The Brady Bunch

The Brady Bunch (1969)

4 mistakes in Is There a Doctor in the House?

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Is There a Doctor in the House? - S1-E13

Plot hole: Lots of factors here: The doctors end up with the opposite kids that they were supposed to have... Why didn't they simply switch in the first place rather than go through all the drama? Also, the male doctor admits Alice let him in and most likely Alice would have told him first door on the right (like she's given directions in other episodes) to locate Peter. And the biggest question of all is, what doctor would make a house call and not look for their patient rather than just ending up with someone else they were not called to see (remember, each parent called their own doctor to see their biological kid).

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Suggested correction: The lady doctor goes to see Peter as Mrs. Brady directs her to Peter's room first. Alice likely knows Peter already has a doctor looking after him, as it can be assumed Carol told her, so she sends the male doctor to Jan's room likely explaining to him that Mike's new daughter is also sick and needs to be checked. As to why they didn't solve this doctor problem to begin with; simply they are still a new family and didn't yet think about this as this is the first time the kids are sick.

Is There a Doctor in the House? - S1-E13

Audio problem: When Mike walks into the kitchen and sees the chart with the list of kids on it and what ailments they've had, he comments on one of the ailments, saying "None of the kids have had distemper." However, if you watch his mouth, he appears to have originally said "rabies."

Jeff Swanson

Is There a Doctor in the House? - S1-E13

Continuity mistake: When Carol and Mike are bringing stacked lunch trays upstairs to the kids, the milk glasses on the middle and bottom trays that Carol's holding switch to the opposite sides twice, in the wideshots and closeup. Then when Carol picks up the girls' stacked trays, the glass of OJ is on the bottom tray (after Peter's reaction to broccoli, it looks as if the OJ glass is gone), then as Carol walks into their room the OJ is now on the middle tray.

Super Grover ★

Is There a Doctor in the House? - S1-E13

Other mistake: At the end of the episode, when they were looking at the chart they created, and Alice was found to add the measles, you see Mike Brady adding the word "Alice." But the kids and Tiger all had columns, but he is adding her as an extra row, which was for the different illnesses, to suggest that Alice was an illness instead of a person having the illness.

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Quotes

Bobby Brady: Mom always says not to play ball in the house.

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Trivia

Out of This World - S5-E16

Trivia: Barry Williams has a Band-Aid on his lip in this episode because he was in a car accident a few days before filming and needed stitches in his lip. (00:05:00)

Jeff Swanson

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Questions

Vote for Brady - S1-E11

Question: There's a scene in this episode I haven't seen in over 30 years (edited out in more recent years) where the 4 kids upstairs are arguing (boys vs girls) and the kids continuously stamp their feet on the floor and then Alice is shown downstairs watching her cake in the oven. Periodically with all the stomping from upstairs, the cake gets flatter until very flat the end of the scene. Question is does anyone remember this scene and why does the cake in the oven get flatter every time a kid stomps from upstairs?

Answer: I think I remember that episode - but, more importantly, my mother always told me (and my siblings) to stop jumping/ stomping, running in the kitchen, and opening the oven door when a cake was baking... because these could make the cake fall. I believed my mother... and I, as a child, also caused a few "fallen cakes" because I didn't quite always listen (right away, anyway). I'm sure Alice's fallen cake episode was exaggerated, but cakes really CAN fall from stomps and opening the oven door too soon. Usually, it has something to do with the baking powder and how the air bubbles change during the baking process. Doing something that might cause the oven and cake inside to move/shake can suddenly change the air bubbles inside the cake and cause a collapse. I don't know all factors that have to occur for a cake to fall (collapse in the middle), but I've seen fallen cakes during my adulthood and... well... caused at least a few myself. Regarding Alice's cake falling each time one of the Brady kids stomped upstairs, I'm not sure if a series of falls could occur. IF it is possible, I think there would have to be way too much baking powder in the batter or some other inaccurate combination of ingredients that alter the chemical process during baking.

KeyZOid

Answer: Realistically, a cake would not deflate in that way. There are some desserts, like delicate, airy souffles, that can deflate during and after baking, and that must be served almost immediately from the oven. The scene, broadly played for humor, is merely meant to show the argument's growing intensity gauged against the rate of the deflating cake.

raywest ★

Answer: I haven't come across a scene like that, but maybe over time what you remember got mixed up with episodes of other shows, so this is just a suggested episode. "Try, Try Again." In the episode, Mike is preparing a gourmet meal for Saturday. Jan is practicing tap dancing in the kitchen and his soufflé that he had spent 3 days preparing is knocked to the floor. While it is true soufflés can "fall" (meaning deflate), it's because the cooking time was wrong (or opening the oven door too soon) or the structure of the egg whites is too weak. Noises don't make them collapse.

Bishop73

This was not from "Try, Try Again" (though I do remember that scene too). That was in a later season when the kids were older. The one I was talking about was during the first season when all the kids were young. I know the scene in question were the 4 youngest kids and the scene started by each the boys and girls arguing that Greg/Marcia (running for student body president) doesn't stand a chance against him/her to win (boys for Greg, girls for Marcia).

That's "Vote for Brady", s01e11. I watched it and for some reason Carol tells Mike to be careful, after he makes too much noise, indicating noise will ruin the cake. Alice does keep checking on the cake with the oven light every time the kids make too much noise. However, the cake is always fine, and in fact getting bigger. Then, realizing the cake is fine, Alice is relieved and leans against the counter, knocking over the cutting board. The cutting board crashes to the ground, which this time does cause the cake to flatten. It seems like an exaggerated prop, I've never see a cake rise like that, it looks like how a muffin might rise. Then it's somehow deflated, as if it was hollow, like a puffed pastry, or too raw. If it was too raw, it shouldn't flatten in the oven. But the look of the cake doesn't remind me of any puffed pasty, which is made from a dough, not a batter and the cake looks like a batter cake to me. So, it just deflates for irony or comedy of error reasons.

Bishop73

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