The Brady Bunch

The Hair-Brained Scheme - S5-E22

Trivia: Notice in this episode that Mike Brady is nowhere to be seen. That's because he quit the show due to artistic differences with the producer. His absence is explained as being away on a business trip. It also wound up being the unexpected series finale.

Maria Santos

Kelly's Kids - S5-E14

Trivia: Matt is played by Todd Lookinland, brother of Mike Lookinland (who plays Bobby). This explains why he has a very strong resemblance to Bobby.

Trivia: The dog "Tiger" (who was replaced with a look-a-like) appeared in 10 early episodes.

KeyZOid

The Honeymoon - S1-E1

Trivia: Carol and her three daughters had a cat named Fluffy - who "disappeared" from the show after the first episode (honeymoon).

KeyZOid

Trivia: Florance Henderson's hair style on the show was done on purpose. Few knew that since the 1950's she lost all hearing in both ears. The left hearing came back, but she had a hearing aid over her right ear.

bobmcdow4984

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: In the episode "A Fistful of Reasons" from Season 2, her hair was short and her ears fully showed (unless the hearing aid was so small it was BEHIND her ears).

The Hair-Brained Scheme - S5-E22

Trivia: When Bobby considers giving up trying to sell the hair tonic, Carol starts listing names of famous people who didn't quit. The last name she mentions is Carl Mahakian. Bobby says he never heard of him, and Carol says "Because he quit." Carl Mahakian was the show's post-production coordinator. (00:09:50)

Jeff Swanson

The Slumber Caper - S2-E3

Trivia: Among the girls at the slumber party are Florence Henderson's daughter Barbara ("Ruthie") and Robert Reed's daughter Carolyn ("Karen"). They interact briefly; during the game of Truth Or Dare, Ruthie is dared to go check on the boys and asks Karen to go with her. In addition, Hope Sherwood ("Jenny") is the daughter of executive producer Sherwood Schwartz.

Jeff Swanson

Out of This World - S5-E16

Trivia: Frank Delfino - who plays one of the Kaplutians in Bobby's dream - utters the line "One small step for spacemen, one giant step for Kaplutians." The line was an ad-lib. (00:14:05)

Jeff Swanson

Trivia: Each of the actresses playing the three girls were re-cast in a future Brady-related sequel, TV show or movie. A different "Jan" in "The Brady Bunch Variety Hour" (1976), a different "Cindy" in "A Very Brady Christmas" (1988), and a different "Marcia" in "The Bradys" (1990). The only sequel to feature the original three actresses together was "The Brady Girls Get Married" (1981). The other six characters always contained the original cast for all of these.

My Brother's Keeper - S5-E8

Trivia: Although a toilet is never seen in the entire show, this episode came fairly close as in one scene we hear a toilet flushing during the argument between Peter and Bobby.

Trivia: According to one single line in one episode, it's revealed that Alice worked for Mike Brady and his boys while the first Mrs. Brady was still alive, meaning Alice was the Brady's housekeeper during two Mrs. Brady eras.

The Hair-Brained Scheme - S5-E22

Trivia: The storyline of Greg telling the two girls at the salon that Mrs. Brady is wearing a wig and is completely bald underneath is mentioned nearly 10 years later by Mr. Furley in a "Three's Company" episode. Furley though refers to the actress' name (Florence Henderson) by saying "Mrs. Henderson wears a wig... she's as bald as an eagle".

Trivia: Many believe the show was based on the movie Yours Mine and Ours, but Schwartz insisted he came up with the idea years before the movie came out.

hifijohn

Trivia: Mike Brady and Bobby Brady swapped character names with their real life first names. Mike's real name was Robert and Bobby's real first name is Mike.

terry s

Tiger, Tiger! - S1-E18

Trivia: In one scene, Bobby is about to get out of the car and the camera focuses up close on him taking off his seatbelt. This was most likely to promote the safety of seatbelts as they were fairly new in the 1960s.

Season 2 generally

Trivia: In Season 2, out of the five episodes with one of the kids not appearing in the entire episode, three episodes used the name of the missing kid in the dialog most likely to make their absence from the episode more unnoticed. (Marcia/Peter/Bobby in these cases - each one's name mentioned at least once even though they never appeared). The episodes were ("What Goes Up...", "The Tattletale" and "Coming-Out Party"). Also the 4th episode of season 2 - "A Fistful of Reasons" contained Jan being mentioned yet she did not appear in the entire episode.

The Winner - S2-E21

Continuity mistake: When Mike and Carroll drive Bobby to the TV show for the ice cream eating contest they leave in the blue convertible. They return home in the brown station wagon.

glanzone

More mistakes in The Brady Bunch
More quotes from The Brady Bunch

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.

More questions & answers from The Brady Bunch

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.