Why were the beds separated in most sitcoms in the 50s?

[Deja Q]

http://in.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071022225749AAXsI5k

[Whoa_Nelly]

1. That's only kind of the answer.

The real answer is it was an FCC regulation since people in the same bed inferred obscenity.

Quaint, ain't it?

Lucy and Desi got away with having htier beds pushed up next to each other as long as when the beds were shown they displayed separate coverings/sheets/sleeping placement.

<snip>
In the 1950s, as today, the FCC also prohibited "obscene and indecent" material. Programming is considered obscene if "the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the material appeals to the prurient interest; that the material describes or depicts sexual conduct in a patently offensive manner; or taken as whole, the material lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value." Indecent programming was defined as "patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium and describes sexual or excretory activities and organs." Obscene programming was prohibited at all times in the 1950s, but "indecent" programming was allowed at certain times, typically after hours when children went to bed. The meaning of "indecent" has tended to change over time. In the 1950s, for example, TV programmers would not show a married couple sharing a bed. Married couples, in 1950s TV-land, slept in separate beds. The subject of indecent programming is still unsettled, as any listener of drive-time commercial radio knows.
http://chnm.gmu.edu/exploring/20thcentury/regulatingtelevision/index.php

[Liberal Veteran]

2. Because the kids were always the product of the wife and the milkman or postman.

The father was always working when he wasn't reading a paper and smoking a pipe, so the lonely women flocked to these drive-by gigolos.

It would have been obscene to show the woman in bed with someone other than the father of her children, thus the husband and wife slept in separate beds.

[Deja Q]

4. !

:spray: :rofl: :rofl:

Certainly a possibility; the media alone can never tell the full story and the 1950s are wrongfully romanticized despite the economy of the time.

[hunter]

5. The father was usually gay too.

He only slept with men in the closet.

[gblady]

3. sex did not exist...

in the 50's...

[timtom]

7. That was so due to pressure from the Southern Baptist Convention.

They were afraid that sex would lead to dancing.

[JVS]

6. So they would have a dry one to sleep on after the hot wet sex.

[monmouth]

8. Mr. Hays (Hayes) ruled the roost in Hollywood as to what was PG, etc..

The sitcoms in the 50s all had twin beds and my brother and I used to laugh all the time over it...

[graywarrior]

9. Because no one had sex

Everyone knows the stork delivered babies. The 60's invented fucking. Sheesh.

[Ivan Sputnik]

10. First show to show a shared bed

by man and wife was The Flintstones, I think. All hell did not break loose.

[muriel_volestrangler]

11. Single sex double bed action from 1934!

Watch the Babes romp!

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=EalhvnMbbA8&NR=1