The Brady Bunch

54-40 and Fight - S1-E15

Question: Would someone please explain to me why Marcia did not just simply remove her dangly bracelet that endangered the girls standing in the house of cards competition after Carol said "Oh Marcia, Marcia, your bracelet"? It would have made it less stressful on her not to mention her team, and she wouldn't have had to restrain it with her other hand.

Answer: The dangling bracelet was used for dramatic purposes - to keep the audience on edge.

Answer: There were several episodes throughout the run of the show where Marcia was infatuated with a guy she went to school with. This bracelet could have been a gift from her then-boyfriend; as such, she would not want to take it off, as a sign of loyalty. A stupid thing to do, of course, but it's not a mistake for a character simply to be dumb.

Matty Blast

Season 2 generally

Question: In season 2, there were 5 episodes made without one of the kids appearing in the episode. (Marcia, Jan, Cindy, Peter, and Bobby were each absent one episode). What was the reason behind this?

Answer: Much trivia has been written about "The Brady Bunch, " including the various interrelationships and dynamics among the members of the cast. For example, much has been written about why Robert Reed's Mike Brady did not appear in a couple of episodes, including the series finale, due to rancorous creative and artistic differences with series creator, Sherwood Schwartz. However, in contrast, I have never run across any reasons given why a particular child did not appear in specific episodes - only that the episodes were missed. This suggests the causes were likely unexceptional, such as illness, injuries, vacations, or real-life family obligations.

Michael Albert

Although those options ARE possible reasons, it just seems a bit ironic that this happened all in Season 2 ONLY and within a short amount of nearly consecutive episodes. Never happened during the other 5 years of the show at all.

Answer: According to Lloyd Schwartz, in the book he wrote with his dad, Paramount studios made the decision to remove one child from each episode to save money. Sherwood Schwartz eventually told the studio that this was a mistake because "viewers have their favorites." The practice was eventually stopped.

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

Answer: Robbie Rist told me personally they are not related at all.

Chosen answer: Since Robbie Rist has no brothers, the answer would have to be no.

Gavin Jackson

How about cousins with their fathers being brothers? I'd have to say... May be related? Yep.

Show generally

Question: When you look at the front of the house, the 2nd story is to the left of the front door. The stairs and the bedrooms are on the right. Also, there has to be a very high cathedral ceiling to account for the stairs which isn't shown in the front of the house photo. Does anyone know what the house looks like where the show was filmed?

Answer: There are a number of photos online of the Brady house's exterior of what it looked like when the show was being filmed and what it looks like today. Only the exterior shots were of a real house. The interior was a studio set and it did not exactly match the real home's floor plan. There are also some YouTube virtual tours of the house that explore the interior. If you Google "Brady Bunch House" you will find much information about this.

raywest

The Cincinnati Kids - S5-E11

Question: Two part question: Mike throughout the series is someone depicted as a person of intelligence. So when he puts both of his sketches into one cylinder and puts Jan's Yogi Bear poster in the now empty identical cylinder, why does he place them right next to each other under the table? More importantly why doesn't he check to see if he has the correct one when he leaves for the meeting? When he returns to the Manager's office to inform them he hasn't found the sketches, why does he carry the cylinder with the poster with him?

jairodrigue

Chosen answer: Intelligence does not necessarily correlate to wisdom or common sense. He simply doesn't think to do these things.

LorgSkyegon

Answer: Robert Reed, the actor playing Mike Brady, frequently complained to the writer (Sherwood Schwartz) that the "slapstick comedy" in many episodes was ridiculous and he could NOT perform some of the behaviors in a scene because of its absurdity. Reed was under contract, so ended up reluctantly playing his role against his better judgment (until the last episode when he was written out of the scene at the last minute because of his complaints and requests to change the script to something reasonable). In the movie "Growing Up Brady", the ongoing disputes between Reed and Sherwood were portrayed, as well as six-year-old Susan's ("Cindy") meeting with Sherwood when she asked him why Cindy had to be so stupid and how Cindy could forget her favorite sandwich was peanut butter and jelly. Susan said the kids at school were teasing her over this and asked Sherwood why Cindy could not be smart and funny. The basic answer to your questions is because the writer, Sherwood, thought the slapstick comedy was very funny and believed it was one factor that made "The Brady Bunch" a popular TV show that ran for many seasons. Mike Brady (Robert Reed) was merely following the script that he had no control over. Also in "Growing Up Brady", when Barry ("Greg") went for his audition/interview with Sherwood, he told him he loved "Gilligan's Island." Guess who wrote "Gilligan's Island"?

KeyZOid

The Undergraduate - S1-E17

Question: When Greg and his teacher are going over math in the classroom, they both mention the words "Base 10" in a math problem. What does "Base 10" mean?

Answer: Base 10 refers to the numbering system in common use in the United States and most of the world. Take a number like 475, base ten refers to the position, the 5 is in the one's place, the 7 is in the ten's place and the 4 is in the hundred's place. Each number is 10 times the value to the right of it. That's why the term "base ten" is used. Numbers look very different when the base system changes.

Michael Albert

You Can't Win 'Em All - S4-E22

Question: I recently saw this episode for the first time in a few years and one scene seemed altered. When Cindy was asked about which side an egg would fall from a rooster, she said "neither side cause roosters don't lay eggs." For many years her answer was "neither side cause roosters crow...HENS lay eggs." This did not appear edited but was there more than one version produced which explains the difference in her line?

Answer: I watched this episode (well, only the part in question, once I found it) three times. Once on Hulu, once on YouTube (poor quality), and once on VCR tape a friend had made years ago (pretty grainy). All three times, Cindy replied the same way, and it doesn't quite match either version you submitted. The line is, "It won't roll off at all, 'cause roosters don't lay eggs." But I could totally hear, in my mind, the line you suggest in Cindy's voice. Cindy was sort of known for being a little snotty. Throughout the series, particularly in later seasons, a number of her lines took on the kind of mocking "not-this...THAT" prosody that this kind of utterance calls for. I wonder if you might be confusing her intonation from another line in another episode for this one. But assuming you are remembering correctly, then there must have been more than one version, as I also saw no hint of editing - not even a change in camera angle.

Michael Albert

Goodbye, Alice, Hello - S4-E10

Question: It's known that Robert Reed did not appear in the show's final episode due to differences with the producers/Sherwood Schwartz, but he did not appear in this episode either (an earlier episode). Does anyone have the reason why?

Answer: Robert didn't appear in this episode because of a prior commitment with Broadway.

Show generally

Question: Even though we know in the pilot that Mike was widowed, the show kept Carol's status a secret if she was widowed or divorced (though TV guides in the 70's labeled her as widowed). It seems obvious that widowed would be the answer since the girls never kept in touch with their father at all (or ever mentioned him). So the main question here is regardless if Carol was widowed or divorced, why were her 3 daughters' last names changed to Brady? Marriage would only change Carol's last name.

Answer: That the girls be adopted was for good reason - it would not be "proper" to have girls housed with boys (or a grown man) they were not related to, even if only by marriage. They may not be blood relatives after their adoption, but their statuses as step-sisters to the boys (or step-daughter to Mike, now their step-father) help clarify their roles and set appropriate boundaries (especially prohibited sexual behavior).

KeyZOid

Answer: It's implied that Mike Brady adopted Carol's daughters, which would result in their last name being changed to Brady as well.

Bishop73

More mistakes in The Brady Bunch

Jan Brady: Well, all day long at school I hear how great Marcia is at this or how wonderful Marcia did that! Marcia, Marcia, Marcia.

More quotes from The Brady Bunch
More trivia for The Brady Bunch

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