I was watching *Malcolm in the Middle * last night. It was an early episode rerun. Malcolm was probably in the 6th or 7th grade; Dewey was probably in the 3rd or 4th grade.
I noticed that the two boys shared one big bed. That struck me as weird – something that parents would strongly resist doing with boys that age unless the family was well below the poverty line. I realize that this is a TV show depicting an odd-ball – but very affectionate, one must admit – family, but the two-boys-in-a-bed thing was not mentioned to score any comedy points or advance the plot. It was just shown as one of those normal middle-class family things, like Hal driving a dowdy car.
Was this a really early episode?
I seem to recall the family’s financial status being kind of liquid when the show started. They had as much money as the plot called for. Sometimes near destitute, sometimes enough that they havea laweyer on retainer to help with all the trouble the boys got into.
I am sure in later episodes this bed situation was rectified. I seem to recall an episode that centered around Malcolm and Dewey having to share a bed for a time and how terrible it was. Dewey also seemed to have his own room sometimes and share a room with Reese and Malcolm.
I grew up in a blue-collar family in Baltimore. We weren’t poor, owned our house, took vacations. I slept in a double bed with my brother, who was 4 years younger, for several years. There were four kids in a three bedroom house. This was a fairly common arrangement in my neighborhood. I think this may have been much more common in the 50s and 60s when I was growing up than it is now.
I wouldn’t find anything that odd about it. Though it must have been a temporary thing, I watch the reruns just about every night and don’t recall that happening.
The small mexican restaurant I eat at every night is owned by “Deweys” (Eric Per Sullivan’s) family. His father is the host and looks just like him and we usually talk to him. It is immediately obvious and funny to see a big Dewey. Sometimes Dewey himself is there or his real life brothers. It is like eating at the Malcolm and the Middle restaurant. I will ask Dewey what is up with that if he is there tonight.
I shared a bed with my younger brother sometimes when one of us got creaped out which seemed to happen pretty often… We stopped that by about 6th grade though.
I think it’s rare for kids to bunk together these days, but it was certainly the norm for a lot of familys and not all that long ago. My husband shared a bed with his sisters for a while. They were 4 kids and 2 parents in a one-bedroom apartment.
(I agree the show seems to throw certain inconvenient elements of continuity out the window for the sake of driving the plot into the funny zone. I don’t really mind it, however. I just go with the flow.)
Perhaps the episode I saw followed close behind the double-bunk episode you think you once saw. It might’ve been too soon to change the bed situation, even if it had nothing to do with the new episode plot.
In any case, the episode in question was the one where the family drives to some Indian casino resort in the desert for a short vacation. Hal & Dewey try counting cards and get banished from the casino. To fill the time, Hal takes Malcolm and Reese on a hike into the desert where they wander on to an active missle test range. Lois & Dewey, meanwhile, enjoy a full spa treatment. The double-bunk scene takes place early in the show when Lois barges into the room to rouse the boys by flinging off all their bedcovers.
I don’t see anything wrong with siblings of any age and both sexes sharing a bed. I guess I don’t understand why this was strange. I have seen grown brothers crash after long day on one couch. They are siblings…
my brothers shared a bed for years- technically they pushed their twin beds together, but I don’t find it weird. They stopped when we moved, when the older brother was about to enter high school.
