Growing Up Brady: I Was a Teenage Greg, Special Collector's Edition (50 page)

The music
swells and they
kiss.
((D Paramount
Pictures)

MIKE: Greg, that's a terrible way to talk about a girl, no
matter what she looks like!

The misunderstanding gets cleared up, Mike helps Greg
keep the goat under cover (turns out Mike's an ex-mascot
swiper too, and sensitive to Greg's cause), and things work out
fine ... until:

Carol hosts an emergency meeting of the PTA aimed at getting
to the bottom of this recent epidemic of missing mascots. The
meeting, led by Mrs. Gould (played by Sandra Gould-Gladys
Kravitz from "Bewitched"), gets under way just in time for Raquel
to bust out of Greg's room and run amok all over the house.

WRITERS: Milton Pascal and Sam Locke

DIRECTOR: Robert Reed

• Robert Reed directs his third "Brady" episode and does a
pretty good job tackling the frantically farcical tale on film. The
only thing I can't figure out is how come he let himself wear a
plaid Qiana shirt and mismatched plaid bell-bottoms throughout
the show. I mean, that was unfashionably ugly even by seventies
standards.

EPISODE 102: "THE CINCINNATI KIDS"

You already know about what a heinous time we had in filming
this episode, and how we nearly ended up headless on the roller
coaster (see p. 101-3).

The story: Mike's designed a large-scale addition to a midwestern amusement park, and he's drawn up some very important
sketches to illustrate his ideas. He sets up a "sell" meeting at the
park and decides to bring the whole family along, thus turning the
trip into a fabulous vacation in ... Cincinnati?

The Brady mob descends upon this poor man's Disney World,
and it isn't long before Mike's sketches are lost. With no time to
spare, the Bradys fan out, frantically searching the park, desperate
to find those sketches and save the day.

Finally, Jan gets lucky and plucks them out of a canoe. Now,
however, comes a mad dash, with the Bradys passing off the
sketches pony-express style until they get back to Mike (and the
park's board of directors) just in the proverbial nick of time.

WRITERS: Al Schwartz and Larry Rhine

DIRECTOR: Leslie H. Martinson

•Nepotism Alert! There's also a subplot in which Greg needs to
borrow a cartoonish bear suit in order to impress a local girl. The guy who's originally in the suit is Lloyd Schwartz, the show's
associate producer.

EPISODE 103: "QUARTERBACK SNEAK"

Marcia dates another jerk. This time he's Jerry Rogers, the
sleazy all-star quarterback of Fairview High's football team-the
hated archrival of the Bradys' glorious Westdale. To Marcia he's
extra-dreamy, and she's soon gone mad for the boy-so mad that
she doesn't believe her brothers when they tell her what a slimeball the guy really is.

Greg tells Marcia that the reason Jerry's been hanging around
the Brady house isn't to steal Marcia's heart but to run off with
Greg's football play book. Marcia's miffed, but she agrees to help
set up a sting operation that she's sure will prove hunky Jerry innocent.

It doesn't. Jerry takes Greg's play book (actually, it's just a
phony that the guys have left as bait) and dumps Marcia faster
than he can stuff it into his pants. He makes up a story about
being late for a team picture and says to Marcia, "I hope you
understand."

And as the mood music builds, Marcia lowers her eyebrows,
tosses her hair back twice, glares at the geek, and says, "I understand ... perfectly."

At this point, her dramatic stare tosses us into a commercial.

Two and a half minutes later, we return to find the Brady boys
laughing about how they've put one over on Jerry. Mike, however, puts a parental halt to the boys' fun when he lectures to them
that they haven't just put one over on Jerry but on all of Fairview
High, and that what they've done makes them just as bad as Jerry.

Suitably crestfallen, Greg phones Jerry and explains the switch.
The only problem is ... Jerry's not buying it. He's sure that Greg's
honesty is just some sort of desperate last-ditch attempt to recover the book (he don't know the Bradys very well, do he?).

Anyway, Westdale clobbers Fairview (20-6), Jerry gets benched
when the coach finds out about his theft, and justice reigns
supreme once more in the perfect parallel universe that the Brady
Bunch calls home.

