When Mike arrives home, Bobby and Cindy immediately remind him of the need for a fire drill. Here is a quick snapshot of some past occurrences and our most recent. After they leave, Peter looks in the mirror and says, “Boy are you dull.” It never occurred to me until this episode, the Brady kids, and sometimes Alice, looked into mirrors and talked to themselves quite often. Mike and Carol tell Peter the words that cut him like a knife tonight will not seem so bad tomorrow after a good night’s sleep. Mike and Carol try to convince Peter he has a good personality, but he replies they are only saying that because parents have to “say junk like that”. Another kid at the party diagnosed Peter’s social pariah status as the result of having no personality. It turns out he was practically invisible at the party and nobody sought to socialize with him. After going upstairs, Peter is convinced to share the events of the evening. This “something” was an event so grave he doesn’t want to talk about it. When questioned why, he gives the vague reply of “something happened”. A funny wrap to this scene would have been Alice shrugging and then noticing the appliances unplugged and rendering the kitchen dangerous again.Īs they leave the kitchen, Mike and Carol notice Peter is home early from a party he was attending. Alice is understandably confused by Carol’s remark. Alice enters the kitchen and Carol shares how the room is now safer since they have gotten rid of the octopus. The array of cords going here and there is identified by the kids as an “octopus”. In the kitchen, the danger created when multiple appliances plugged into a single outlet is being discussed. Bobby and Cindy have a school assignment to see that their home is safe as possible. Inside, the episode’s subplot is being introduced right away. Peter, clad in his finest duds, is walking across the patio after dark. It turned something commonly depicted as tragedy into a triumph–a family coming together by choice.The episode opens with the slow ominous Brady background music. Yes, Mike was a widower, and Carol’s status was never clarified–a compromise after Sherwood Schwartz wanted her to be a divorcée–but anyone watching knew what the show was really depicting. Putting two families together on TV was unusual at the time, and it spoke to the number of kids who recognized divorce and remarriage from their own lives. The Brady family was big, it was blended, and it felt like there was room for everyone. Like a lot of childhood TV memories, The Brady Bunch is loved not so much for its artistry as for its emotional connections. ![]() (While she had successors, like The Jeffersons‘ Florence, the wisecracking household worker isn’t so common anymore.) But on the other hand, she connected with a change that, in the early ’70s, was emerging in American families, in which figures other than two parents were central in kids’ lives. On the one hand, she was a throwback to the early days of TV sitcoms, when housekeeper and maid characters were more commonplace, from Hazel to The Jetsons’ Rosie. ![]() The character was also a connection between TV eras. But Alice got to be smart, self-effacing, flustered, and straight-talking, and Davis played her with a comic arsenal of comic moves and gestures–that peppy voice, those talented eyebrows–and just a touch of relatable melancholy. Mike had to be patient and befuddled Carol warm and wise. She was the adult on the show who was most often allowed to be flat-out, broadly funny. ![]() She was an employee, yes, but a friend and a confidante. Davis, who died after a fall on May 31 at age 88, Alice was the connecting tissue of the group that somehow formed a family.Īs a kid watching the Bradys, maybe you identified with Jan or Bobby or another kid, maybe you had affection for Mike and Carol–but Alice was the one you loved. ![]() (As a kid, I had a heavy diet of Hollywood Squares episodes and Brady Bunch reruns, and therefore forever had Alice and Paul Lynde weirdly conjoined in my mind.) Played by Ann B. In the famous opening grid of The Brady Bunch‘s title sequence, the character who occupies the center square is not a parent or a child but Alice the housekeeper.
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