In the 1st episode, it looked like the girl playing Debbie, the girl who was trying out for the band, was really playing the drums! I wonder if she was?
After that scene, they just went on like nothing happened. I guess for some odd reason, she didn't get the job.
Oh, well..... :lol:

In the audio commentary for that episode on the season one DVD set, Danny said that the girl really did play the drums for that shot. Apparently she was a producer's daughter or something of the sort.

She really played, just like a little Karen Carpenter.

That little scene with "Debbie" wailing away on the drums always mystified me, too. Mainly as to why it was even included! A pointless time-filler? Fulfilling a promise to her producer-father to get her face on tv? Talk about annoying. While a good drummer, she brought absolutely nothing to the pilot. When I watch the pilot now I turn it off after their final number at Caesar's Palace, so I won't have to suffer that brat again.

I wonder if they put this on to fill up the time they cut out of the original pilot - about Shirley's divorce, ex-husband, etc.?

I think recall seeing that particular segment in which a young girl plays the drums very skillfully. The thing is that I never saw it , or recall seeing it, back when the Partridge Family first aired its pilot episode in the early 70s. I think I might have missed the pilot episode but saw many of the episodes that aired afterward at that time.
I saw the clip with the girl drummer on YouTube fairly recently and that had to be early 2016. I was surprised at what I had not seen in certain Partridge Family episodes. Of course I did not watch each and every one that ever aired back then. Sometimes my brother or sister or father wanted to watch something else.
I don't understand why there are comments here saying that it is an annoying segment. It seemed that the girl was more talented than Chris Partridge who if you look at him (whether played by Jeremy Gelbwalks or Brian Forester) just seems to be faking it.
Of course it was not within the context of the TV family to have a different drummer than "Chris" who was "Shirley's" son and the youngest brother of "Keith," "Lori," "Danny," and the ever-invisible "Tracy."

I know that that poor kid who was put to sing in the episodes before the series went off the air, Ricky Seagall, was considered annoying and a brat and worse things, but the girl who played the drums had drumming talent for her age and she only appeared once for the sake of the pilot plot. Perhaps the scene was made too long and maybe the real-life parent(s) of the kid somehow wanted her to be on TV, but I cannot understand why the scene is considered something that made the episode awful.
But certain people just have certain tastes and take things more seriously than they should.