Toilets - The sitcom LEAVE IT TO BEAVER/CBS/1957-63 was the first television series to show a toilet when the camera peered into the bedroom bathroom of the Cleaver boys on the October 4, 1957 premiere episode. The first toilet flush heard on television occurred on January 12, 1971 when Archie Bunker (Carroll O'Connor) the bigoted blue-collar loading dock foreman pushed the plunger on his second story toilet on the debut of the sitcom ALL IN THE FAMILY/CBS/1971-83. The sound of a toilet flushing became commonplace on the domestic situation comedy MARRIED WITH...CHILDREN/FOX/1987-97. In 1997, the legal comedy drama ALLY MCBEAL/FOX/1997-2002 broke ground as the first TV series to feature a unisex bathroom. All members of the law firm of Cage/Fish & Associates were required to share the same bathroom facilities including the five stall toilets. According to John Cage, senior partner (Peter MacNicol) "It helps men and women employees breed familiarity. So long as they don't come in and just breed."

The Unisex toilet idea was the by-product of limited set space. But it turned out to be a good plot device for the characters to mingle and confront one another. The bathroom was a place where male lawyers act out their neuroses and women eavesdrop and gossip. USA Today newspaper summed up the show with the mantra "Lawyers in Love. Lawyers in Lust. Lawyers in the Lavatory."