Hi,

I am new here. I just saw an episode of "The Brady Bunch" and I have a question.

I grew up watching this show and I have seen every episode multiple times. Like many people my age (36), I think of this show as an indelible part of childhood that will always be with me, and I have the episodes more or less memorized. So it was really shocking today to see something I've never seen before, and I just wondered if anyone here would have any idea what it means.

It was the episode where all the kids come down with the measles and the parents have to decide whether to have the male or female doctor treat them. At one point in the episode Carol is sitting at the kitchen table with a big chalkboard, making a chart of all the illnesses the kids have had, and Alice is helping her. Mike comes in and looks at the chart, and he says the chart isn't necessary because the doctors already have all the records. Then he points toward the bottom of the chart and (what I remember him saying is) "Anyway, this is wrong...None of the kids have had distemper." And then Alice says she added Tiger's medical history to the chart. So this is obviously supposed to be funny, even though Robert Reed delivered the line in a very serious way.

ANYWAY.....On to my question: I saw the episode this morning on TVLand, and when they got to the part where Mike gives that line, something was different. I almost didn't catch it right away but suddenly I realized what it was....They had DUBBED in a voiceover to slightly change the line. Instead of saying, "Anyway, this is wrong....None of the kids have had distemper," the dubbed voice said, "Anyway, this is wrong...None of the kids have had THE SHOTS FOR distemper."

Well, I just don't get it! I have heard of instances before where a show (like "Lou Grant") that covered "hot button" political topics would end up with words and lines dubbed to avoid offending anyone. But I can't see what would be so explosive about a line like that in a 35-year-old sitcom, that TVLand (or whoever) would feel they needed to dub it out like that.

This fascinates me because I have watched this show for so long and seeing the episodes time and time again, nothing usually changes! Now this is something new, and I just wondered if anyone here has noticed the same thing or if you have any idea what could be going on.

Thanks for reading my post!

Welcome to the SO Boards - have a look around at other boards - you'll love it here! :wave:
Funny - I almost tuned into that ep this morning myself (but opted for Lifetime instead).

I ran a quick google on humans and distemper to see if there was a relationship and there is. This could be the reason they've dubbed over - if new information was brought to their attention, or possibly a fan asked them to correct it. Here's the blurb I read on it. Maybe the producers felt it wasn't as funny a joke as they initially thought since measles and canine distemper ARE closely related!

"The canine distemper virus is closely related to the human measles virus and, in fact, in older times, puppies were immunized for distemper with vaccine against measles. It has been said that a child in the home of a dog vaccinated with live distemper virus vaccine will become exposed to the virus and immunized against the measles (though we do not recommend such experiments at home)"

And other site had this:

Can humans get infected with the canine distemper virus?
Humans can get infected with the virus meaning the virus seems able to replicate in the human body but no illness results. At one time, multiple sclerosis was thought to be associated with exposure to the canine distemper virus but further research suggests that it is actually the human measles virus (a close relative of canine distemper) that may be the culprit. It does not appear that there is any human hazard in the canine distemper virus.

Maybe they were worried that some of their more knowledgable audience would get confused. :confused:
Hope this helps! :D

Well not to take away from your research which it was rather interesting to find out there is a relation but if these so called intelligent viewers are just that intelligent they would recoginize that this show was made years before and it is only a show and at the time of the show maybe this information was not yet known or available to the general public.
I hate dubbing of line due to new facts or issues that have arose over the past few years. A show is recorded in its original way due to the facts and intelligence of what they know at that time. If you watch a show in syndication most of the time it is not going to be as up to date as say a first run show made today. Part of the joy of watching a show is seeing how much times have changed. There is no reason to change to that line in the show if they did indeed change that.
Maybe you can go to the Brady Bunch part of this board and a person with more knowledge of the show then I have can help you with that and any other dubbing that took place on the show.
All I can say is some people are really to politically correct and want all things changed from its classic state to a politically correct way to fit todays standards, and it takes away from the past.

Thanks so much! What you say makes a lot of sense. It's great to know that I'm not the only one who hates it when great shows from the past are changed and "adjusted" to make them fit with today's PC concepts.

I'm going to check out the Brady Bunch area as you suggested and see what else I can learn. Thanks for the warm welcome. I like it here!! :)

Wow, thanks! I had no clue about these viruses and their relationships. I guess it could be what you said, that they just wanted to change the line to keep step with current scientific knowledge. But I still hate stuff like that. I wish they'd just leave it as it was, so that we could get the full flavor of what times were like back then, including what their knowledge of science was!


Anyway, I really appreciate your warm welcome and the time you took to respond to my question. I am going to come back here a lot and see what else I can learn.

Thanks again!!

:)