy is waiting for the long distance call to go through, a street urchin shoeshine boy, Giuseppe, wanders into the lobby, offering to shine Mrs. Ricardo's shoes. While he is several years older than Little Ricky, Lucy can't help but get teary-eyed at the thought of being so far away from her own boy.

Finally, the call comes through, and Ricky and the Mertzes descend the many flights of stairs to be beside Lucy during the conversation. Unfortunately, it's 5 a.m. in New York when Mrs. McGillicuddy answers the phone and Lucy sadly decides not to have her mother wake the child.

Lucy tries phoning the next day, but this time Little Ricky is in nursery school. Heartbroken, Lucy decides to hold a birthday party for Little Ricky with the shoeshine boy as the guest of honor (it's his birthday too - he's eight and a half!). Soon the party grows to enormous proportions, eleven Italian children, each claiming a birthday, arrive for the birthday event.

In the midst of the festivities, Ricky summons Lucy to the lobby telephone, he's managed to get through to Little Ricky in New York. With tears in her eyes, Lucy wishes her son a Happy Birthday, and the foreign children sing the birthday song to him in Italian.

Special Notes: The young actor who played the shoeshine boy, Bart Bradley, is the same person who, twenty-two years later, played Binzer on the ABC series, "Vega$," under his real name, Bart Braverman.

Bloopers: In this episode Lucy said that today is Little Ricky's 3rd birthday, but in "Nursery School" Ricky said that Little Ricky is 3 years old.