Were Fred and Wilma Flintstone the First TV Couple to Sleep in Bed Together?

It's crazy to think that married couples in bed together was taboo on television once upon a time. In the first few decades of television it was avoided at all costs. Couples were in twin beds because anything else apparently made the television industry uneasy.

According to the Snopes website, the movie industry was much more lax since movies wasn't broadcasting into everyone's living rooms.

We often hear that Fred and Wilma Flintstone were the first married couple to share a bed on television. It's a fun tidbit to believe since The Flintstones is a cartoon, and how funny to think it took a cartoon to break that barrier.

I actually heard this fun fact mentioned in the 80s hit movie Say Anything the other day so of course decided to research to see what couples followed.  Alas, I learned that Fred and Wilma were not the first couple after all. They were actually the fourth.

According to the website MeTV the TV show that broke barriers showing a married couple in one bed versus twin beds is a show most of us have never heard of.

1) The first sitcom ever aired in 1947 on television called Mary Kay and Johnny and they were the first television couple in the same bed. The actors, however, were married in real life.

2) The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet was the second in 1952 to show the characters in bed together. Like Mary Kay and Johnny, the actors were married in real life.

3) An I Love Lucy episode in 1955 was the second TV series showing the characters Fred and Ethel in a double bed sharing a room on vacation with Desi and Lucy who were in bunkbeds. The couples changed beds putting the real life married couple in real life in that double bed together.

This means I Love Lucy was the first to show a couple in bed together that weren't married in real life according to MeTV. However, majority of the episodes after that showed twin beds for all.

4) Fred and Wilma in The Flintstones were the fourth couple, albeit a cartoon couple, and for the first time a television show in color showing a married couple in bed for the first time.

5) Bewitched followed in 1964 with Darrin and Samantha as the first color television show showing a couple in bed together.

The Munsters in 1964, Green Acres in 1967, and The Brady Bunch in 1969 followed and by this time it was pretty much the norm.