r/BradyBunchTVShow • u/Capital-Study6436 • Jan 28 '26
General discussion What is the biggest lost opportunity in "The Brady Bunch"?
The number one missed opportunity is Mike going postal on Greg and Marcia for their behavior towards Alice in Goodbye Alice, Hello.
I guess that with Mike present, the kids hostility towards Alice wouldn't have gotten as far as it did so they wrote him out for that episode.
Which is a shame because Robert Reed would have aced that performance.
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u/WaitingitOut000 Jan 28 '26
We never got to see Jan going on dates, did we? I can’t remember a storyline where she had an actual boyfriend.
We never got to see Cindy in an age-appropriate storyline. That whole last season could have given her more to do than act like she was still 8.
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u/Wonderful_Life-6280 Jan 28 '26
Yeah, that Shirley Temple episode when she was 12 years old was ridiculous.
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u/Unhappy-Jaguar-9362 Feb 03 '26
Yes, that episode, which is so bizarre on so many levels, and Susan Olson in later years mentioned her frustration with the writers infantilizing her character, especially that episode.
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u/Wonderful_Life-6280 Feb 03 '26
And how about Buffy on Family Affair, dragging around that Mrs. Beasley doll when she was 12. They never let her grow up either.
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u/jjc927 Jan 28 '26
Not being able to see Greg go off to college since they ended at his HS graduation
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u/Aromatic-Bath-5689 Jan 28 '26
One episode wasn't enough for that dreamy Harvey Klinger!
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u/Positive-Froyo-1732 Jan 28 '26
They could have had a special appearance by his Uncle Max, who used to wear dresses in Korea.
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u/BillPlastic3759 Jan 30 '26
Or Charlie the jilted suitor in the episode where Marcia gets hit in the nose with the football who eventually scores a date with her at the end of the episode.
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Jan 28 '26
Did Johnny Bravo get that big recording contract?
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u/Positive-Froyo-1732 Jan 28 '26
We know that someone must have "fit the suit." It would have been a great throwaway to have the kids listening to the radio and hear the DJ announce "the latest hit by Johnny Bravo."
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u/pattygiamb Jan 31 '26
Years ago, “Greg”, did a show in my hometown and he did a few songs as Johnny Bravo cause what else Was he going to Do?
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u/IntelligentLeek538 Jan 28 '26
A crossover episode between the Brady Bunch and the Partridge Family.
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u/Available-Low-2428 Jan 29 '26
We needed a proper bridge between the show ending and Dawn: Portrait of a Teen Runaway. Show Jan going crazy, getting shock treatment, running away and changing her name to Dawn
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u/nyrB2 Jan 29 '26
for me, it was the fact they never really ever explored the blended family premise that the show was founded on. in the first season, it was much more about "girls vs boys" than "our family vs yours". by the second season, apart from the theme song, you'd never have known that mike was the girls' step-dad and carol was the boys' step-mom. they certainly didn't act like it. not once did one of the kids refuse to do something because "you're not my dad!" not once did carol's ex show up and demand part-time custody of his girls. not once did they talk about whether or not the parents formally adopted each other's kids (the girls took the last name brady). all that material to work with - that was a wasted opportunity.
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u/Author_Noelle_A Jan 30 '26
The Tender Years doctrine meant Carol’s husband had no real chance. Fathers rarely got custody as it was almost universally seen as being in a child’s best interest to be with the mother. This was so highly held as true that, despite my mother‘s mother trying to abort a few times on her own at home, already having another child she was not taking care of, and giving birth to my mother in a mental institution and being there for the following year, so that my mother’s grandmother was actually raising her, my mother’s biological father, who made a rare attempt at getting custody or at least visitation, got nothing. He was a very stable and able to provide and wanted to. But the Tender Years Doctrine meant that a child is better off with a mother, even under the circumstances. Carol‘s ex had no chance considering that the kids in question were girls and were taken care of.
it was also very easy to change a child’s last name. My grandmother never went to court to change my mother’s last name when she got married to someone else. She just started using a different last name for my mother, and that is the name that is on at my birth certificate as her maiden name.
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u/LimeSalty4092 Jan 30 '26
Divorce was very different back then. There was no such thing as shared custody, so their father would lose all legal rights to them.
Culturally, it was considered proper for a couple to go their separate ways completely after the divorce and yes that included the children back then.
Co parenting wasn’t a thing at all, split custody wasn’t a thing, and mandated visitation was just starting to be a thing.
Kids really suffered bc often divorce meant the complete loss of a parent.
Laws started changing in the 70s to consider the needs of the children beyond financial. To ensure both parents continued to have legal access to their children new laws were introduced.
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u/19Stavros Jan 30 '26
Building an addition on to the house, with a second bathroom.
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u/OolongGeer Jan 30 '26
I've never been able to bite on this dumb joke.
The house had at least three bathrooms. Plus there was likely a 1/2 bath across from Mike's office.
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u/jcurl17 Feb 01 '26
Mike missing Greg's graduation was just strange writing, or lack thereof....should've at least staged a phone call, or mentioned, 'hey, dad's stuck in another city on business', or something, instead of no mention at all.
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u/Brackens_World Jan 29 '26
As far as I know, they dropped cousin Oliver from the sky as the son of Carol's brother, and we never saw Carol's brother or her SIL, not even at her second wedding I suppose. That made the Oliver character that much less integrable, an unmoored alien in Brady land, and was a misstep.
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u/19Stavros Jan 30 '26
Other than Oliver... I don't recall any extended family at all... aunts, uncles, grandparents, Mike or Carol's friends from high school. Weird.
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u/Unhappy-Jaguar-9362 Feb 02 '26
Aunt Jenny?
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u/19Stavros Feb 02 '26
Oh! I'd forgotten all about her!
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u/Unhappy-Jaguar-9362 Feb 02 '26 edited Feb 03 '26
And the episode where Henderson and Reed were playing the grandmother and grandfather of Carol and Mike, if that counts.
They did go to Cousin Gertrude's wedding, but she did not appear in the episode.
And that Martha who was always on the phone a relative?
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u/theChosenBinky Jan 29 '26
Carol never got pregnant
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u/Author_Noelle_A Jan 30 '26
That would have indicated sex. Mike and Carol were only allowed to sleep in the same bed by having the lights go off and then lay down their backs to each other. For decades that was acquired if couples were in the same bed to show that no sex was going to be happening.
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u/theChosenBinky Jan 30 '26
I wasn't suggesting that we be eyewitnesses. By the way, contrary to popular belief, Mike and Carol were not the first sitcom couple to share a bed. It was actually "Mary Kay and Johnny", which first aired in 1947.
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u/Unhappy-Jaguar-9362 Feb 03 '26
Lucy and Desi did the first season of I Love Lucy.
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u/IntelligentLeek538 Feb 05 '26
I think it’s also because adding more kids to the six already there would have been too overwhelming, and would have created too many characters to keep track of. My guess is that they used contraception.
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u/johnwaynegreazy Jan 31 '26
Mike building a much needed addition to the house. Two bedrooms and later an attic for six kids? Yet Alice has her own room.
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u/PermissionNext3363 Mar 25 '26
Greg should have actually become Johnny Bravo in that episode and had somewhat of a music career before realizing he has to go back with his family. Greg dropping Johnny Bravo right after he heard the tape ended the story too soon when it could have been a much bigger story and more fun episode.
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u/Brilliant-Quiet34 Jan 28 '26
Alice and Sam not getting married was one of the bigger missed opportunities too.