# First TV Couple in Bed? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 16, 2011, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-tv-couple-in-bed/603143 "2011-11-16T17:45:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2011, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-tv-couple-in-bed/603143/21 "2011-11-16T21:07:15Z")
> [@Eve](#): > > 1947, so that pretty much clinches it. I wonder if that show ever actually depicted the couple in bed together, or if it was just inferred that they shared it because they only had the one bed? I know that the television version of _The Bickersons_ (1951) actually showed the couple in the bed together. (Context: Hubby snores, wife is driven out of her mind.) ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2011, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-tv-couple-in-bed/603143/22 "2011-11-16T21:13:10Z")
> [@Mr.Moto](#): > > Separate beds. And yet they had a kid. Mr. Petrie must have been seriously well-endowed. ---
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2011, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-tv-couple-in-bed/603143/23 "2011-11-16T21:17:36Z")
Lucy and Desi also had a baby and one of them had to have one foot on the floor at all times. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2011, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-tv-couple-in-bed/603143/24 "2011-11-16T21:18:23Z")
> [@Biggirl](#): > > Lucy and Desi also had a baby and one of them had to have one foot on the floor at all times. Yeah, but you know those Latins. 😉 I kid, I kid. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2011, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-tv-couple-in-bed/603143/25 "2011-11-16T21:25:42Z")
On a flip side question, I wonder who the last couple to sleep in separate beds was. Did Laura and Rob Petrie sleep in the same bed? ETA: Of course art did imitate life to a degree. In old houses you’ll often find his/her bedrooms if the couple was rich enough, and separate beds when they weren’t. My grandparents slept in separate double beds in the same room. It started for two reasons: 1- He worked for the railroads and sometimes came into town during the middle of the night, so this allowed him to crawl into bed without waking her up. 2- They didn’t like each other. So it worked. ---
**Author:** ![notfrommensa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f14d63/32.png) [@notfrommensa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/notfrommensa)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2011, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-tv-couple-in-bed/603143/26 "2011-11-16T22:59:52Z")
FWIW, My parents had twin beds when I was growing up. Samantha and Darrin Stevens slept in the same bed. ---
**Author:** ![Sally\_Mander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e56c9b/32.png) [@Sally\_Mander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sally_Mander)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2011, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-tv-couple-in-bed/603143/27 "2011-11-16T23:01:21Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > Did Laura and Rob Petrie sleep in the same bed? Nope. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2011, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-tv-couple-in-bed/603143/28 "2011-11-16T23:03:03Z")
This has been studied about as closely as ancient Biblical texts, and here’s what TV scholars have come up with. Mary Kay and Johnny – a quiet little story about a young married couple. Sometimes the story ended with them getting in bed and saying goodnight, so they clearly shared a bed. But, as noted, it was 1947 and the DuMont Network, so does it really count? And there may have been some other live sitcom that wasn’t as historically notable as Mary Kay and Johnny, so no one even remembers where the characters slept. Ozzie and Harriet – they absolutely did sleep in the same bed on their show, but the line between their show business existence and real life was so blurry, instead of a sitcom, it might have actually been a reality show. Bewitched and The Munsters – if one or both of the characters in bed isn’t human, does that count? So it gets down to Oliver and Lisa as the first a) completely fictional, b) completely human characters on c) a show that was broadcast somewhere other than New York, Washington and Pittsburgh. ---
**Author:** ![Alka\_Seltzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c89c15/32.png) [@Alka\_Seltzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alka_Seltzer)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2011, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-tv-couple-in-bed/603143/29 "2011-11-16T23:04:47Z")
> [@KneadToKnow](#): > > And yet they had a kid. Mr. Petrie must have been seriously well-endowed. Maybe he just had good aim? ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2011, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-tv-couple-in-bed/603143/30 "2011-11-16T23:05:31Z")
I wonder who the first being shown making out in a bed were. ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Mapp](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miss_mapp/32/369_2.png) [@Miss\_Mapp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Mapp)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2011, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-tv-couple-in-bed/603143/31 "2011-11-16T23:54:24Z")
> [@notfrommensa](#): > > I remember an episode of I Love Lucy when they were traveling to California and they shared a bed with a very bad mattress. That was Fred & Ethel who had the saggy-mattressed bed in the cheap roadside inn. According to Ethel, their mattress at home was just the same. Ethel skillfully fastened Fred’s nightshirt to the bedframe to keep him from rolling into the middle of the bed, then braced him with pillows while Ricky and Lucy, who had a bunkbed in the same room, watched with fascination. “You do that every night?” Lucy and Ricky, by the way, had twin beds pushed together in the first season of I Love Lucy; the separated beds came later. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2011, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-tv-couple-in-bed/603143/32 "2011-11-17T00:34:42Z")
