Brady Bunch Fluff--curious two episodes

I always thought of the Brady Bunch as a very marshallow fluffy show,
avoiding any kind of controversial or topical issue. But I just saw
two episodes that weren't quite as fluffy and more topical than I
thought.

pepsi...

The boys had a club house. The girls, including Mom, decided to build
one for themselves after the boys wouldn't let the girls use theirs.
Dad had to step in after the girls had trouble nailing up the walls.

The Brady Bunch did tackle a few issues of the times back then. They
just did it in their own fluff way.

Remember the episode where their neighbors adopted three boys, one
white, one asian, and one black? Not only was adoption handled, but
so was racism.

They also had an episode about step children with Bobby having a
Cinderella complex.

Jan always had a problem with being the middle child.

Jan's need for glasses.

These are all issues that the viewers could relate to and were serious
problems for children trying to "fit in" back then.

The first episode involved Marcia being interviewed by a newscaster
about women's lib. She said she could do anything a boy could do. To

weberm...

I don't recall Women's Lib being all that topical by then...

prove it, she tried out for Greg's scout troop. She wore the uniform

hancock4...

Not exactly, she wore the scout uniform and trousers. But she looked
kind of cute despite being dirty and hair a mess (or because of) being
messy, not her usual immaculate self.

and crawled around in the woods and passed the tough initiation test.
(She then fell deep asleep and had no more interest in the troop; she
just wanted to show she could do it. She got rather

Uniblab...

The funniest thing is at the end, where Marcia comes down and tells everyone
that she's not going to the initiation and doesn't want to be in the scouts
after all. Then she says to her mother, "Did that new fashion magazine come
yet?" and they both start chatting about clothes. And Mike and Greg make

hancock4...

I was rather disappointed by that, actually. Marcia comes down back to
her usual dressy self. I wonder if that ending was a sop to
conservative viewers to balance out the plot.

Both the written and unwritten TV/Movie code required certain types of
endings. The Star Trek history shows how many script changes were
requested by "Standards & Practices" for stuff I thought was totally

wdstarr...

It's the moss. You're not allowed to show the moss growing.

(Fred and maybe two other people here will get that, I think._)

Anim8rFSK...

Ah, a Whitman reference. I remember my Dad brought me that book from a
business trip (he'd seen in on a rack in the airport) and I gleefully
read that passage aloud to him out on the porch while he detoxed (and
clearly wished I'd shut up).

Man, I clearly recall not only my first reading of that book but that
PARAGRAPH, almost 40 years later.

Good times.

Good times.

Hunter Rose...

I'm one. Who's the other?

Anim8rFSK...

I'm making a note of everybody that got this. You all get preferential
treatment when Bronson Alpha and Beta get here.

et472...

What, are the worlds going to collide again?

I saw the movie about the time I read the book (I even read the sequel),
but it was about thirty years ago.

It always struck me that the film is parodied in one of the Treehouse
episodes of The Simpsons, I forget what happens but Lisa and Marge go
on one space ship, and Homer and Bart go on another one.

Michael

If you got THAT you get a front row seat.

wdstarr...

Oh come on, that's *easy*. (Okay, after George Pal came instantly
to mind I _did_ have to work a moment to recall the original
author... I knew it was "the same guy who wrote 'L.A. 2017'for 'The
Name of the Game'" but I was having a Senior Moment trying to pull
his actual _name_ out of memory. Then I looked the book up and saw
that there was co-author that I'd forgotten about entirely.)

Hunter Rose...

Nope, ya got me.

Anim8rFSK...

How about if instead of Bronson Alpha and Bronson Beta I said Bellus and
Zyra?

Hunter Rose...

I might have gotten it from that if I hadn't already read
someone else's post. CLASSIC movie!

Jude Cormier...

Which is? Forbidden Planet?

Anim8rFSK...

Hey, Jude. No seat on the Space Ark for you, sorry. :(

Hunter Rose...

"When Worlds Colide"

(However, the Greatest Science Fiction Movie Ever Made is
still "The Day The Earth Stood Still".)

fine to begin with. I wonder even if something as clean and wholesome
as the B/B had conflicts with network mgmt over potential perceptions
an audience might get. Remember, these conflicts often were not from
was was shown, but what ideas people might think they implied. It made

Jude Cormier...

thank you. It's nice to get a simple reply :)

Anim8rFSK...

