Growing Up Brady: I Was a Teenage Greg, Special Collector's Edition (52 page)

-Susan Olsen

An embarrassing episode for Cindy and the rest of the Bradys as
well, it starts with the gal eavesdropping on a conversation
between Peter and Bobby.

"You're not talking about me, are you?" she asks awkwardly.

"Uh, no."

Next, Cindy heads inside, sneaks up behind Greg, and listens to his scintillating telephone conversation of "Far out. That's wild ...
absolutely wild ... really far out."

"You're not talking about me, are you?" she asks even more
awkwardly.

"Uh, no."

Cindy's dissed again, but instead of getting the idea that she's a
royal pain in the butt, she comes to the conclusion that the family
is hiding something from her. Determined to get to the bottom of
this imaginary Brady conspiracy, she launches an all-out
snoopathon, with her first stop being Marcia's diary.

Cindy swipes the book out from Marcia's underwear drawer
and gives it a quick, illicit read ... at least that's what she thinks.
Turns out that Marcia and Jan are lurking just behind the bathroom door and watching her every move.

"Let's surprise her in the act," says an agitated Jan.

"No, let's teach her a good lesson," says the scheming Marcia.

Together, the Brady babes come up with a plan. First, they
write a bogus entry in Marcia's diary, all about a famous Hollywood
talent agent who's coming to the Brady house hoping to sign
Cindy to a contract as "the next Shirley Temple." And second, they
leave the diary in plain view.

Cindy (of course) reads the entry, and before you can say "hackneyed," she's tapping around the house singing "On the Good
Ship Lollipop."

Enter Penelope Fletcher. She's a rich and impossible old
woman who's contracted Mike to design her Penelope Fletcher
Cultural Center. She's already nixed his first ideas, and now she's
stopped by the house to check out his revisions.

Enter Cindy, embarrassingly clad in full Shirley Temple regalia.
She's convinced that Ms. Fletcher is the cryptic Hollywood talent
scout, and immediately she lays on the charm. The now pubescent
Cindy launches into a mortifying rendition of "On the Good Ship
Lollipop" while tapping up a storm.

Ms. Fletcher is at first taken aback, but then really gets into
Cindy's Shirleymania, even joining in with her songs and offering
up some tap-dance suggestions of her own. Then, as can only happen on TV, she accepts Mike's new plans sight unseen, and dances
off into the night singing "Animal Crackers in My Soup."

WRITER: Harry Winkler

DIRECTOR: Bruce Bilson

• Penelope Fletcher is played by the fabulous Natalie SchaferLovey Howell herself. Her Brady appearance would be immediately followed by the second from her island hubby, Jim Backus.

EPISODE 114: "THE HUSTLER"

Guess what-the big boss at Mike's architectural firm is
Thurston Howell III. He calls himself Mr. Matthews, but with Jim
Backus playing him, you could close your eyes and swear you were
back among the bamboo and coconuts, just waiting for Gilligan to
do something dumb.

Instead, we spend most of this episode in the Brady garage,
waiting for Bobby to do something dumb. It all starts when a couple of apelike moving men drop off a humongous crate in the
Bradys' driveway.

Question 1: What's inside?

A: A deluxe pool table.

Question 2: Who sent it?

A: Mr. Matthews, as a reward for Mike's plans winning the company a very lucrative contract.

Question 3: What would the Bradys want with a pool table?

A: Good question.

Turns out that the only Brady who cares anything about the gentlemanly sport of billiards is Bobby. It also turns out that he's great!
He soundly crushes his siblings, and when Mr. Matthews pays a
visit, he beats the pants off him too (much to Mike's consternation).

Fortunately Mr. Matthews turns out to be a good sport. He pays
off on his gambling debt (256 packs of gum), the bet was double
or nothing every game 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, and the
Bradys are once again content ... at least till next week.

WRITERS: Bill Freedman and Ben Gershman

DIRECTOR: Michael Kane

EPISODE 115: "TOP SECRET"

This time Bobby's the booby. When Mike needs official clearance to inspect a top-secret government construction project, he's
visited by an agent of the FBI. Bobby eavesdrops on the meeting,
and jumps to all sorts of erroneous conclusions. He then becomes
convinced that this FBI guy is some kind of double agent, out to
steal Mike's plans.

While this is going on, Sam's trying to figure out a way to
expand his store without upsetting his landlord (or tipping off his
competition). He asks for Mike's help, and together they come up
with the blueprints for Sam's "secret project."

Bobby's youthful little brain mangles the truth so badly that
when he hears about Sam "getting ready to show the blueprints
to Gronsky," he's positive that his pal the butcher is gonna sell
Mike's top-secret prints to a no-good Russian spy named
Gronsky.

In the end, we find out that Bobby's completely misguided
and that Gronsky is really just Sam's landlord.

However, none of that comes out until after the kid's locked
them both in Sam's meat locker.

WRITER: Howard Ostroff

DIRECTOR: Bernie Wiesen

EPISODE 116: "THE HAIR-BRAINED SCHEME"

We Bradys limped through our final episode with a plot Robert
Reed found so unbelievable and stupid that he flatly refused to
appear in it. He did, however, hang around the set while the
episode was being shot, grumbling about its idiocy.

You be the judge.

The setup goes like this. Bobby hooks up with a mail-order
company in an attempt to become a millionaire hair-tonic salesman. At the same time, Greg's getting ready to graduate from hallowed Westdale High, and Cindy's off on the service porch trying
to breed rabbits.