> [@Alka\_Seltzer](#): > > Maybe he just had good aim? “Oh, _Ro-oo-oo-b!_” ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2011, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-tv-couple-in-bed/603143/33 "2011-11-17T01:40:14Z")
I wonder if Mike and Gloria (Bunker) Stivic were the first married couple to openly address their sex life on the show. There were others you saw having romantic dinners and they had kids so you figured at some point they had sex, but Mike and Gloria’s sex life was specifically mentioned by the couple and by Archie (the noise and the frequency). There were also episodes that mentioned their desire for each other waning, Mike not wanting to wear condoms/Gloria going on the pill, Mike having erectile dysfunction, etc… Neither character was ever seen wearing less than you’d see someone wearing in a park on a Saturday afternoon, but they were totally sexual beings. Ethel may have kinda sorta addressed her lack of one in an episode of _I Love Lucy_. Due to a misunderstanding Fred thought she was pregnant (and Ricky thought Lucy was pregnant- this was before she really did become pregnant) and when Ethel realized what he thought she said something like “Oh get serious!”. Of course that may have been about her age. (Vivian Vance was roughly the same age as Lucille Ball in real life but Ethel was several years older than Lucy.) ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2011, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-tv-couple-in-bed/603143/34 "2011-11-17T02:36:18Z")
> [@Skara\_Brae](#): > > According to [Snopes](http://www.snopes.com/radiotv/tv/marykay.asp), its a show called “Mary Kay and Johnny.” Which I have never heard of… > [@Eve](#): > > 1947, so that pretty much clinches it. > [@Larry\_Mudd](#): > > I wonder if that show ever actually depicted the couple in bed together, or if it was just inferred that they shared it because they only had the one bed? This is the problem that [The TV Geek](http://www.triviahalloffame.com/tvgeek.aspx) has with it unless some definitive clips turn up. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2011, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-tv-couple-in-bed/603143/35 "2011-11-17T03:12:41Z")
> [@Baker](#): > > The Douglases slept in the same bed, on Green Acres. It’s definitely not the Brady Bunch. At about the same time as Green Acres was Petticoat Junction. I recall when the youngest daughter got married. They slept in the same bed. And I remember how funny it looked when, as often happened, there would be a knock on the bedroom door, they’d call out “Just a minute!” and Steve, the husband, would get up in his full suit of pajamas, really overdressed for bed, and slip on a bathrobe before opening the door. I think Bewitched has them beat. The early episodes were still B&W. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2011, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-tv-couple-in-bed/603143/36 "2011-11-17T03:19:05Z")
Missed the Edit window: Sure, Mary Kay and Johnny seems the definitive answer now, but I think we should try to figure out the first TV couple in a show that people actually heard of and which aired on the heels of the Puritan '50s. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2011, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-tv-couple-in-bed/603143/37 "2011-11-17T03:39:53Z")
There were lots of anthology shows in the 1950s, many of which are now lost. I wonder if the rules for couples in bed together or other displays of real-life quotidian intimacy were different for them than for regular series. ---
**Author:** ![sitchensis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sitchensis/32/4892_2.png) [@sitchensis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sitchensis)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2011, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-tv-couple-in-bed/603143/38 "2011-11-17T05:19:14Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > Missed the Edit window: Sure, Mary Kay and Johnny seems the definitive answer now, but I think we should try to figure out the first TV couple in a show that people actually heard of and which aired on the heels of the Puritan '50s. [QUOTE=From an Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader] Mary Kay and Johnny Sterns, married in real life, played “themselves.” Most of the action took place in the couple’s apartment. [/QUOTE] So they slept in the same bed because it was fake reality TV, or reality that was faked to look like sitcom TV. ---
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2011, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-tv-couple-in-bed/603143/39 "2011-11-17T17:51:36Z")
According to the _Mary Kay and Johnny_ wiki page, it’s the first program to show a couple sharing a bed. Also, after a year on DuMont, the show moved to CBS for half a year, much of the time being broadcast every weeknight, and then ran for one more year each Saturday night on NBC, which broadcast the final episode on March 11, 1950. ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2011, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-tv-couple-in-bed/603143/40 "2011-11-19T01:00:57Z")
> [@Washoe](#): > > Lucy and Ricky slept in separate beds. I’ve seen some episodes where they have one large bed instead of the typical two smaller ones. I think it was after they had little Ricky and moved into the larger apartment. It was definitely before they moved to the house. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-tv-couple-in-bed/603143.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-tv-couple-in-bed/603143.md?page=3)