Flashback Feels: A look back at one of the most watched sitcom episodes of all time when 'I Love Lucy' featured the delivery of Lucille Ball's baby on television. 

Flashback Feels: 'I Love Lucy' Delivers a Baby 

Welcome back to trending now. It's time for flashback fields. Yes. And by the way, we're going really far back in the time machine today, we're going back 70 years when a record breaking number of people tuned in to watch. I love lucy Ricky. This is it. Yes. Season two, episode 16 of I love lucy was called lucy Goes to the hospital and an air january 19th, 1953 on CBS. And this was watched by 74% of all american households and it received a 90 to share. If you want to know what that means. That essentially means 92% of every single person in America who was watching the television at that time was watching this episode Is wild, crazy. Well, in case you're wondering what that also means is that the show was watched by 43.9 million people, which was a record until 1956 when some guy named Elvis Presley appeared on the Ed Sullivan show for the first time, Lucy goes to the hospital was watched by even more people than the inauguration of President Dwight Eisenhower, which happened the day before. Now, you might be asking yourself why was this episode such a big deal. Given the fact that there were so many other episodes of I love lucy out there. Well, this was a big deal because lucy gave birth to a boy this after learning that she was pregnant just six episodes earlier. And as you saw, there's a lot of antics leading up to that big moment, but in a blending of fiction and reality, both lucy the character and the real Lucille ball were both pregnant and according to pop culture writer Lauren Berlant, this Was the very first time a pregnant actor portrayed a fictional pregnant character in the history of American television and that's not even the craziest part. The episode was filmed on November 14, 1952, Lucille Ball gave birth two months later on January 19, 1953. That's right. Lucille ball gave birth in real life on the same day her fictional character did 12 hours before Lucy goes to the hospital. Crazy! Well, Lucille also used the episode to reveal the sex of her baby which the entire country had been waiting to find out. I mean, just insane to think that you go from the hospital and you're immediately shuffled right to the production studio to do this episode. And it's just one of the reasons Lucy goes to the hospital is one of the most watched episodes of television of all time. Of course, the show kept running for another four seasons after this, it was also the first show to ever have its finale in the top of the Nielsen ratings as well. Now, three months after lucy goes to the hospital aired a new magazine called tv guy first appeared on newsstands and its very first cover featured lucy and Desi Arnaz baby boy with the headline, lucy's $50 million baby. Well during its run, I love lucy was nominated for 24 Emmy Awards and scored five wins with two of them going to Lucille ball during one of her acceptance speeches, Paul said, quote the last time I got it, I thought they gave it to me because I had a baby. How cute! I mean it also just goes to show what an incredible sort of story she had, breaking the glass ceiling of becoming such a huge actor at the time, but also the challenges she had to go through given the fact that she had a baby and didn't want that to interfere with the show as well. Doing it all while pregnant. Alright guys, that's it for this edition of trending. We'll see you back here tomorrow at seven p.m. Eastern, but stay tuned. More cheddar news is up next.