meeting, impostor

[Bill Gunnels]

1. Were we ever told how, when, or where Mike Brady first noticed the pretty widow Carol Tyler Martin?

2. Did Mike and Carol tell each other about the kids when they first met? If they didn't, does this fact raise a question as to whether they would have fallen in love had they known?

3. In the VERY BRADY SEQUEL, was the Roy Martin impostor really in love with Carol (very understandable--Shelley Long is almost as pretty as Florence Henderson) or was he a would-be thief?

[blackbiped]

1. I don't remember ever hearing them talk about how they met.

2. Knowing how proud Mike and Carol are of their kids, I would think that this is one of the first things they would've talked about.

3. The Roy Martin impostor was in love with himself. He was only interested in Carol because he wanted the horse statue.

If I've gotten any of these wrong, someone help me out.

[sixfingers]

Originally Posted by Bill Gunnels

1. Were we ever told how, when, or where Mike Brady first noticed the pretty widow Carol Tyler Martin?

It is only in the brady sequel that Carol is clarified as a widow. In the series it is left unresolved.

In one of the later specials (either A Very Brady Christmas or one of its offspring) Carol has a conversation with Peter in which she very strongly suggests that she was divorced.

[Waterston_Fan]

Originally Posted by sixfingers

It is only in the brady sequel that Carol is clarified as a widow. In the series it is left unresolved.

In one of the later specials (either A Very Brady Christmas or one of its offspring) Carol has a conversation with Peter in which she very strongly suggests that she was divorced.

What? I don't remember that scene? Must have been one of the other shows cause I don't remember that in A Very Brady CHristmas..

[Ireneparalegal]

Originally Posted by Waterston_Fan

What? I don't remember that scene? Must have been one of the other shows cause I don't remember that in A Very Brady CHristmas..

I don't either.

Mike we know from the first episode, is a widower. Carol we assume is also widowed. If she were divorced, there would have been mention of her spouse and he would have had to see his girls. That would have been too convoluted for a sitcom geared towards family and kids. So it is obvious her husband died, plain and simple.

[Mikado]

deffinately, they wouldnt have had 2 divorced people marrying on a family show back then, it was still a taboo

[Ireneparalegal]

Originally Posted by Mikado

deffinately, they wouldnt have had 2 divorced people marrying on a family show back then, it was still a taboo

Exactly.

[Waterston_Fan]

Originally Posted by Ireneparalegal

I don't either.

Mike we know from the first episode, is a widower. Carol we assume is also widowed. If she were divorced, there would have been mention of her spouse and he would have had to see his girls. That would have been too convoluted for a sitcom geared towards family and kids. So it is obvious her husband died, plain and simple.

Yeah.. Or maybe he divorced then died after it was finialized...

[sixfingers]

Originally Posted by Mikado

deffinately, they wouldnt have had 2 divorced people marrying on a family show back then, it was still a taboo

Nobody said anything about two divorced people. Shwartz's original plan was for Mike to be widowed and Carol to be divorced but the network wouldn't tolerate that and wanted him to clarify that she was widowed, but Schwartz refused and so they compromised and left it unresolved.

As Schwartz himself is quoted on page 147 of Bradymania(1995 edition):

It was never really said that Carol was widowed or divorced.

As I said in my first post, the conversation between carol and peter might have been in one of it's "offspring" and the more I think about the more it seems it was in the premiere of "The Bradys" aka "Brady 500" The odd thing about that scene is that it was sparked by Peter asking Carol how she and Mike first got together, yet he should have been old enough at the time to have at least a vague memory of it.

Florence henderson once stated in an interview that Marcia, Jan and Cindy were "children of divorce"

The fact that Carol's marital status was ambiguos, as also mentioned on page 15 of Bradymania has always been one of the great mysteries of Brady bunch, right up there with Tiger's fate and whether Oliver was the child of Carol's brother or sister.

[Shelley]

In one of the later specials (either A Very Brady Christmas or one of its offspring) Carol has a conversation with Peter in which she very strongly suggests that she was divorced.

Peter asked if she had ever break off an engagement. She said yes. She was engaged to someone; then she broke off the engagement. Then she met Mike. THis man must have been after Carol's first husband, but before she met Mike. It was on "The Bradys". She never mentioned being divorced or not. I just saw it last night on DVD. The first episode of "The Bradys" was an extra of The complete series of "The Brady Bunch" on DVD.

