The last living member of I Love Lucy’s core cast was just 4 years old when he started on the show, but he still has vivid memories of that time.
Credited as Richard Keith on the show, Keith Thibodeaux played Ricky Ricardo Jr. — a.k.a. Little Ricky — the child of Lucy and Ricky Ricardo, played by stars Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz on the legendary sitcom. In the first episode of The CW’s new eight-part special, TV We Love, Thibodeaux looked back on the game-changing series and the power players who made it happen.
Ball and Arnaz, who were married in real life and had a real child around the same time their Lucy characters had Little Ricky, “took me in as their own child and introduced me to their children, Lucie Jr. and Desi Jr., who I became really good friends with as a kid,” Thibodeaux said. “We grew up together.”
At one time, I Love Lucy was the most-watched show in the world, and Thibodeaux said he felt the pressure — especially from Ball. Recalling one particular episode, Thibodeaux shared, “Lucy was very demanding of everybody being right on cue,” but noted that “Desi treated me really, really good. He’d teach us how to fish and ride horses and swim. I had a heart for him.”
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In season 6’s “The Ricardos Visit Cuba,” Lucy and Ricky visit his native Cuba, so that Ricky can show off his wife and child to his family. While there, the father and son sing a rendition of the band leader’s signature song, “Babalu,” while accompanying themselves on conga drums.
“It’s a lot of pressure for a little kid,” Thibodeaux reflected. “I did other shows after that, but this was the big one, in front of a live audience. You did one take, and that was it. It hurt my hand so much to do, because I wasn’t used to doing that, playing the congas.”
It was young Thibodeaux’s prodigious knack for drumming that got him the part to start with, however.
“I started playing drums when I was, like, two years old on trash cans in my backyard in Lafayette, Louisiana,” Thibodeaux recalled. “At the audition for the I Love Lucy show, they were looking to expand the part of Little Ricky. I went to meet Lucy there in her glory. There she was in the flesh, and she looked at me, and she said, ‘Well, he’s cute. But what does he do?'”
Without missing a beat, Thibodeaux’s dad informed the comedy legend that his son was an excellent drummer.
“So I started jamming on the drums. Finally, Desi himself came over, started playing with me, stood up after a while, laughed, and said, ‘I think we found our Little Ricky,'” Thibodeaux shared.
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Thibodeaux is the most recognizable face among the young cast of I Love Lucy, a show that, for then and now alike, stands out within a youth-obsessed industry as dominated by older performers.
He wasn’t the only actor to play the Ricardos’ progeny on the sitcom, however; twins Mike and Joe Mayer took turns playing Little Ricky as a toddler, and other actors filled the gaps before Thibodeaux took over as a preschooler.
The TV We Love episode focusing on I Love Lucy underscores how important the Ricky Ricardo Jr. character was to the sitcom. The season 2 episode in which Lucy gives birth to Ricky Jr., “Lucy Goes to the Hospital,” set a new viewership record when nearly 68 percent of all American homes with TVs tuned in to watch.
