Obviously, sitcom characters in the 1950s and 60s, even married couples, weren’t allowed to be shown in the same bed together. And in at least two sitcoms I can think of, I Love Lucy and Dick Van Dyke, the couples were shown sleeping in separate beds.
My question is, did this setup seem as ridiculous then as it did now? Were there hot young couples like Rob and Laura who, for whatever reason, slept in twin beds? Because if not, it seems like a very unique form of censorship; whereas most censorship just omitted words or concepts, these shows actually* invented a whole different lifestyle* to duck the censors. The only other thing I can think of that’s remotely close to that is creating bathrooms without toilets, but you could argue that the toilets were just up against the fourth wall.
Just one of those things that bugs me about Dick Van Dyke, as I watch it on Hulu and remember what an otherwise perfect show it was.
Lucy and Ricky Ricardo didn’t always have separate beds. In the first episodes of the first season, they had twin beds that were shoved up next to each other with no space between.
Rob and Laura Petrie could have shared a bed, at least from the 1964–65 season onward. More on television beds.
Oh, there can be reasons for separate beds. My husband and I sleep in separate rooms, because I can’t sleep without a nightlight and radio on, and he can’t sleep with them. We also have different bedtimes and sleeping habits, and both of us snore.
I think “sex with the bra on” is the modern version of this: not that people in real life never leave their bra on during sex, but TV characters always do, so that they can show them in bed together, uncovered from the waist up.
In point of oddness, my parents-in-law did this as long as I knew them. Until my father-in-laws death in 2000 (and I’d known them since the mid-1980s) they slept in twin beds pushed together.
So I can’t say it’s unheard of. Bear in mind, though, that they were about 15-20 years older than the usual parents for my generation. They were both more in 1929-30 and got married and had children very late. So it might be an age thing…or it could be some entirely undiscovered reason.
Having twin beds placed together offers the best of both worlds. Each partner can choose a preferred mattress firmness, and one partner’s restless shifting is less likely to disturb the other partner’s sleep.
My aunt and uncle also had separate beds, and my aunt had a broken back, but the separate beds came first. I think it was the kind of furniture they preferred, and he did snore a lot.