WRITERS: Bill Freedman and Ben Gershman

DIRECTOR: Peter Baldwin

• This episode also offers us a look at Carol's college sweetheart "Tank" Gates. He runs football plays in the Brady living
room, constantly calls Carol "Twinkles," and wears an incredibly
stupid Donald Trump-ish hairdo. It should be obvious to any Bradyphile that Carol's college days must have been spent trolling
for beefcake.

*Chris Beaumont appears in the last of his four episodes-a
guest cast record. He had previously shown up in "Our Son the
Man," "The Wheeler Dealer," and "A Room at the Top." Now, of
course, he's that playbook stealing snake Jerry Rogers.

EPISODE 104: "MARCIA GETS CREAMED"

Haskell's Ice Cream Parlor gets a brand new afternoon manager
... Marcia Brady. She's a fabulous worker and fanatically ambitious
about her minumum-wage career.

Her boss, Mr. Haskell, recognizes Marcia's exemplary work
habits and responsible nature, and he uses them to his full advantage: he retires. That leaves Marcia with more work, more pull (no
raise), and an assistant to hire.

Enter Peter, who gets the job, screws up, and loses the job in
record time.

Enter Jan, who gets the job, excels, and ends up taking Marcia's
place when Mr. Haskell returns, bored nearly to death by retirement.

"Marcia," says the truly creepy Mr. Haskell, "you're a wonderful
worker. But Jan is a little bit better, and since I can only keep one
of you, I'll have to keep her."

Major dork! Marcia is rightfully aghast, but then, when she gets
a call from David Cassidy look-alike Jeff, she decides that getting
fired was a blessing in disguise, because now she'll have plenty of
free time to devote to her dreamy new boy-toy.

WRITERS: Ben Gershman and Bill Freedman

DIRECTOR: Peter Baldwin

*Henry Corden, who plays Marcia's jerky boss, Mr. Haskell, is
today the voice of Fred Flintstone, but he'd probably like the world
to forget that he made his acting debut in one of the most hilariously inept movies ever made. Entitled Blood Feast and released in
1963, it was the very first slasher/gore flick, and was made by the
"Grandaddy of Gore" himself, Herschell Gordon Lewis.

EPISODE 105: "MY BROTHER'S KEEPER"

Greg's up on a ladder painting the bedroom shutters a godawful shade of puke-ish green. Peter holds the ladder, Bobby shows
up underneath, and (you guessed it) the whole thing comes tumbling down.

Greg hangs onto the windowsill, the ladder takes a header, and
Bobby yanks the slow-reflexed Peter out from under an enormous falling planter-and gets drenched with that green paint in the
process.

The boys clean up, Alice serves up a nice big tureen of
Hungarian goulash, and Pete makes a solemn vow that since
Bobby saved his life, he will from this day forth become the little
Brady's personal slave.

Pete does all of Bobby's chores, shines his shoes (we Bradys'
were major shoe shiners), cleans up after him, and, in general, just
lets the kid treat him like dirt.

Finally, Peter gets fed up and can't stand anymore. He quits his
job as slave and even refuses to share his room with the little geek.
(They even employ that standard sitcom cliche wherein the feuding parties do that white-line-down-the-middle-of-the-room thing.)

But all is soon forgiven. Bobby manages to lock himself into a
closet, gets a little claustrophobic, and when Peter finally springs
him, they make up, and a happy ending is had by all.

WRITER: Michael Morris

DIRECTOR: Ross Bowman

EPISODE 106: "TRY, TRY AGAIN"

Jan takes ballet lessons Jan's a clod.

Jan takes tap-dance lessons Jan's a clod who drives her family
crazy with her tapping.

Jan tries baton twirling Jan's a clod who breaks the rec room
window.

Got the idea? This time Jan's insecurity shifts from her appearance to her competence. Having tried and failed at all the above
activities, Jan's ready to throw in the towel and accept her role in
life as a no-talent slob.

But then the school play (another school play?) beckons. Jan
tries out for the lead, and this time ... she fails miserably again.

But it all works out okay, because in trying out for the role of a
struggling artist, Jan realizes that nothing in life comes easily, and
that to be really good at anything you've got to practice, practice,
practice.

Yeeeeesh.

