Suzanne Crough: My Favorite Partridge" [Archive] - Sitcoms Online Message Boards

12-10-2015, 08:44 PM

The only thing I can think of is that anyone that was a 'fan' of hers had to be a girl the same age when they saw the show. She was basically invisible and could have been played just as well by a cardboard cutout.

She was worse than invisible, that is her assigned part in PF was worse than invisible.
The part she played was that of nothing but a little girl who really can't contribute significantly to the family band and is just put to hold a tambourine so she isn't left out.
I found it strange that her only sister , Lori , though much older than she, still didn't have have a rapport with her as her only female sibling. They never interacted, or not much. Keith carried Tracy on his shoulders in one episode, and pushed her in a shopping cart in another. It seemed Lori should have done so. But also Lori had bad judgement in choosing boyfriends and though she thought herself to be a "feminist" she was too feminine. She should have been a better influence on her younger sister.
Alternately strange considering all this, was that the sibling closest to Tracy's age, Chris, was almost always her "pal" and they were often together and Chris never told Tracy that she is a pain in the neck for being a girl. Only in one episode in which all the Partridge females (Shirley, Lori, and Tracy) all banded together against the Partridge males (Keith, Danny and Chris ) when Shirley's parents visited and had an argument and Keith said that Grandma relies on Grandpa and that a woman needs a man, and all the boys agreed but all the girls disagreed, did Chris just band with his brothers and keep away from Tracy .
Chris even readily kissed Tracy when she held a mistletoe over her head and approached all her brothers in the Christmas episode , but Danny reluctantly kissed her saying he is only doing it because she is his sister.

Overall, Tracy was much much more insignificant than Chris. I mean Tracy's part as an innocent, weak little girl was sooooo intense and soooo stereotypical and overplayed (when there was any emphasis on Tracy at all). In an episode in which Danny was wanting to be so honest and felt guilty over the slightest thing he did wrong and his siblings were annoyed, they all decided to make Danny feel honest by "tempting" him and then when he resists, he can then feel good about himself . So they left their valuable possessions lying around for Danny to feel like taking, but Danny saw it as a lame trick and he came up to each of his siblings and he gave Keith his wallet back and also Lori's and Chris's, but Tracy did not have a wallet , only a doll. Danny gave it back to her. How absurd.
In another episode all the Partridge siblings were apologizing to Keith for being mean to him.Tracy was the first to come up to him and say she is sorry and she gave him a poorly-done drawing of a fish. Chris apologized by promising Keith that he would try to learn more classical music and play it on the drums (the episode involved Keith trying to teach his siblings about classical music, but they did not like it and played nasty tricks on him). Lori just sincerely said she was sorry; and Danny apologized in such a jokey way that it made Keith laugh and forgive them all. Tracy 's part was so little-girly and cute to put it mildly, it was a scene that makes me cringe. It seemed that the other siblings' apologies were to be taken seriously. Tracy needed to be humored for her efforts. Also there was that awful scene in which Tracy was having a bubble bath and was topless and Keith and Danny filmed her (I think telling her to blow kisses to the camera). Keith and Danny intended to publicize their family home movies, and they also filmed Chris but he was doing activities such as playing the drums and sitting by an artist's easel and making an awful painting. However he had his clothes on.
Though Tracy was a child whose body was still just like her brother, Chris's I thought the scene with her in the tub was strange. A following scene in the episode had Tracy mentioning that if the home movie is publicized she won't be able to face other kids at school.

BTW, yes a "fan" of Tracy Partridge was most likely a girl the same age, but it could also be a boy the same age.