That One Brady Bunch Where Everyone Gets Shot to Death

Were I to take an informal poll about favorite episodes of The Brady Bunch, I’d probably hear people suggest the one where Marcia takes a football to the nose or the one where we meet the new Jan Brady. I wouldn’t expect to be surprised by any of the answers, because I grew up on Brady Bunch reruns — 5 p.m. on weeknights and an hour-long block at noon on Saturdays, after cartoons ended — but I’d be thrown if I heard “the one where Jesse James executes the entire family.” “You’re drunk!” I’d say. “Or you’re remembering a rerun you saw when you were home sick with a fever, because that never happened.”

Only it did happen.

There’s a fourth-season episode titled “Bobby’s Hero” that’s all about Bobby’s brief fixation with Jesse James. In a fantasy sequence — maybe a result of Bobby Brady’s own fever — the whole family exists in wild west times. The Bradys are riding a cardboard make-believe train that gets boarded by Jesse James, who proceeds to rob them and shoot them in the head. He doesn’t fire. He just announces “bang” as he points the gun at them. But you do hear them scream and you see Mike, Carol, Alice, Greg and Jan slump down in their seats.

I can’t tell if it’s more disturbing to see this now as an adult, but you have to admit: That’s pretty disturbing, at least by Brady standards.

There seems to be some notion online that this episode was banned from syndication. I’m not sure if was, but I’m certain I never saw it when I was a kid, and I’m pretty sure I saw all five seasons cycle through multiple times. (There’s some notion also that the one where Barry Williams is visibly stoned onscreen was banned, but I remember that one, even if I didn’t read anything into his clumsy grinning at the time.) I wonder if any other TV Land kids saw this one?

Bonus Brady trivia: Did you know that Robert Reed was written out of the show’s final episode because he thought the plot was too stupid? Because I didn’t.

Old TV, previously:

• The weirdness of Cover-Up and its two halves
• A “Spordelia”-era Sarah Michelle Gellar
• Kathy Santoni’s African adventure
• Twin Peaks’ Killer BOB gets just a little creepier than you remember
• How Shirley Temple made Mr. Belvedere famous

The Family That Didn’t Know the Meaning of the Word “Cancelled”

I knew about the various Brady Bunch spin-offs, but I’d never seen the opening titles from The Brady Brides until today. And I wish I hadn’t.

It would be self-parody if it displayed the merest hint of self-awareness. There are no words. Only the image of me sitting here and pondering the sentence “This happened.” It actually makes the opening credits to the next spin-off in the series — the Thirtysomething-esque The Bradys — look better by comparison.

Though you have to question the logic in crediting not-the-Marcia, Leah “Bloodsport” Ayres before the five, non-fraudulent Brady children. Not to talk up The Bradys all that much. “Men with mustaches don’t run for office.” The hell?

Sexual Liberation on Clinton Avenue

A bizarre Brady Bunch scene that has been eliminated from reruns, probably with good reason. In it, Alice refuses to let Bobby and Cindy swim naked at a neighbor's clothing-optional pool.

Would this have not been weird in the 70s? Or is Alice actually trying to protect the kids from a family of sex predators?

(Via Scrubbles.)

Bunny Caldwell (Née Flingus), Age Eighteen

EDIT: Nope! Turns out this is all wrong. Baranski said so herself. See conversation in comments.

Do you ever wonder what Christine Baranski looked like as a teenager? I know I do constantly — and especially so if she happened to actually be eighteen at the time but still looked like an awkward fourteen-year-old. And especially especially if she happened to be acting, using a less Polish-sounding stage name (say, something like Chris Charney) and playing a character who gets to hang out in the Brady Bunch living room.

Joy of joys: The answer to all of our troubles, Christine Baranski-related and otherwise, can be found on YouTube. The clip is non-embeddable but easily clickable. If you’d like to see the girl who would become Baranski, skip ahead to the 4:45 mark; she plays the first girl to be questioned in the game of Truth or Dare. But know that skipping ahead will make you miss other bizarre slumber party hijinks, including a chip-eating frenzy scene that’s weirdly reminiscent of Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” and a glimpse at an inexplicable party game called “Ha,” which Spencer rightly describes as involving “laying in a weird circle, laughing for fifteen seconds, and then… not playing anymore.”

A screengrab:

BARANSKI!

It surprises me a bit, considering how much I watched the reruns as a kid, but I only have one other Brady Bunch post of note on this blog, but for fans it’s worth a look. It features a video of a woman burning to death in the Brady Bunch kitchen. Enjoy!

Don’t Ask Alice

Did you ever want to watch a clip from a movie in which a woman, contemplating a recipe for chicken mousse in the kitchen from The Brady Bunch, has her hair set on fire by a malicious insect?

Because now you can.

Context: Stacie Ponder’s review of the 1975 film Bug.