Hey, it was a test, rememeber? You had some wiggle room 'til she TOLD
you. Now you're gonna get got right in the middle when the worlds
collide.

Hunter Rose...

She? Who? Me? He.

it difficult for writers and producers.

Jude Cormier...

I'm not a sci-fi (or is that skiffy?) film aficionado, so pass it on to
someone who loves 2001: A Space Odyssey :P

Anim8rFSK...

grr. drat. sorry. my bad.

Jude Cormier...

That sounds dirty, Fred :D

Anim8rFSK...

LOL

Trapped between Alpha and Beta, between Bellus and Zyra ...

If the B/B were made today I'm not sure the bully episode--where a
kid's tooth is knocked loose in the fight--would be allowed. I also
wonder if Marcia's crush on her dentist--an older married man--would be
allowed today.

jokes about how it's a woman's perogative to change her mind, and how they
think that the person who originally said that was a woman. The laugh track
roars, and so much for women's lib.

grungy--surprisingly for Marcia--from the woods.)

Anim8rFSK...

What would surprise me would be a scout troop with a tough initiation
test. Pretty much you showed up and payed the fees.

I was surprised the show would touch on the issue of women's lib.
While we take most of it for granted these days, back in 1970 it was
still controversial. A lot of people--men and women--were very much
against it and felt very strongly about old fashioned gender roles.
Given that, I wonder if the network got flack over that episode.

et472...

I don't recall the episode, but the theme isn't unique to the show.
The boys say "no girls allowed" and that's the pivot point for the
girls to seek entrance. I can't think of examples, but it just seems
a staple of shows (and real life), and could have occurred whether
or not the women's movement was happening at the time.

Jamie...

That was in the same episode where Marcia tried to join Greg's Frontier
Scouts as part of her women's lib campaign. Greg tries to retaliate by
joining her Sunflower Girls group, but sees that it has a 10-14 age
limit (the handbooks for both groups did not state any gender
limitations), making him too old. Bobby offers do it, but he hasn't
turned 10 yet. So they make Peter, who doesn't want to have anything
to do with it, join the Sunflower Girls. Peter quits once he goes
door-to-door to sell cookies and finds it humiliating. The man whose
house he appears at looks overhead and asks "Are we on one of those
hidden-camera shows?"

Jamie...

That was during the final season. Greg had already been driving for
two years. Marcia was just nearing the monimum driving age.

hancock4...

That's true, but the "no girls allowed" was more of a boys vs. girls
thing as kids and a completely different issue than the adult
controversy of woman's liberation.

I should point out that there was an episode of The Partridge Family,
around the same time, where Keith signs them up to sing at a women's
rally in their community (because he liked the woman). There was fuss over
his signing them up without consulting the rest of the family, then
maybe a shift of acceptance of the cause (certainly Laurie supported
it) and then they get flack from the Morality Watchdogs over their
participation. That seemed to be more a reflection of the times,
but then the Partridge Family had an episode where the Black Panthers
basically appear (under a different name). There was also an episode
where Laurie wouldn't cross a picket line.

SO perhaps your surprise is more a surprise that the Brady Bunch would
have such an episode.

In thinking about the Partridge Family, I'm sure they had an episode
where Laurie or a woman friend sought something simply because someone
said they couldn't do it as a female.

The second episode involved a bully picking on the younger kids. When
the middle boy tried to talk things through, the bully punched him hard
in the eye. The parents tried talking to the bully's parents who were
completely unncooperative. The family then gave the boy boxing
lessons. The bully accosted them again and this time the Brady boy
punched him hard in the mouth knocking loose a tooth.

Just as women's lib was a new issue in 1970, so was avoiding violence.
The flip side of the conservatives was a lot of people would've been
offended that the Brady boy was trained and did use physical force on
the bully. I was also surprised they made a joke of the damaged tooth.
Today, even a minor fight like that (in a suburban neighborhood) would
result in police involvement and a lawsuit over dental bills.

Again, I wonder if the network got flack on this, this time from
progressives.

I note this because networks don't like flack over their shows and
normally go out of their way to avoid controversey. A show like the
B/B is such a show (it's not All in the Family).

[public replies, please]

Taylor...

The episode where Greg and Marcia do driving test in an empty parking
lot (who know a Ralph's [supermarket] would be empty?) because they

wdstarr...

Closed on Sundays?

weberm...

Stored used to be closed on Sundays.

both score an equal score on the driving test.