I have not seen the episode(s) where it is explained why everyone moves to New York. Can anyone shed light on this? Do they come back to California? I know the George Burns Show had them back there.
shareI think one of the main reasons the cast stayed in New York for a season is so that the writers could introduce Ronnie to the cast; he is shown to be studying drama there. When the crew went back to California, Ronnie went to UC. It's interesting to note that in the New York episodes, Ronnie seemed very intent on making himself different from his parents by being strongly interested in drama; in California, however, this angle seems to be dropped and Ronnie acted more like a typical 50s college boy type.
Also, around this time (1955-ish), I Love Lucy was doing episodes in California and Europe, with a lot of comedy coming from the cast's travels. Maybe other shows wanted to try boosting their ratings with a traveling theme also?
It was never really explained in the scripts why everyone packed up and moved to New York. If I remember correctly (from a rerun a couple of weeks back), George was going to New York for business reasons and Gracie and the Mortons came along for the ride. This was the first episode of the sixth season; the fifth season ender had them all trying to go to Hawaii to escape Blanche's mooching brother.
The next season, they all went back to Beverly Hills. Their house had been considerably upgraded from the earlier seasons, though it was allegedly the same house.