View Full Version : Still Untarnished


Smartboy
08-31-2008, 09:28 PM
On the eighth of this month, I started a thread and titled it "Untarnished". The title of this thread had to do with the lesson taught in the episode "To Move or Not to Move". I would say that the lesson taught in this episode was typicle and highly predictable. It was a classic case of "be careful what you wish for because you just might get it! If you do not know what I am talking about, just think back to "The Wizard of Oz", "The Country Mouse and the Town Mouse" or just about half of the episodes of "The Flintstones"! In any event, the post that I made that day has a bunch of views but zero responses! Throughout the years, there were have been many theories about why the children of a family as lucritive as the Bradys would spend five years living three to a bedroom and six to a bath. One hypothosis is that Sherwood Shwortz took that episode very seriously and did not want the moral of that episode to ever go untarnished. I thought that it might be fun to start a game in which each fan names an episode made after that first season episode, in which the smallness of the house becomes an issue but that the topic of moving dose not come up. I then attempted to get the ball rolling by naming the first such episode that I could think of. This is the one in which Greg gets inujured playing football on his high school's team. The sub-plot of that episode, is Greg's interest in cameras and his hobby of developing his own film. He has to rotate between the laundry room and the one and only bathroom available to the children as a place to store his equipment. He spends more time moving his supplies from place to place than he does developing pictures! In any event, I think that this game deserves a second chance! I will attempt to start the ball rolling again by naming another such episode:

The next episode that I would like to mention is the one in which Jan wishes that she were an only child. Early in the episode, there is a scene in which Jan has to go to the bathroom during the time that Peter is brushing his teeth. After hearing a few pounds on the door, he opens it and says "here you go your highness"! While Jan is rolling her eyes at Peter's sarcasim, Cindy runs into the bathroom and closes the door! If they had a house that had two childrens' bathrooms, Jan would have had three less people to compete with for bathroom time. This, of course, would not have solved the problem of Jan's growing pains, but it would have cut down on one of the symptoms. Now let us see other fans write about other such episodes!

Tweety
09-12-2008, 10:18 PM
We also have the episode entitled "Our Son, The Man", in which Greg grows tired of sharing a room with Peter and Bobby. They end up making Mike's den (!) into Greg's room.

No mention of moving to a bigger house, but I think that making the garage into a room for Greg was suggested by Carol, but vetoed by Mike (because it would become a major construction project).

I don't think that adding on a room to the house was suggested, but I could be wrong.

Smartboy
09-15-2008, 03:27 AM
The last poster is correct that adding an additional room onto the house was not suggested in this episode. I do not think that it was ever suggested throughout the sereis for that matter. Yes, Mrs. Brady did suggest the idea of making a new room out of the garage. However, her husband responded by shaking his head and saying "you're talking major construction"! She also suggested the attick just to hear him say, "it would be great if Greg were two feet tall"! I think that this is a very good example of a time in which moving to a bigger house might have solved some of the problems but no one dared mention it!

Tweety
09-15-2008, 07:38 AM
The bathroom was a source of quite a few scuffles between the kids, both between the boys and the girls and even among the girls themselves...

For example, I think that "Will the Real Jan Brady Please Stand Up", had a scene in which Jan tries her wig on in the bathroom, and she takes too much time, so someone else keeps pounding on the bathroom door trying to get in.

desilu #1
09-18-2008, 10:53 AM
There was also the fight between Greg and Marcia over having the room in the attic. They constantly argued the point of lack of privacy, but again no mention of a new house.

Smartboy
09-25-2008, 09:27 PM
On September 22ed, someone responds to a thread by mentioning an episode in which Greg barges into the Girl's bedroom while Marcia is in her underwear. This incident took place in the episode "To Move or Not to Move". The last response to this thread was mine and that thread is now at the top of the page. I ended my response by saying that I would bring this thread up to the top to let a new generation of fans see what I was talking about. Since I started this thread, at least one respondee mentioned the episode in which Greg and Marcia were fighting over the attic room. I guess that you could say that, in this case, history repeated itself. In the first season, Greg complained that the girls would come into the boys' room to use their closet. Marcia said that, because girls have more cloths than boys, their drewer and closet space runs out pretty quickly. Five years later, when the issue of the attic room comes about, Marcia says that a girl needs more space. She then says that the closet is full and that there is no room in the drewers and that there is not even a place for her to use her hair dreyer. Greg retaleates by saying that it is just as crowded for him with the guys. However, no one dares mention the idea of moving again! Maybe that was because they felt that, with Greg going off to college in less than a year and Marcia being only one year behind him, the rooms that they have would empty out soon enough. What do other fans think of this theory?