Who is Ricky Ricardo in I Love Lucy?

Show

I Love Lucy

Played by

Desi Arnaz

First episode

“The Girls Want to Go to a Nightclub”Season 1, Episode 1, aired October 15, 1951

Role

Main cast

Network

CBS

Occupation

Bandleader and singer, Tropicana nightclub

Show run

1951 to 1957

Also known as

Ricky, Rick Ricardo, Enrique Ricardo, Ricardo Alberto Fernando Ricardo y de Acha

Ricky Ricardo is a Cuban bandleader, a rising entertainer, and the long-suffering straight man to his wife's schemes. Played by Desi Arnaz, Lucille Ball's real-life husband, he is the other half of television's most famous married couple.

On I Love Lucy, Ricky Ricardo's story runs through Lucy Ricardo (Wife), Fred Mertz (Best Friend), and Ethel Mertz (Landlady).

Other CBS sitcom characters from around the same time include Frank Burns (M*A*S*H) and Hawkeye Pierce (M*A*S*H).

Who is Ricky Ricardo?

Ricky is a Cuban-born singer and conga drummer who leads the house band at the Tropicana nightclub in Manhattan. He and Lucy rent their apartment from Fred and Ethel Mertz, and Fred becomes his closest friend. His signature number is "Babalu," and he performs it with the band whenever the show needs a showstopper.

Ricky is ambitious and hardworking, and his career keeps climbing over the series. He lands a Hollywood movie contract and a European tour, and by the final season his club has been renamed Club Babalu. At home, he wants a calm life with a wife who does not try to join his act.

Personality and comedy

Ricky is the straight man of the double act. Lucy creates the chaos, and Ricky reacts, usually by discovering the scheme, losing his temper, and, when he is truly exasperated, breaking into rapid-fire Spanish. His explosive reactions became some of the show's most imitated bits.

He gives as good as he gets, too. When Lucy and Ethel cook up a plan, Ricky and Fred often team up to turn the tables on them. Underneath all the shouting he adores his wife, and the show never lets the audience forget it.

Key storylines

Ricky's most famous moment comes in "Lucy Is Enceinte," when he slowly realizes the anonymous song request at his club is Lucy's way of telling him they are having a baby. When Little Ricky arrives, Ricky races to the hospital still in his voodoo-act stage makeup and frightens everyone he passes.

In season four he signs with MGM to star in a film about Don Juan, which takes the Ricardos and Mertzes across the country to Hollywood. The picture is shelved, but the studio keeps him under contract. Later, he takes the band to Europe, takes the family to Cuba to meet his relatives, and moves Lucy and Little Ricky to Connecticut.

Behind the scenes and legacy

CBS was initially reluctant to cast Desi Arnaz as Lucille Ball's husband, doubting audiences would accept a Cuban man married to an all-American woman. Ball insisted that he play her husband, and the couple toured a vaudeville act to prove the pairing worked. Arnaz also became the show's executive producer and co-owner of Desilu, the studio that made it.

The line most people associate with Ricky is some version of "Lucy, you got some 'splaining to do," even though he never says it in exactly that way. The quote lives on in merchandise and articles about the show, a sign of how firmly Ricky is lodged in pop culture.

Ricky Ricardo: frequently asked questions

All I Love Lucy charactersEssential I Love Lucy episodesI Love Lucy triviaMore 1950s sitcom characters

All sitcom characters A to Z