WRITERS: Al Schwartz and Larry Rhine

DIRECTOR: George "Buddy" Tyne

•They let us kids pick out our own wardrobe for this episode,
and we did an okay job-except for the shoes! I inexplicably wear
blue-and-white suede saddle shoes (no, I'm not kidding),
Maureen's in orange clogs, and Eve spends most of the episode
wearing an enormous pair of red patent-leather platform pumps.

EPISODE 107: "KELLY'S KIDS"

In an attempt to land Sherwood Schwartz a prime time spin-off,
the Bradys generously gave up their weekly half hour of fame and
handed it over to their squeaky clean new neighbors the Kellys.

The Kellys are thinking about adopting a child; and since
nobody knows more about kids than the Bradys, they drop in on
their friends bearing dessert. They break out the coffee cake, and
when Mike and Carol give parenthood a glowing review (you
would too if your kids were perfect) the Kellys run out the very
next day and pick up Matt, a healthy eight-year-old blonde boy, at
the local orphan mart.

They get the kid home, and everybody's ecstatic ... except the
kid. Turns out he desperately misses Dwayne and Steve, his two
best pals from the orphanage. That starts the Kellys thinking, and
(whoosh) they swing back down to the workhouse, scoop up the
extra coupla kids, and bring them home too!

Enter the Kellys' nasty neighbor Mrs. Payne (subtle, huh?). She
hates children and makes it quite clear that she'll be spending the
foreseeable future as a Gladys Kravitzian thorn in the Kellys' side.

And there you have it: three adopted kids, two goofily whitebread parents, and the prerequisite annoying neighbor. Sounds
okay, but maybe a little bland. Perhaps it needs one more twist.

How about this? In an achingly seventies plot device, Matt's
white, Dwayne's black, and Steve's Oriental. Throw in Mrs. Payne's
barely concealed bigotry and you've got the makings of a hit show.

But no. The network got a look at this spin-off pilot and
promptly passed, leaving the fates of the Kellys trapped forever in
video limbo.

WRITER: Sherwood Schwartz

DIRECTOR: Richard Michaels

-The attempted spinoff starred Ken Berry ("F-Troop," "Mama's
Family") as Ken Kelly and Brooke Bundy (best known as Diana
Taylor from "General Hospital"'s late-seventies glory days) as Kathy
Kelly. That familiar-looking kid who played Matt was none other
than Todd Lookinland, Mike's brother.

EPISODE 108: "THE DRIVER'S SEAT"

Marcia's finally old enough to take her driver's test, and she's
really excited about it. First comes the written exam. She passes,
beating Greg's score. However, Greg begins to tease her about
women drivers and boasts she will choke on the driving test.

Before long, Marcia's fuming, and proposing yet another one of
our fabulous Brady bets. This time, Marcia bets Greg that she'll beat his road test score or do his chores for a month (we used chores
the way prisoners use cigarettes). They shake, and the deal's sealed.

Now, Marcia's really nervous; trying to pass your road test is gutwrenching enough, but throw a month's worth of chores into that
equation and you're talking major pressure. On the sub-plot of the
episode, Mike suggests that to calm down, Jan try out a technique
for her debating club: seems that whenever a debater feels nervous,
they're coached to imagine their opponent and the audience clad
only in their underwear. That makes them both seem a lot less
imposing, and results in increased self-confidence for the debater.

Makes sense to Marcia as well, so when push comes to shove
and "park" goes to "drive," she pictures her driving instructor in
his underwear (and he, in all likelihood, pictures Marcia in hers),
doesn't get nervous, and passes with flying colors. But ...

She doesn't beat Greg's overall score; she merely ties it. Does
that mean the bet's a "push"? Not in Bradyland, we've still got half
an episode to kill. Now before you can say "bell-bottoms," an autoobstacle course is set up and Marcia's practicing, prepping to battle
it out with Greg, in a winner-take-all, sudden-death drive-off.

Greg, on the other hand, is completely cool and taking his
opponent very lightly (I guess he didn't learn anything from that
chin-ups debacle with Bobby). In fact, he's so sure he'll win his
showdown with Marcia-she is, after all, just a girl-that he
doesn't even look at the homemade Brady test track.