Guys,

"Bobby's Hero" (a.k.a The Jessie James episode) is one of my favorite episodes of The Brady Bunch for the realism of the topic material and the quality of the writing and acting. A couple of questions:

1. Do you think that the book that was written by Mr. Collins (The old guy played by Bert Mustin) was a real book or just a prop used for the show? It looked like an actual book and you might recall its title...."The Real Jessie James" It would be very cool to see if such a book with such a title exists at that time or still exists and if it really WAS written by a guy who's father was killed by Jessie James.

2. Is there a movie called "Jessie James on the Vengence Trail" in real life? If there isn't, I thought that the clips that showed the "movie" were very realistic. (I wonder where the film footage was taken from?)

3. Does anybody have this episode uncut? Any major lines or scenes that we are misssing? This episode is a classic among classics and I have always said that this is one episode of The Brady Bunch that critics should see, and if they did, they would never bash the show again. Look at how ahead of its time this episode is concerning how kids are influenced by TV Today. Robert Reed's line in here, "Today's criminals will probably be tomorrow's folk-heros" is almost haunting

4. Mike Lookingland was absolutely superb in this episode In fact the only quibble that I had was that the "Dream sequence" could have used the actual sound of a gun going off instead of the Jessie James charactor shouting 'BANG!" But it doesn't diminish from the fine quality of this great episode. It is very moving and very powerful.

Jack

I don't believe there's a movie called "Jesse James on the Vengeance Trail". The clips shown as the Bradys were watching TV were most likely stock footage from the Paramount vaults (notice that there was no dialogue). The book that Mike was reading looked like a prop, rather than a real book, to me. But I also used to wonder if the whole book/author scenario had some basis in reality.

I hate the "bang, bang" shouts of Jesse in the dream sequence -- very cheesy.

This is my all-time favorite Brady Bunch episode. It was the most "realistic" of them all (although I do have quite a few other favorites). Anyway, Mr. Colins' story about how his father was killed by Jesse James could be real, because I think Burt Mustin was born in 1884 (?) so he could have remembered Jesse James. Who knows? I wonder how often real stories from the actors lives gets put into the TV shows...
-Kristi

You have got to check this out:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1891708244/qid=1045028698/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/103-0544021-1357415?v=glance&s=books

Originally posted by Jack1000



3. Does anybody have this episode uncut? Any major lines or scenes that we are misssing? This episode is a classic among classics and I have always said that this is one episode of The Brady Bunch that critics should see, and if they did, they would never bash the show again. Look at how ahead of its time this episode is concerning how kids are influenced by TV Today. Robert Reed's line in here, "Today's criminals will probably be tomorrow's folk-heros" is almost haunting


Jack
I don't have this episode uncut but I do recall a scene that TVLand leaves out. If I remember this right the Brady girls are in the backyard looking for Mikes speech in hopes of getting the dollar reward when Bobby, in his Jesse James getup, comes up behind them and pretends to hold them up. The part where Bobby, Mike and Carol are in the family room watching the movie has also been chopped up by TVLand. I seem to recall more dialogue in that scene. It has been many years since I have seen this ep uncut so I am sure there are more scenes that they leave out, I just can't remember them.

This was a good episode. However....

There was so much artificial about it. Jesse James was never a "hero" because he was a notorious outlaw. I suppose an ignorant child might see him as a hero, but there things in the episode that artificially reinforced the hero worship. Such as the movie scenes being deleted for television, thus changing the storyline.

I don't think a book titled "The Real Jesse James" would have been written, because everyone knew he was a bad guy already. The only real books we have like this are about real heroes or celebrities (Bing Crosby, Elvis, John Lennon, Sinatra), who were not considered bad by the general public.

But this type of book would have been something like "Hitler: The Real Story." Which is ridiculous, because we all know Hitler was bad.

Hey, y'all! Check out that link that "dlemond" has a few posts back! It really is a Jesse James book! Cool!!!

By the way, I may be the only one that thinks this, but I think the person in cowboy-gear walking up the bank steps in the "Jesse James on the Vengeance Trail" movie is a woman!

I can't explain it--maybe it's the particular gait in the walk, or whatever, but it looks like a woman's manner of walking. Oh, I can't explain it....it's just something I've always thought.

Look at that part next time you see this episode, and see what you think!