Visible crew/equipment: During the living room scenes throughout the episode, various tape marks are visible on the carpet near the couch and desk, where different actors stand.
Sentimental Anniversary - S3-E15
Continuity mistake: While Lucy's showing Little Ricky the pictures in the album, we see Lucy's fingernails are not polished, but in the closeup of her hand pointing to the photo the fingernails have dark polish on them. This happens again when Lucy's looking through the album with Ricky.
Continuity mistake: While Ethel's looking at the Baby Pictures we see her fingernails are short and not polished, but in the closeup of her hand holding one of the photos the fingernails are long with dark polish.
Other mistake: When Ricky puts the baby in the crib and begins telling him the bedtime story, in the closeups Little Ricky's sitting up beside the crib rails (at Ricky's side of the room), but in all the wideshots when the camera pulls back to show Ricky's lively storytelling, we can see that Little Ricky is not where he should be.
Continuity mistake: While Ricky's telling the bedtime story in Spanish to Little Ricky (worth watching just for this scene), in the closeups of the baby in the crib, the pillow bumper has an embroidered heart with stick figures, which flips in reverse. Actually, the last closeup of Little Ricky lying down is the normal shot, but all the closeups of the baby sitting up are the flipped shots. (This pillow bumper has stick figures of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, and can be seen in previous episodes). (00:06:40)
Visible crew/equipment: When Lucy, Ethel, Ricky, and Fred are in the living room having coffee, the actors' tape marks are visible on the carpet around the coffee table.
Continuity mistake: When Lucy and Ricky are sitting on the coffee table looking through photos of Little Ricky, just as Lucy quips, "What magazine, body beautiful?" in the closeup the baby's photo orientation is portrait, but in the wideshots when Lucy looks at it and hands it to Ricky the orientation is landscape. (00:01:50)
Ricky's Old Girlfriend - S3-E11
Continuity mistake: When Fred tells Ricky there's an article in the newspaper about Carlota Romero, there's a closeup of the newspaper's back page with Carlota's photo, but later when Lucy takes the newspaper (the same NY Gazette issue) from Ethel, before she turns it over we can see that the back page photo and layout are different. (00:08:30 - 00:10:20)
Ricky's Old Girlfriend - S3-E11
Continuity mistake: When Fred shows Ricky the newspaper article about Carlota Romero appearing at the Opal Room, the front page of the paper reads "New York Gazette", but in the closeup of the article on the back page the newspaper is called "The Daily Record." (00:08:35)
Continuity mistake: In season 2's episode "The Ricardos Change Apartments" their new apartment number is "3B", but in this episode when Lucy's at her audition she tells the casting agent that her apartment number is "3D" (deliberately done in order for the 3D joke to work), and it's in the next episode "The French Revue" that we see the new number "3D" on the door. (00:19:30)
Redecorating the Mertzes' Apartment - S3-E7
Visible crew/equipment: At the end, when Lucy shows Ethel the brand new furniture in the apartment, note the actor's tape mark on the carpet between the couch and coffee table, where Lucy sits down. Fun to note: just as Ethel says "Everything turned out just wonderful, everything except," we can see one of the flying feathers from the earlier scene at the Mertz's apartment. The Mertz set was located right beside the Ricardo set. (00:24:25)
Visible crew/equipment: When Lucy and Ethel are at Caroline Appleby's apartment, a few actors' tape marks are visible on the carpet near the couch and side table, where characters will stand at different times during the scene. (00:06:00)
Equal Rights - S3-E3
Revealing mistake: When Lucy and Ethel go down to the jail house to see Rickey and Fred, there is a scene where Lucy says "I wonder how he (Rickey) kisses" and then she kisses him, then Ethel says the same thing about Fred and leans in for a kiss. Problem is she obviously doesn't get anywhere near his lips to touch them for a kiss, yet makes the kissing sound, turns around and says "hmmm" as if the "kiss" wasn't all that . Of course we all know those two characters did not get along on set anyways .
Bonus Bucks - S3-E20
Continuity mistake: After Ricky takes out the extra expenses from the prize money, when starched-up Lucy walks into the office Fred's holding the last dollar bill, and in the closeup of Ethel's and Fred's shocked reactions to Lucy's appearance we see Lucy's hand holding the dollar, but in the next wideshot Lucy's open hand is empty so Fred gives her the dollar. (00:24:35)
The Million Dollar Idea - S3-E12
Continuity mistake: When Ethel says "He's never forgiven Ford for scooping him with the horseless carriage" Lucy is laughing. The shot changes, she is no longer laughing.
Ricky's Old Girlfriend - S3-E11
Visible crew/equipment: In Lucy's dream, when Carlota Romero and Lucy are dancing, the camera pulls out too far and where the set carpet ends and the studio floor begins can be seen.
The Million Dollar Idea - S3-E12
Character mistake: When Ricky sits down to calculate by hand how much Lucy and Ethel have spent on supplies to make and sell their salad dressing, he adds $7.21 for the groceries, $1.20 for the jars, and 10 cents for the labels. He says his total is $8.31. He miscalculated; the correct total is $8.51. Ironically, his profit calculation is correct at 3 cents a jar. (00:15:10)
Character mistake: When Fred, Ethel, and Ricky confront Lucy on what she wrote about them in her novel Ricky states "I'm so hammy I should go lie down between two slices of rye bread." This is incorrect. Lucy wrote "He turned into such a big ham you could stuff him with cloves."
Answer: There is no reason. It's a just a silly plot device, typical of the era. Women characters were often portrayed as making uninformed assumptions or decisions.
raywest ★