The 50 Funniest TV Moments of All Time

12, I LOVE LUCY, September 15, 1952 Like miniature soldiers, the chocolate bonbons march steadily down the conveyor belt, waiting for their paper wrappings. Lucy and Ethel - determined to prove their wage-earning abilities to their macho husbands - are primed for combat. The wrapping department is the hapless duo's last chance in a mishap-filled day at Kramer's Candy Kitchen factory. Armed with paper, they attack the chocolates, easily keeping up with the advancing lines of candy. But their sweet success is short-lived. Soon the conveyor belt speeds up. It's a deluge, an assault, a bombardment of chocolates. Like bullets from a machine gun, they come fast and close together. Desperate to keep the chocolates from reaching the end of the line unwrapped, Lucy and Ethel start stuffing them inside their puffy hats and down the fronts of their uniforms as well. The harder they try to camouflage their problem, the harder we laugh. When their officious supervisor finally arrives, she sees a neat, tidy work area. She congratulates them, but before they can sigh with relief, she turns to the conveyor belt operator and says, "Speed it up a little." The coup de grace to this bonbon debacle comes when the girls arrive home, sick to their stomachs. Their apologetic husbands are waiting, gifts in hand: five-pound boxes of chocolates for each of them.




7, I LOVE LUCY, May 5, 1952 Try to say it out loud: Vitameatavegamin. That's the name of the product Lucy is hawking for a TV show Ricky is hosting. The rest of the commercial doesn't exactly dance off the tongue, either: "Do you poop out at parties? Are you unpopular?" Now imagine saying all that while drunk. Becuase in addition to containing vitamins and nutrients, Vitameatavegamin packs a 46-proof punch. Still, Lucy, hapless, hopeless Lucy, nails the commercial - until she tastes the product. The revolted face she makes is priceless (made only more so by the line she had to deliver: "So tasty, too! Just like candy!"). Now the director wants her to try it again. Swig. Once more. Swig. The hiccups start; Lucy gets pie-eyed. By the fifth run-through, she has forgotten her lines. In the sixth the malaprops flow ("Do you pop out at parties? Are you unpoopular?"), as does the mangling of the product name ("Mita-meata-megamin"; "Mita-vata-meaty-mac"). Lucy is totally smashed. But oddly enough, the nasty elixir is now delicious. There are countless reasons to love Lucy, television's greatest physical comic, but none greater than this.

Also found in the "50 Funniest" feature was this quote from Ed MacMahon: What Makes Me Laugh... "Lucille Ball in the candy factory [see no. 12]. That's pure slapstick."

And again in No. 48, from Laverne & Shirley, there was a reference to No. 12, in the candy factory: !SNIP! When the girls take over the joint for half the profits, it makes for one of the funniest bits of physical comedy since Lucy and Ethel went to work in candy factory (see No. 12). !SNIP!

One of my all time favorite quotes from television comes from this episode of Laverne & Shirley: "I got $14 in tips and the opportunity to bear the child of a man named Bruno."


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