View Full Version : Celebrity Bowling with the Bradys


Tweety
11-14-2010, 11:38 PM
This past Saturday afternoon (11/13), I was watching some football games, and during commercials, would sometimes flip around to see what else was on.

As it happened, ESPN Classic was running a little mini-marathon of a show called "Celebrity Bowling". I was looking through the episodes in the digital TV guide, and some of the celebrity teams looked interesting.

They had such stars as Don Adams, George Foreman, Roy Rogers (!), Gail Fisher ("Peggy" from "Mannix"),Cathy Lee Crosby, Michelle Lee and others.

Anyway, the final episode of the marathon featured Barry Williams, Chris Knight, Maureen McCormick and Eve Plumb.

The teams were Barry and Maureen vs. Chris and Eve.

I thought it looked like the show might have been taped in '73 or '74, and at the end of the show, the host asked the kids how long the BB had been on. They mentioned that they'd just completed the 5th season (although they might not have known yet that the show was being canceled, they did not mention anything about cancellation). So the episode was from the spring or summer of 1974.

It was fun seeing them compete. Barry was the best natural bowler (turns out he had played in a couple of leagues). I think Eve got the first strike of the day. She was a better bowler than Chris, but Chris adjusted somewhat as the game went on and had a couple of good frames late in the contest. Maureen was definitely the worst bowler in the "bunch".

As he did in the driving skill contest with Marcia, Greg choked near the end of the game. He just folded under the pressure.

Chris and Eve's team won... I don't remember what the final score was, but it was about 140-something to around 100 or so. They used a best ball format...two lanes were used, each teammate would bowl, and then one of the teammates would try to make the easiest spare possible, while the other lane's result would be discarded.

It was fun to watch them.

TeeVeeCloset
11-15-2010, 10:05 AM
THANKS FOR THE HEADS UP! This show was a favorite of mine, it was syndicated in the early 70's and hosted by Jed Allan (Days Of Our Lives Fame) and featured b-type celebrities like Richard Deacon.....it seems to be scheduled not on a regular basis, but I never knew the brady kids were on it?, can't wait for a rerun of it again!

old grouch
11-15-2010, 02:41 PM
I wouldn't mind seeing the Gail Fisher episode. Bowling seems such a 'Brady' thing to do.

catlover79
11-15-2010, 10:33 PM
I would've loved to see this!!! Was Jed Allan the host of Celebrity Bowling at this point?

McGillicuddy
11-15-2010, 11:35 PM
Wow! I can't believe there was a "Brady" event, that I never knew about. And I pretty much know everything Brady! :lol:

Tweety
11-16-2010, 11:03 AM
I would've loved to see this!!! Was Jed Allan the host of Celebrity Bowling at this point?

I believe so. His wiki entry indicates that he hosted the show from 1971-78. And I'm sure that was the name I heard as the host. In fact, the wiki entry on Celebrity Bowling indicates that he hosted the show during its entire original run (71-78).

The shows also had a young woman who was apparently a professional bowler in California at that time. Both she and Allen himself would sometimes give tips to the celebs about their stance and also would advise them as to how to aim the ball (they might advise someone to either aim left or right of the target pin(s) depending on how that person usually rolled the ball. lol, it didn't always help :)

I took a day off from work today, and I see that ESPN classic is running a couple of episodes of C.B. this morning, but they're not re-running the Brady ep... looks like they have completely different teams than the ones that ran on Saturday.

I haven't looked at the schedule, I wonder if they will run a bunch more this coming Saturday, and if they do, will it be the same ones that they ran during the week? If that's the case, then the Brady episode might have aired sometime during last week, before it was re-run on Saturday. I'm not sure if this is what ESNPC does, but these days, almost every station reruns the same episodes of shows several times before they move on to the next set of episodes to broadcast. Kind of annoying to me.

Tweety
11-16-2010, 11:21 AM
Wow! I can't believe there was a "Brady" event, that I never knew about. And I pretty much know everything Brady! :lol:

That just goes to show ya, there's apparently no end to the stuff that can be dug up, if the right people do the digging.

But you're right... I never even heard of this CB appearance, I just happened to run across it this past weekend. Women complain about guys "clicking" around all the time, but if I hadn't done that, I never would have found out about this episode!


("Men don't care what's on TV, men only care what ELSE is on TV!" - Jerry Seinfeld)

catlover79
11-17-2010, 10:06 PM
I believe so. His wiki entry indicates that he hosted the show from 1971-78. And I'm sure that was the name I heard as the host. In fact, the wiki entry on Celebrity Bowling indicates that he hosted the show during its entire original run (71-78).

Cool - thanks for confirming that!!! :cool: :D

McGillicuddy
11-17-2010, 10:15 PM
That just goes to show ya, there's apparently no end to the stuff that can be dug up, if the right people do the digging.

But you're right... I never even heard of this CB appearance, I just happened to run across it this past weekend. Women complain about guys "clicking" around all the time, but if I hadn't done that, I never would have found out about this episode!


("Men don't care what's on TV, men only care what ELSE is on TV!" - Jerry Seinfeld)
Hey, do you recall a show called Star Games, a syndicated show similar to the Battle of the Network Stars specials? In one episode all 6 Brady Kids competed against a cast from another show? I think it was on in the '80's. I wish I could see that again.

Tweety
11-17-2010, 11:13 PM
Hey, do you recall a show called Star Games, a syndicated show similar to the Battle of the Network Stars specials? In one episode all 6 Brady Kids competed against a cast from another show? I think it was on in the '80's. I wish I could see that again.

Hmmm... no, I don't think I remember the "Star Games" show, although I remember the "Battle of the Network Stars" show quite well.

Battle of the NS started in 1976, and it aired for about 12 years. I don't know if any of the Bradys were ever on that show, as the BB had been canceled before "Battle" went on the air. I think that Battle probably used stars of currently airing shows, so it's possible that the Bradys might not of made it on to that one, unless they had a retro-episode(s) featuring stars of shows that were no longer in their original run.

I didn't watch Battle very often, unless they had someone on that I really, really liked and had a crush on... like Melissa Sue Anderson, for example