The look on Desi’s face when Keith sings the first Babalu is PRICELESS!! The Arnaz’s hit it out of the park when they discovered this little guy. Not only could he play drums like a boss at such a young age but they lucked out that he could pass for their real son (and many thought he WAS for the longest time)
They were really married and she really was pregnant with lil ricky also one of episode thr son did a play for school and a little girl was on it thats thr older daughter!
I love when Desi says Lucy is a wonderful girl. Even when they visited Jamestown NY in 1956, Desi told the crowd "I married a wonderful girl" and Lucy called him "My guy" & said "Come here boy"
As has often been said, "I Love Lucy" wasn't merely the title of a television series. And until the day he died, Lucille Ball continued to call Desi Arnaz whenever she needed business advice. He evidently called Lucy "Big Red." There is a wonderful home movie (shot by Lucie Arnaz, presumably, in the late 1970s or early 1980s) of Lucy and Desi playing with one of their grandchildren (by Lucie Arnaz) in a swimming pool, laughing and kidding each other like any happy couple of grandparents. Even though the pair divorced in 1960 and each remarried to other spouses, Lucy and Desi never really stopped loving each other. They just couldn't live together anymore, basically because of Desi's problems with alcohol, gambling, and carelessness about infidelity in seeing other women while married to Lucy. As I understand it, it wasn't so much that Desi "fooled around" now and then that bothered Lucy, but rather that he was so careless about it, would be caught in photographs by the press, etc. with these "other women," which embarrassed and hurt Lucy, who was also fearful her and Desi's young children would learn of these episodes from the media or by other children in the neighborhood or at school. I think Lucy's basic attitude about Desi's philandering was a common one among some wives of some men in show business, that so long as it was kept strictly private what she didn't know wouldn't hurt her or her children. But with Desi, it often appeared he was flaunting his infidelity to hurt Lucy. And Lucy had a rather rough childhood too, her father having died (from typhoid) when she was a baby and her mom frequently away from home working to support her family, eventually marrying the man who became Lucy's stepfather. Lucy had to help raise her younger brother in the home of her maternal grandfather (Fred Hunt) for a few years before her mother remarried. The family had to move a few times too, one time after an unfortunate accident involving some neighbors target shooting under Fred Hunt's supervision led to a neighbor boy being accidentally shot and paralyzed, which caused a local scandal and forced the family to sell their home and furnishings to settle a financial legal judgment, whereupon the family moved to another home in Jamestown, NY. Lucy was evidently happiest as a child when she and her brother Fred Ball lived with their grandparents in the summer resort town of Celoron, NY, which at the time boasted an amazing amusement park with a vaudeville stage and was near Chautauqua Lake. I realize I got a bit carried away here. But your posting inspired me to share some from the books (six of them, actually) I have read about Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz and Desilu Studios, including Lucy's own posthumous memoir "Love, Lucy," Desi's autobiography (simply titled "A Book" by Des Arnaz), a great coffee table book (the title of which escapes me at the moment), Bart Andrews' definitive "The 'I Love Lucy' Book," "Desilu: The Story of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz" (which I read one afternoon/evening kneeling down on the [carpeted] floor of a Barnes and Noble bookstore in Boston), and "The Other Side of Ethel Mertz: The Life Story of Vivian Vance." I think only about actress Bette Davis and The Rolling Stones have I read as many or more books than about Lucy and Desi. But most of us have our passions, a few things which interest us more than any other things.
@@jilllovesall4549 The actor playing Little Ricky is Keith Thibodeaux. He was not Desi Arnaz, Jr. The OP is saying that the actors Lucy & Desi loved Keith, & they did. Lucie Arnaz said Keith, who was a few years older than Desi Jr., taught Little Desi to play the drums.
I loved when they showed the musical bits on the show, even though I was little I remember thinking how handsome Desi Arnaz (Ricky) was... I always loved this episode
Just watched the "Cuban Pete" dance scene to look for this scene!!!!! So glad this was uploaded!!! Another one of my favs!!!! Yassssssssss!!! 😁😁😁 🛢️👍🏾👍🏾👍🏾 02.17.2022
Marie Culbreth THAT was his name...thanks! I am from Louisiana, as was the child actor, if memory serves me. With a name like Thibodeaux, he must have been!😉
@@lisaandersen5644 No, that is NOT Desi Arnaz, Jr. Keith was playing Little Ricky when Desi Jr. was only 2 years old. Lucie Arnaz said Keith was around a lot when they were kids & he taught Desi Jr. to play the drums. He's also in most of their home movies. He & Desi Jr. became best friends.