Got it? Good. Now Bobby launches an all-out sales blitz upon
the neighborhood. He tries his best to peddle his hair goo but,
alas, comes up a total failure.

Our miniature Willy Loman comes home depressed, frustrated,
and ready to quit until Greg takes pity on the little guy and actually coughs up two bucks for a bottle. Bobby's thrilled ... until Greg
actually uses the stuff, and it instantly turns his hair a shocking,
nearly Day-Glo shade of orange.

Greg freaks, and when five separate shampoos only make the
color worse, he submits himself to the humiliation of ... the beauty parlor.

One simple dye job later, Greg's hair is back to black, and ultragroovy once more.

At home, Bobby's dumping the rest of his hair tonic inventory
down the drain when he slips and accidentally spills some on
Cindy's rabbits. The result sets off a brainstorm (well, a brain drizzle anyway), and Bobby's quickly planning to make his million by
selling orange bunnies.

In the tag, Greg returns home from graduation (with honors),
and Carol lets him know just how proud she is of him, and says
that "it's just too bad your father is out of town and had to miss it."

On the set, thirty feet away, under a gaffer's ladder, "Dad" was
grimacing.

Several weeks later, with "Sanford and Son" clobbering us in the
Nielsens, "The Brady Bunch" was executed. Little did they know
we'd live forever in syndication, and in the hearts of our fans.

WRITER: Chuck Stewart, Jr.

DIRECTOR: Jack Arnold

'Three Final Nepotism Alerts! Florence's daughter Barbara
and Sherwood's daughter Hope have teamed up to play the girls
Greg runs into at Carol's beauty parlor. Look very closely and
you'll find Sherwood's wife, Mildred, in the scene, smiling happily
under one of those enormous old space-helmety kind of hair
dryers.

ne of the most nagging questions I have had to face in
the years since growing up on the Brady set is, "Do I
think kids in show-biz is a good idea?"

Having been head strong and determined as a toddler, it is only in recent years, with the benefit of hindsight, that
certain things have become apparent. Without question putting a
youngster in that environment is risky. There are lots of temptations, insecurities, and rejections. Of course many of those same
things come with just good old everyday growing up. Still my
experience leads me to this understanding: There is one chance
to be a child. A lifetime to be an adult.

Is it worth the price of foregoing childhood interests and activities to get a start on a career? In some businesses an early start
can be an advantage. Not so in show business. The demands and
expectations for an actor are completely different for kids than
adults. Kids are basically expected to be energetic, natural,
adorable, reliable, and most importantly, directable.

On "The Brady Bunch" we were essentially required to be ourselves. The difference of course was that we were not a real family, and the situations our characters found themselves in were
designed more for entertainment than reality. We were actors,
balancing our workload, who spent the better part of five years
growing up on a soundstage.

I consider myself and our group extraordinarily lucky. Lucky to
have a producer and a studio teacher who insisted we be allowed
to remain kids, and a studio that supported the notion. Lucky we
had a TV mom and dad who were sensitive to the inherent problems of our circumstances. Lucky that without exception, we all
had the kind of families and home life that provided the stability
so crucial to growing up with healthy attitudes. Lucky we had each other to hang with, to share with, and to relate with. And
incredibly lucky to have been part of a TV show that has generated a tremendous amount of viewer loyalty and several generations of friends. But does all this luck and experience help prepare you for a career as an adult? Does this credit provide the
kind of foundation on which a career can be built? Not for the
child actor.

Ironically, the more successful you become as a kid, the more
difficult it is to break the stereotype mold. If you're branded a
"kid actor," even a "good kid actor," the struggle to become
accepted as an adult can be insurmountable. Almost without
exception any kid who has made it as an adult has done it despite
being known as a young actor-not because of it. Which means
that even if time is taken later to break it all down and learn the
craft and study the art of acting, there are precious few chances
to actually get a shot at credibility. The stigma that follows early
identification is constant.

The acting demands are considerably more complex on adults
than kids. The requirements for making an insightful, creative contribution to a movie, or a play, or yes even a television show, are
very different for an adult. You must pull from life experience,
understand and recreate reality, and bring subtleties to a role that
kids, lacking that experience, can only approximate or hit on by
accident.

Child actors I've known both while they were active and after
they retired (at around age 22!), found themselves woefully
unprepared for an adult life as an actor. Accustomed to having
things come their way, they knew little about the business side,
the unemployment side, or the devastating effects of adolescent
typecasting. Additionally, used to getting by on looks or youth,
they knew little about their own craft. The most compelling
actors have techniques for using their life experience in bringing
their roles to life-the kind of experience kids often sacrifice.

This can come as a huge shock to a young person cruising
into their teens, or in my case early twenties, who find themselves with real-life responsibilities, out of work for the first time
in years, and with prospects drying up. What happens when that
"special quality" that once worked so well, doesn't work anymore?

Salaries for sitcom actors have changed considerably since
the seventies. In our fifth and final year the highest salary among
us kids was $1100 a week. Not bad for a teenager. But take into
consideration agent commissions, taxes, and the fact that some
of the kids were expected to contribute to their families. It was
enough to indulge in toys, but hardly enough to carry you through the slow periods that inevitably followed. In addition, residual
payments for subsequent airings of the show dried up shortly
after we finished filming.