‘The Brady Bunch’ Wasn’t the First Time a Married TV Couple Shared a Bed

The Brady Bunch was revolutionary for depicting the realities of the American family of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, including blended families, bad perms and bed sharing. Despite the fact that almost all married couples sleep in the same bed (unless one of them is a sleep-fighter or something), TV networks were reluctant to acknowledge the existence of any bed larger than a twin for the first few decades of the medium’s history, instead depicting the unhinged arrangement of couples sleeping in separate beds in the same room. The Brady Bunch is often cited as the first time a married couple was allowed to visibly co-sleep, though others argue that the Munsters or Flintstones got to it first. 

They’re all wrong.

In fact, the first sitcom that depicted a married couple sharing a bed was also arguably the first sitcom ever. Mary Kay and Johnny, which ran from 1947 to 1950, somehow managed to break ground that was immediately sealed back up. (That’s right — TV in the ‘40s. Margaret Mitchell could have watched it.) In addition to portraying its stars, who were married in real life, in the same bed, the series was also the first to feature a pregnant woman after Mary Kay Stearns became pregnant in real life, forcing the team to write her condition into the show. 

Nope, we’re not getting it confused with I Love Lucy, although their premises (a stern bandleader or bank employee with a “zany” wife always getting into trouble) were also suspiciously similar. Mary Kay even had the same hairstyle as Lucy. We’re not accusing the Ball-Arnazes of theft; that’s because I Love Lucy was based on the radio series My Favorite Husband, which predated Mary Kay and Johnny. They were just very popular ideas (and hairdos).

So why do people think it took until the ‘60s for TV beds to embiggen? 

It’s probably because that was true for most of the networks. Mary Kay and Johnny aired on one that was shuttered by 1956, DuMont, which apparently had different standards than CBS and NBC. You know, the ones you’ve heard of. In the late ‘40s, television was also funded by sponsors, not networks, so they probably had less say to begin with. It didn’t help that, in the ‘70s, the company that owned DuMont’s archives literally dumped it all in the East River. From that point forward, almost every trace of Mary Kay and Johnny — what hasn’t survived in museums and on YouTube — has lingered at the bottom of the riverbed alongside broken beer bottles and plastic grocery bags like the corpse it is. 

We’re not saying Lucille Ball had anything to do with that… but we’re not not saying it.