Reuniting with "I Love Lucy"

After becoming reacquainted with some long lost episodes of I Love Lucy after a long unintentional hiatus, I've come to appreciate Lucille Ball's profound comedic and acting gifts all over again. Her expressions are priceless, her delivery is always on the mark, and she is both hilarious, annoying, endearing and lovable all at once. Perhaps I see aspects of myself in her, as many women and even men probably do, such as her devious grins while hatching a plot, her "bawls" of disappointment or fear of getting chewed out, her sheer determination to see a plan through (no matter how poorly thought out), and her ability to fight and make-up with those closest to her with no hard feelings whatsoever--and that's just scratching the surface.

A few other things I noticed this time around:

-Ricky is actually understandable when he goes on about something in Spanish (I think the problem was I just didn't understand Spanish when I was a child...).
-Sometimes the show contains some gender stereotyping that's to be expected for the time period (such as Lucy being expected to be happy as a stay-at-home mom), whereas often the show breaks with gender stereotypes for the sake of humor and possibly to promote other messages as well (like when Lucy tells Ricky he should spend his hard-earned vacation staying at home with her and taking care of their son, rather than going golfing and living it up with the boys).
-Everyone rags on Ethel for eating so much and maintaining a "fat" appearance when in reality she doesn't look particularly overweight at all by today's standards (or are we now more tolerant of her size because we see such extremes?).
-I wondered how many Latino actors were on a successful prime time show before 1951 (when the show first went on the air), and whether Desi Arnaz helped pave the way for actors of more diverse ethnicities to take center stage on popular shows after I Love Lucy aired.
-The "sleeping in separate beds while married" act still cracks me up.
-All four main characters are fantastic actors--even if the lines or plot lines are cheesy at times, they group still manage to pull of the episodes with style, one of the reasons the show's popularity continues even today.