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Lucy and Fred Ride the Staten Island Ferry
In a of I Love Lucy, Lucy Ricardo finds herself riding the Staten Island Ferry with her neighbor and friend Fred Mertz. The Ricardos and the Mertzes are about to embark on a boat ride to Europe, but it turns out Fred suffers from severe seasickness! Lucy helps Fred buy some motion sickness medication from the store, and the two decide to ride the ferry to see how well the drug works for Fred. In a comedic twist, Lucy herself gets seasick on the ferry! She quickly consumes several of Fred’s pills (“5 or 6”), despite Fred warning her that they make you feel awfully drowsy. Before long, the two pass out on the ferry. Hours later, they both wake up groggy, having unknowingly slept through five round trips on the ferry during the afternoon!
This episode of I Love Lucy aired in 1956, a time when motion sickness drugs were still relatively new for Americans. People quickly learned that they caused drowsiness, however. While Lucy and Fred’s experience was great comedy, motion sickness drugs had already advanced when the episode aired. If Lucy and Fred had spent a little more time at the drug store and picked out a different drug…
