Trivia: Fred and Ethel's bickering relationship didn't require much acting; in real life Vivian Vance and William Frawley didn't care for each other at all.
Trivia: It was the first to tape before a live audience.
Trivia: Lucy Ricardo is from Jamestown, New York - just as Lucille Ball is.
Trivia: This was the first show to go to the hospital when a baby was born on a show.
Trivia: When Lucy was pregnant with Little Ricky, CBS would not allow the word "pregnant", so "expecting" was used instead.
Trivia: Did you know that the original names for the Ricardos would have been Lucy and Larry Lopez? In the lost pilot episode, the voiceover says "You are about to see the pilot episode of the show that was almost I Love Lopez."
Trivia: On January 19th 1953, when Lucy Ricardo gave birth to Little Ricky on I Love Lucy, which 68% of U.S. TV sets tuned in to watch, Lucille Ball also gave birth to Desi Arnaz Jr. (in a planned C-section) on the same night. Newborn Desi Jr. was featured on the very first national cover of TV Guide. As a strange coincidence, on January 19th, exactly 43 years later, Marlee Matlin gave birth to her daughter at the same time that the evening's episode of Picket Fences was being aired, and her character on the show, Laurie Bey, was giving birth to a son.
Trivia: I Love Lucy was the first TV show to shoot episodes on high-quality film, rather than cheaper video tape. The network was opposed to this more expensive shooting method, but Desi Arnaz struck a deal with them that his production company, Desilu, would pay the extra costs in exchange for ownership of the filmed episodes. In what is considered one of the most lucrative deals in television history, Arnaz and Lucille Ball made millions of dollars from rerun residuals.
Trivia: I Love Lucy was the first TV show to use the three-camera filming technique. It was developed by cameraman Karl Freund and Desi Arnaz, who was the show's producer as well as its co-star. Cameras were placed center stage, stage right, and stage left. The film footage was later edited together to show the action from different angles. This method is considered standard and is still in use today.
Trivia: The show's characters mirrored their real lives: Lucille Ball was born in West Jamestown, New York. Desi Arnaz was from Cuba, and both led their own Latin America bands. Vivian Vance was from Albuquerque, New Mexico. William Frawley was a huge Yankees fan.
Answer: According to Snopes.com, there is no definitive answer, but the mid-1960s is the most verifiable date with "The Munsters" being cited as the first, although others claim "The Brady Bunch" showed the first couple seen in a double bed. An early TV show from the late 1940s titled, "Mary Kay and Johnny" is also thought to have shown the married couple's bedroom as having a double bed, although probably not with them in it. However, this was when TV was aired live, and there are no surviving episodes, only anecdotal accounts.
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Something that is funny is that in the movie "A Christmas Story," they show the parents having two twin beds in their bedroom. In a real situation, they should have shown them having a double bed. Lucy and Ricky had twin beds pushed together in an early episode, which would have been pushing television boundaries in that time.