I found it interesting that the school called Bobby's parents when he brought a toy gun to school during his infatuation with Jessie James and he didn't get into that much trouble. These days if that happened I bet the school would have arrested him! :eek: That gun he brought looked like a toy gun but these days it's hard to tell. Sad that the world has changed so much since this episode first aired.

And that was his second offense!! Today he would have been arrested after the first time-there wouldn't have been a second time.

Heck, today they would not have been sent to walk home with the measles.

I remember in first grade or kindergarten it was cowboy/cowgirl day and many of us brought toy guns to school, that would have been somewhere around like 1985-1987

Recently, kids have been suspended for making a “finger gun” gesture.

I recently saw something on youtube that this episode originally had a Sky Jacker as Bobby's hero. Sky jackings were the rage in the early 70s with DB Cooper being the most famous which happened shortly before this episode aired. The TV executives thought it was too violent so they decided on Jessie James instead :lol:

The Odd Story Behind Bobby Brady’s Emotional Jesse James Episode (https://popculturereferences.com/the-odd-story-behind-bobby-bradys-emotional-jesse-james-episode/)

Lookinland gave an oddly emotional performance in the dream sequence, and as it turns out, producer Lloyd Schwartz took the young actor aside before the scene (which they had intentionally not rehearsed with Lookinland yet) and told him to imagine all sorts of horrible things, like his family being murdered in front of him, and then put him into the scene and got the reaction on the first take. He then took Lookinland off the set and let him decompress following the scene.

Its almost impossible to even find toy guns today. So much gun violence especially in schools that even a toy guy would lead to expulsion from any school.

I’ve even read of kids getting suspended for making the “finger gun” gesture.

"Bobby's Hero" is so powerful and ahead of it's time that you forget you are watching a sitcom. It's brilliant on all counts.

Jack

Bobby's Hero was just featured on the Real Brady Bros podcast. Chris and Barry brought Mike along for comments. It was a really good review. Mike said he was nervous because he had to do serious acting. Most Brady scenes he was just to walk in on Greg and annoy him or something. But they planned the shootings where the family would die comical like in a silent movie. However they wanted Bobby to react seriously. Sherwood's son told Mike before the scene: Pretend your dog was run over or someone shot your parents.
A few other interesting parts of this episode is we never see Bobby point a gun at anyone. Each time he is robbing his siblings, its always with his finger. We never see Bobby point a gun at anyone. When the old man comes over and tells Bobby about his father being killed by Jesse James he tells him how he had nightmares of this as a kid. However, when Bobby has the dream of the shooting, its not referred to as a nightmare. Greg wakes Bobby that he is having a "dream" Then Bobby again uses the word "dream." Bobby has a nightmare but its referred to as a dream.
The best part of this recap was the subplot about Mike losing his speech papers and offering the kids a whopping one dollar to find the speech. The kids go crazy looking all over for the speech. Marcia and Jan are digging through garbage cans and pulling out clean paper. Apparently the Brady's don't have dirty garbage and only throw away paper. Then we get the idiot Cindy moment again where Cindy offers to help look and before asking what she is looking for :lol:
Carol finds the speech in the end and demands the dollar. The tag scene at the end always bothered me and I am glad I was not the only one. They were laughing so hard how bad Carol's joke is at the end. Carol offers Mike advice for his speech to tell a joke about an architect that builds a building with no doors. Mike asks, how does anyone get in. Carol says " you keep running around and around until you are all in."
That joke barely makes sense and is not funny.
Great episode nonetheless.