@@lisaandersen5644 The actor playing Little Ricky is named Keith Thibodeaux. He's the last surviving ILL cast member. He went on to be the drummer for David & the Giants, a Christian rock band, in the '80s. Look it up.
I wonder how many people understood that Babalu was short for Babalu aye .He along with many were brought from west africa to the American north and south .he is the orisha of disease and healing .
Most definitely ,I use to get the grit boxes two of them and play along I think if I had pursued playing g them I would be famous. In the 60s growi g up it was a man's world and women didn't play instruments much, I lost interest but this episode I could watch over and over
Keith Thibadeaux (aka Little Ricky) was an amazing little drummer, look at how well he keeps up with Desi! If I remember correctly though, he won the role of Little Ricky after Desi saw him drumming.
@@jilllovesall4549 Quit saying that! That's NOT their real son. Desi Jr. was too young to play Little Ricky! He was born & 2 years later Keith was playing Little Ricky at age 5.
It is true that Desi Jr made an appearance in the episode Lucy dedicates a statue at the ceremony where he stands by Vivian Vance & she asks him "Are u having a good time?" & he said yes. He was 4 yrs old at the time. But little Ricky was played by Keith Thibodeaux.
@@jeffnettleton3858 Keith Thibodeaux and Richard Keith are the correct spellings. You transposed the "e" and "i" in Mr. Thibodeaux's actual given name and his surname. And Mr. Thibodeaux has stated he disliked having been billed as "Little Ricky" in the opening credits of "The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour," but stuck with the stage name of "Richard Keith" (which was a simple reversal of his actual given and middle names) because he was a minor at the time and the stage name had already been established for his television career by Desi Arnaz. Thibodeaux's actual full name is "Keith Richard Thibodeaux." The choice of "Richard Keith" as a stage name for Mr. Thibodeaux turned out to be an unknowingly prophetic move on Arnaz's part, because, after 1963 and until the early 1970s the use of Mr. Thibodeaux's actual given and middle names ("Keith" and "Richard") were used by another show business personality who played rhythm guitar for a then up-and-coming British rock and roll band known as The Rolling Stones, the British guitarist having dropped the "S" from his actual surname of "Richards" because the group's then-manager (Andrew Loog Oldham) advised him the surname of "Richard" sounded "more rock and roll," no doubt influenced by British pop star Cliff Richard. In the early 1970s the man many have referred to as "the heart-and-soul of The Rolling Stones" resumed the use of his actual surname, becoming Keith Richards again. But for a brief period, from 1963-1966, there was a "Richard Keith" (drummer) and a "Keith Richard" (guitarist) each playing music professionally, the former also acting in television. The most prolific of Mr. Thibodeaux's roles after his appearances (as "Ricky Ricardo, Jr.") in "I Love Lucy" and "The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour were his appearances as "Johnny Paul Jason" (the best and most frequently seen friend of Ronny Howard's "Opie Taylor" character) in "The Andy Griffith Show." For several years following the end of his decade-long (1956-1966) acting career Mr. Thibodeaux played drums in rock bands, including substituting for Desi Arnaz, Jr. in the pop combo Dino, Desi, and Billy. Today, Mr. Thibodeaux is, along with his wife, co-director of a Mississippi-based ballet company, and still regularly performs and records music playing his drums.
I dont know if you notice little ricky trying to follow his fathers foot steps while going backwards. The father goes backwards like normal but, little ricky pushes backwards with one leg.(he tries his best to do like his pretend father). ❤
This is so much like my brother Sam and his son Braden.... Sam will sing somethin' and Braden will repeat it almost EXACTLY like his daddy.... Such cuteness... even if this little boy ISN'T Desi's.... LOL!!!!!!!
Throughout the show I noticed Lucy/Ricky never once say "I love you" to Little Ricky, such as when they're tucking him into bed and saying goodnight - or talking to him over the phone.
It must have been hard and weird for their real son to watch these episodes. At 2:40 Little Ricky can’t hit the notes and Desi signals the band to sing with him. So cute.
They only used Little Ricky in 15 episodes. They should have used him a lot MORE and used FRED a lot LESS! At 2:45, Little Ricky aka Richard Keith aka Keith Thibodeaux was unable to sing the high notes because the key was an octave too high for him.. he was very upset about that and speaks about it a lot. That episode was banned from broadcast for 10 years because it was depicted to be filmed in Cuba - and tensions between the USA and Cuba were extremely tense at that time.
Videotape and the big brother Here. For example the company could be the most popular market source of revenue forms in the choice market but the choices captain america better.
No, Little Ricky was NOT Lucy & Desi's son. He was played by an actor named Keith Thibodeaux. He later went on to play Opie's friend on The Andy Griffith Show.