[Ireneparalegal]

Breaking off an engagement and being divorced are two different things. The poster above stated in that Very Brady Christmas that Carol stated she was DIVORCED, not engaged. You are now stating she said she was engaged, so that rebutes what the poster above stated abt Carol having said she was divorced. That puts an end to that debate. CAROL NEVER SAID SHE WAS DIVORCED.

If the network didn't want Carol to be a divorcee, and Schwartz didn't want to come right out and say she was, then it was OBVIOUS by the simple fact the girls never had "visitation" with their father that Carol's husband died. Does anyone honestly think a father would NOT ever visit his three daughters? Or that Marcia would nominate her step-father for father of the year if she had a father already? Doesn't make any sense whatsoever. And no, saying that Marcia had a bad relationship with her biological father would not make that scenario either.

[sixfingers]

Originally Posted by Ireneparalegal

.
If the network didn't want Carol to be a divorcee, and Schwartz didn't want to come right out and say she was, then it was OBVIOUS by the simple fact the girls never had "visitation" with their father that Carol's husband died.

Actually Schwartz did want to come out and say that carol was divorced and the network wouldn't allow it but he didn't want to say she was widowed either.

Originally Posted by Ireneparalegal

.
Does anyone honestly think a father would NOT ever visit his three daughters? Or that Marcia would nominate her step-father for father of the year if she had a father already? Doesn't make any sense whatsoever. And no, saying that Marcia had a bad relationship with her biological father would not make that scenario either.

You're injecting too much of the real world into the Brady world!

It the relationship turned bitter then he might have abandoned his family, and that would explain why he never showed up again, why he wasn't mentioned and why the girls changed their last name to "Brady."

If carol was widowed then you would expect her dead husband's name to be mentioned now and then and that in some of Marcia's triumphs someone would talk about how proud he would have been. Carol and the girls would also have pictures of him.

The statement about the ambiguity of Carol's marital status has nothing to do with whatever she told peter in a later reunion show, though it does appear that my memory of that was a little fuzzy. I never did say she actually said she was divorced in that special, only that she seemed to imply it. It appears that I may have been wrong about.

My point was that the ambiguity of Carol's marital status is one of the hallmarks of the Brady world and it is no more correct to refer to her as a widow than to refer to her as a divorcee.

It was deliberately made ambiguos in the original series and good arguments can be made on either side. Florence Henderson seems to be squarely in the divorcee camp but since she only acted in the show, rather than being a writer or creator, she isn't really an authority.

[James]

Originally Posted by Ireneparalegal

Breaking off an engagement and being divorced are two different things. The poster above stated in that Very Brady Christmas that Carol stated she was DIVORCED, not engaged. You are now stating she said she was engaged, so that rebutes what the poster above stated abt Carol having said she was divorced. That puts an end to that debate. CAROL NEVER SAID SHE WAS DIVORCED.

In Growing Up Brady I found the following paragraph:

"Sherwood and the network locked horns over the fate of Carol's first husband. Sherwood wanted him alive, well, and happily divorced from Carol, but the network demanded his death. Sherwood met with the brass, smiled, nodded, and was extremely polite, but paid no attention to their suggestions: he left the fate of the girls' father uncertain. You may notice she never refers to the guy as being dead. In Sherwood's mind, Carol Brady was television's first divorcee!" (It can be found on page 182 during Chapter 31, "Where Are They Now?".)

[Mikado]

Ill but that^^^ But, it does reinforce my point that divorce was taboo for the networks at the time.

[Ireneparalegal]

I am not interjecting the real world into the series, the series is trying to be real by implying these two families merged as the result of a marriage. If they didn't want the realism, they wouldn't have bothered with the first episode and just started the show with the family already living on Clinton Way, with no wedding having been shown and just leaving it to the audience to believe these two people married at some point prior to the viewers having seen it.

BB was all abt trying to show realism by mixing in comedy. It was the Cosby Show of that era. The realism being two adult people being married and each spouse having children and trying to show that two families can merge as one.

I solely go by what the series implied, not by what Schwartz HAD WANTED to have written or stated regarding Carol's marital status but wasn't allowed to by the network.