the series is about two married couples living in new york city: ricky and lucy ricardo, and oldsters fred and ethel mertz. they all live in the same apartment building. ricky is a nightclub band leader. lucy is a housewife. many episodes revolve around lucy's attempts to get into ricky's show. she often pulls fred and ethel into her schemes. in one episode, lucy and ethel are assembly line workers in a candy factory. they cannot keep up with packaging the candy so they eat it. in another episode, lucy gets drunk on a health tonic while shooting a television commercial. four or five episodes follow the couples on trips to italy and to hollywood. ball and arnaz were real-life husband and wife. they became the parents of a boy during the run of the series. this event was woven into the series. a child actor played their son "little ricky". eventually they would all move to a rural area in connecticut.