I Love Lucy (TV Series)

Tennessee Ernie Visits (1954)

Desi Arnaz: Ricky Ricardo

Quotes 

• Cousin Ernie : You must be Cousin Lucy, and there's Cousin Ricky, too. How're you?

  Ricky Ricardo : How are you. Did you say, cousin?

  Cousin Ernie : Oh, yeah, it's just a habit. Down in Tennessee, everybody calls everybody else 'Cousin'.

  Ricky Ricardo : Oh.

  Cousin Ernie : 'Course, down in Tennessee, everybody *is* everybody else's cousin.

• Lucy Ricardo : When did you get in?

  Cousin Ernie : Well, the bus got here at noon, and I've been a'tryin' to find your place.

  Ricky Ricardo : It took you eight hours to get here? We only live ten minutes from the bus depot.

  Cousin Ernie : Not the way I come.

  Lucy Ricardo : What do you mean?

  Cousin Ernie : Well, down on the street, I asked a feller how to get to the Rick-er-does. Well, he said, "Take the subway." Well, he pointed over there to a hole in the ground with some steps a'goin' down in it. I went down in there, and do you know what I saw?

  Lucy Ricardo : What?

  Cousin Ernie : Nothin'! A bunch of people a-standin' there, lookin' in a ditch.

  Lucy Ricardo : Well, that was the subway.

  Cousin Ernie : Oh. Well, here come two streetcars hooked up together. I turned around to ask a feller how to get here, and boy, somebody left the gap down then. All that bunch of people come a'steamin' up there, pushed me through that door, shet it up, and we took off like a scalded gander.

  Lucy Ricardo : Well, what happened then?

  Cousin Ernie : Wellsir, we drove, and drove, and drove, and do you know what?

  Lucy Ricardo : What?

  Cousin Ernie : That driver never got that thing out of that hole. Well now, it wasn't so funny. We stopped once and they opened that door, and I caught a little daylight in my eye, and I shot out'a there like a burnt rabbit. I got up on top of the ground again, and I was in some place called Long Island, and I walked here.

  Lucy Ricardo : [astonished]  You walked all the way from Long Island?

  Cousin Ernie : Yep. Ding-donged if it ain't.

  Lucy Ricardo : What?

  Cousin Ernie : A long island!

• Ricky Ricardo : Ricky:

  [after Cousin Ernie searches for the bathroom and then whispers in Ricky's ear] 

  Ricky Ricardo : Through the bedroom!

  Cousin Ernie : Cousin Ernie: You mean it's in the house?