Hey, Matt:

When did a TV network show people in a double bed for the first time?

-- The Gang, downtown

After a year or so of tracking a definitive answer to this one, we've had to concede that if the information exists, we can't find it. So we'll go with the answer we could find and hope someone else can add their informed two cents. The first TV broadcasts were strictly local. No such thing as network programming in the early 1940s. No TV at all during World War II, but in 1945 the tube began to glow again for a few hours each evening. Networks began to form in 1948 but most programming was still local-- variety shows, talent and quiz shows, and kid fare. An early blockbuster, I Love Lucy, hit the air in 1951. Two episodes in the first year showed Lucy and Desi in what appeared to be a king size bed. But when they crawled under the sheets, you could see that it was two double beds pushed together, each one made up separately. So technically you could say that they weren't in the same bed. I, however, won't listen to that argument. So my answer to the question, pending news from you Alicelanders, is 1951.

Tubular Love

Grandma and the elves have the place in an uproar, whipping up the chip-n-dip, Wonder bread triangles with aerosol cheese and the crusts cut off, and a big bowl of 7Up punch for tonight's fiesta. Ya see, it's the 25th anniversary of the day we made up the Murphy bed and brought intrepid illustrator Rick Geary into the household. Nobody else has lasted 25 years with us, so we're celebrating. Don't tell him, but we bought him new ear plugs, shinguards, and crash helmet. It's a surprise. Congratulations, Rick. Thanks for sticking with us when everyone else said you'd probably end up hospitalized. Ha-ha!

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is, we haven't had much time to sniff out answers this week, but luckily you auxiliary members of Team Matthew Alice have taken up the slack in the follow-up to our first-double-bed-on-TV question. So I'll turn the proceedings over to you and go help skin the squirrel for Grandma's Critter Pie. She only makes it on very big occasions

Matt: The first time on network TV that a couple shared a bed was...believe it or not, that oh so controversial show...The Brady Bunch!!!

-- Matthew, the net

Hi, Matt: I was watching a special about The Brady Bunch [1969-1974], and Flo Henderson was saying how she thought that she and Mr. Brady were trailblazing because they were the first TV couple to be shown in a double bed. She later found out she had been one-upped by none other than Lily Munster [The Munsters, 1964-1966].

-- Jen, Ocean Beach

Hey, Matt: According to the television trivia books, The Flintstones [1960-1966] holds the distinction of being the first television program to show a couple in bed together, although it was an animated couple.

-- Anonymous, the net

Matt-hew: People think the first couple in a double bed on TV was the Bradys or the Munsters. That's not true. From 1947 to 1950, there was a sitcom called Mary Kay and Johnny that showed them in a double bed. It was about a young couple who lived in Greenwich Village. She'd get into silly situations, he'd have to get her out. The stars were married in real life. Their names were Mary Kay and Johnny Stearns. Maybe to prove that they slept in that double bed, in 1948 Mary Kay had a baby. They wrote the pregnancy into the show, and the baby appeared on screen when he was a month old. Mary Kay and Johnny was also the first situation comedy on network TV.

-- Captain Video, San Diego