CBS is airing two classic episodes of one of America’s most beloved sitcoms, I Love Lucy. The two episodes follow the Ricardos and Mertzes to Hollywood where Lucy and Ethel steal John Wayne’s footprints from Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. When they try to replace the cement slab, they get caught by none other than the Duke. Lucy gets into so much trouble it’s sometimes easy to forget that she’s the mother of Little Ricky Ricardo.
In the John Wayne episodes, Little Ricky was portrayed by 3-year-old twin brothers, Joseph A. Mayer and Michael Mayer. They appeared in more than 30 episodes, earning $150 a week. They didn’t act after I Love Lucy. One year after the John Wayne episodes, in 1956, the Mayer family converted from Judaism to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. As adults, Michael went on to become as a special education teacher in North Hollywood, California. Joe moved to Oregon and worked at Portland General Electric.
CBS will air both I Love Lucy, John Wayne episodes on May 20 at 8pm. They were filmed in black-and-white in 1955; both have been “colorized with a vintage look.”
