Growing Up Brady: I Was a Teenage Greg, Special Collector's Edition (36 page)

Having said all that, people sometimes wonder why I am
uncomfortable when strangers call me "Greg" as though that's
who I really am. To me, there is no Greg. He's a character, a role I
once played to the best of my ability. I didn't write his lines, they
were given to me. I didn't create his situations or the relationships;
even the guy's personality, to some extent, was handed to me. Of
course, you can't script the ultra-cool side of Greg, which, along
with all of my own surfing, I take complete credit for. However,
what I did, what we all did, was to bring our Brady characters to life
as best we knew how. As actors, that's our job. So, yeah, it's odd
that I am sometimes thought of as being only this fictional character I once played. But I'm not going to fight it. If someone comes
up and says, "Hi, Greg," or "Where's the suit, Johnny Bravo?" I'll
still smile back. Especially if it's a groovy, far-out totally happenin'
chick.

PILOT: "THE HONEYMOON"

Michael Paul Brady takes Carol Ann Tyler Martin to be his lawfully wedded wife, and 116 chaotic half-hours ensue.

Actually, as the episode begins, we find Mike jittery about his
impending nuptials, but too busy with his three boys/best men to
pay it much attention. With only moments to spare, the "men
named Brady" still have four tuxedos to press, four bow ties to
knot, and four hairstyles to Brylcreem into submission.

(© Paramount Pictures)

The official
wedding photo.
I look like I'm
passing a kidney stone.
)©Paramount
Pictures)

Over at Carol's place, the Aqua-Net's flying as the girls (as a
committee) help Carol into her bright yellow wedding gown.
They're even more nervous than the boys; but with a group hug
and "I love yous" all around, they manage to pull through just fine.

Come ceremony time, Mike says "I do," Carol says "I do," we've
got ourselves a sitcom, and everything is perfect ... until:

Tiger, the boys' ever-faithful pet pooch, gets overheated while
patiently viewing the wedding from inside Mike's car. He spies
Fluffy, the girls' fiendish feline (in a one-episode cameo) watching
the ceremony from a much better seat, and mocking him with her
eyes. That's too much for the old mutt to bear. With a bark, he
jumps, hits the automatic window button, and, as it descends,
pounces out of the car, and through the ceremony, lunging
toward his feline lunch.

As bride, groom, ushers, bridesmaids, preacher, guests, and
Alice the housekeeper scramble after the unruly beasts, they just
make things worse. The hairy sprinters jump up, over, and
through the caterer's table, dash across the floral centerpiece, barrel under the cake table, and then ...

The large, beautifully tiered wedding cake takes a direct doggie hit and begins sliding toward its doom. Mike makes a last-ditch
dive to save the day, but ends up covered with frosting instead.

Carol frantically catches up with her new hubby, and together
they survey the canine carnage-and find humor amid the disaster. Then, their eyes meet, the music swells, and ... Kissville.

Time for the honeymoon.

Our newlyweds are checking into their honeymoon suite when
Mike absentmindedly signs the register "Mr. and Mrs. Mike Brady
and Family."

"Mr. and Mrs. Mike Brady and Family?" asks the persnickety,
Charles Nelson Reilly-esque desk clerk. "You did request the honeymoon suite?"

Carol blushes and tries to explain the situation, but Mike's not
having it.

"Forget it, honey," Mike commands. "It's obvious that he
doesn't understand the mod generation." (Like Mike does.)

They march upstairs, prepare to consummate their brains out,
but ... just can't do it. Turns out they both feel bad about yelling at
their kids during the Fluffy vs. Tiger fracas. So, before they even
get to second base, they're back running home (in their pajamas)
to pick up the Bunch.

They round up the girls first, and then it's on to Mike's house
for the boys.

"I've never been on a honeymoon," squeaks Bobby, "Whatya
take?"

"Agirl, dummy!" cracks that cosmopolitan wisenheimer Greg.

As it turns out, they don't have to pack at all. Surprise! Alice has already done it for them. "I figured you'd be back," she chortles at
Mike.

"Okay, stairway
fight scene,
take 1.
Ready?...
(© Paramount
Pictures)

So, we're off to the hotel together. The entire Brady brood
arrives, and much to the consternation of the smarmy desk clerk,
marches upstairs toward five seasons of sitcom bliss.

WRITER: Sherwood Schwartz

DIRECTOR: John Rich

• Sherwood and the network locked horns over the fate of
Carol's first husband. Sherwood wanted him alive, well, and happily divorced from Carol, but the network demanded his death.
Sherwood met with the brass, smiled, nodded, and was extremely
polite, but paid no attention to their suggestions: he left the fate of
the girls' father uncertain. You may notice she never refers to the
guy as being dead. In Sherwood's mind, Carol Brady was television's first divorcee!

*We shot this pilot almost a full year before our first real
episode, and as a result you'll notice that most of us kids are genuinely tiny, especially Bobby and Cindy. Also, notice Bobby's reddish blond hair color. That's his natural shade; the black stuff
you'd see on his head for the next few years came out of a bottle.

EPISODE 1: "DEAR LIBBY"

Marcia reads the "Dear Libby" column one morning and nearly
gags on her Lucky Charms over what she's found. An unhappy
newlywed has written to Libby saying that the new spouse's kids
are making life unbearable. The kids become convinced that the
letter was written by either Mike or Carol, and panic.

Things calm down only after Dear Libby herself shows up on
the Brady doorstep to verify that her original letter came from
somewhere in Kingsford, Illinois, hundreds of miles away from the
nearest Brady.

WRITER: Lois Hire

DIRECTOR: John Rich

• Episodes 1 through 6 were all filmed simultaneously. As we
began production on the series, Florence Henderson was busy
shooting Song of Norway and not yet available to begin shooting
her Brady scenes. To accommodate her, the production company
took all of the first six episodes, assigned them to director John
Rich, and shot them completely out of order. With Florence away,
we spent our days shooting all the scenes that she wasn't in. That
created a hopelessly jumbled shooting schedule, and a number of
scenes that were filmed without us ever knowing what episode
they belonged to.

EPISODE 2: "A CLUBHOUSE (S NOT A HOME"

This episode marks one of the very few story lines wherein the
Brady siblings interacted like real siblings. They yelled at each
other, fist-fought with each other, and generally, hated each
other's guts. The battle of the sexes explodes when the girls
decide to integrate the boys' males-only clubhouse and form a
picket line outside its front door.

WRITER: Skip Webster

DIRECTOR: John Rich

*This also marks the first time that we Brady kids became prop
guys. Lloyd Schwartz was a stickler for realism, so any time a script
called for a kid-made prop, that kid, not a prop man, was expected
to actually make it. In this show, we made the picket signs that the
girls parade around the boys clubhouse, and are they ugly!

EPISODE 3: "KITTY KARRYALL (S MISSING"

This is one of the Brady episodes that people seem to remember vividly. You know: Cindy's beloved (ugly) doll "Kitty Karryall"
turns up missing shortly after Bobby has angrily wished out loud
that he'd like to get rid of the plastic-headed baby once and for all.
Cindy accuses Bobby of assassinating Kitty. Then, when Bobby's
kazoo disappears, he accuses Cindy of thievery too. Finally, after a
whole lot of misplaced finger-pointing, we discover that Tiger
(who else?) was the real dollnapper/kazoo-klepto. Ms. Karryall is found in the doghouse covered with dog slobber, but otherwise
okay, and tranquility reigns once more at the Brady place.

WRITERS: Al Schwartz and Bill Freedman

DIRECTOR: John Rich