The Brady Bunch Season #4

SEASON #4

EPISODE #23: A ROOM AT THE TOP – When the family cleans out the attic, both Greg and Marcia realize what a great room it would be and they both begin fighting over who gets it. This leads to yet another battle between the sexes, as Greg finally gives in, but an unhappy Bobby and Peter are sick of sharing their room with Greg, so they devise a scheme to oust Marcia from the attic. Greg and Marcia fight over who gets to convert the attic into his or her personal room. To get a little more privacy which he doesn’t seem to be able to find at the house and gain a little more freedom, Greg wants to move out of the house and into his college friend Hank’s apartment. Despite understanding Greg’s wants, Mike disallows Greg’s request. But after the family starts cleaning up the attic, Greg, as alternative, wants to use it as his own bedroom. That idea Mike does approve. Unknown to them, Marcia also has the same idea of using the attic as her own bedroom, which gets Carol’s approval. When Greg and Marcia both find out about the other wanting the attic, neither intends on giving it up to the other. When Mike and Carol find out about the issue, both parents side with Greg because he is the oldest, which nonetheless doesn’t sit will with a brooding and angry Marcia. Is there another alternative? Whatever happens seems to affect Peter, Jan, Bobby and Cindy equally as much as Greg and Marcia, some of who try to take matters into their own hands.

EPISODE #22: YOU CAN’T WIN ‘EM ALL – Cindy studies hard and passes a test to appear on a TV quiz show, but an overconfident Bobby does not. But after she passes, his ego goes out of control. Meanwhile, Mike and Carol make plans for a dinner party. Bobby and Cindy try out for the “Question the Kids” scholastic bowl show. Bobby fails to study and the result is predictable; Cindy studies and passes the test, but becomes convinced she will be a huge TV star as a result. She bombs miserably when she develops stage fright. Both Bobby and Cindy have an opportunity to try out to be on a televised children’s quiz show if they get a certain score on a written test .However, an overconfident Bobby doesn’t study at all and fails while Cindy is chosen and her ego alienates the rest of the Brady kids .Meanwhile, Mike and Carol try to plan a dinner party. Bobby and Cindy have been chosen to take the test for their respective grades to see which four students will represent Clinton Grammar School at the upcoming “Question the Kids” television quiz show. Humble Cindy asks for help studying from everyone in her family as she believes only hard work will yield positive results. Right before the exam, Cindy, despite her constant studying, states that she can only do her best and hopes that is enough to be chosen. Bobby, however, gets an extreme case of swelled head, he who believes he’s a cinch to be chosen. As such he forgoes studying. Cindy’s hard work pays off as she indeed chosen, but Bobby, to use his own words, gets “wiped out” by the exam and doesn’t make the final four. These results lead to the swelled head getting transferred to Cindy, who believes that she is now a celebrity. Her swelled head does affect her performance on the quiz show, but not quite in the same manner that it previously affected Bobby. Meanwhile, Mike and Carol are planning on holding a small barbecue for a few friends. That planned dinner constantly gets changed, from the ever growing invitation list, to the meal to the date.

EPISODE #21: YOU’RE NEVER TOO OLD – The Brady girls try to play matchmaker between Carol’s free-spirited grandmother and stick-in-the-mud Grandpa Brady. The Brady kids play matchmaker for their widowed great-grandparents – the crotchety Judge Hank Brady (Robert Reed) and athletic and spry Connie Hutchins (Florence Henderson). The two mix like oil and water at first, but then the two eventually fall in love and elope to Las Vegas. Both Robert Reed puts in double dusty as Grandpa Brady as does Florence Henderson when she portrays Great-Grandma Hutchins in an episode where the Brady kids play matchmakers and try to get Grandpa Brady and Grandma Hutchins together. However, their efforts may all be fore naught when an argument erupts between Grandma and Grandpa during a romantic dinner. Carol’s Kentucky grandmother, Connie Hutchins, who is young in spirit and body and who has a modern sensibility, decides at the last minute to make a visit .It is bad timing if only because Mike and Carol have previous engagements, leaving Grandma largely with the kids. But Marcia and Jan in particular think they have a better way for their great-grandmother to spend their time while in town. As Great-grandma has never remarried, the girls think that they have the perfect person with who she should meet and fall in love with: Their great-grandfather, retired Judge Henry Brady. Although their meeting starts off cordially though, Great-grandma and Great-grandpa quickly have a falling out, largely because they are diametrically opposites: Great-grandpa is conservative and a traditionalist, who believes that spouting Latin is a good time. Despite facing this setback, Marcia and Jan are determined to prove that opposites truly do attract.

EPISODE #20: THE GREAT EARRING CAPER – Cindy loses her mom’s earrings after playing with them and “detective” Peter Brady tries to solve the mystery. But when Carol wants the earrings for a costume ball and they’re still not found, the entire family tries to crack the case. Carol lends Marcia her favorite earrings, which are family heirlooms. Although she is told explicitly not to touch them, Cindy can’t help but try them on when Marcia isn’t around .When called by her mother, Cindy hides the earrings in a towel on the bathroom counter. When finished dealing with her mother, Cindy returns to the bathroom to find the earrings are gone. The one person Cindy confides in is Peter, who is learning how to be a detective akin to Sherlock Holmes and who she thinks can help her locate the earrings without anyone else finding out what they’re doing. Can they find the earrings before anyone finds out Cindy lost them? Meanwhile, Mike is letting Carol decide what costumes to wear for a costume party they attend every year. Mike isn’t as easy about Carol’s suggestions as he initially lets on he would be. Peter’s new detective kit comes in handy when Cindy takes and then loses a pair of antique earrings that Marcia was borrowing from Carol that she warned her not to touch. This leads Peter and Cindy on an all-out search for the missing earrings. Cindy gets really antsy when Carol announces that she plans to wear them to a costume party in which she and Mike are going as Cleopatra and Marc Antony. Marcia is admiring herself in a pair of earrings she borrowed from Carol. When Jan comes to tell Marcia that a boy is phoning for her, she puts the earrings away in the drawer. Cindy asks if she can try them, but Marcia says not to touch them as they are borrowed from their mother. But of course touching them is precisely what Cindy does once Marcia and Jan leave the room. She is admiring herself in the earrings in the bathroom mirror when Carol knocks at the door because she has a new blouse for her. Cindy quickly hides the earrings in a towel on the bathroom sink. When she goes back to the bathroom, she finds the earrings are no longer in the towel. They have disappeared, somehow, and know she is in trouble. Peter is trying out his new Sherlock Holmes kit. Cindy comes to him in the hopes that he and the kit can help her. Peter is happy to take on his first case, which he dubs “The Great Earring Caper.” Cindy will be his assistant, just as Watson was to Holmes. Peter deduces the earrings slipped out of the towel and down the drain. He gets Mike’s tool kit to open up the drain, with no results. He now reduces that the earrings were removed by human hands. They go around the house to collect fingerprints (causing some raised eyebrows along the way). But of course everyone’s fingerprints are on the bathroom sink. Peter goes to Plan B – which he has to look up in his detective manual. Meanwhile, Carol and Mike are planning to go to a costume party. Possibilities that have been discussed are Romeo and Juliet, Napoleon and Josephine, Gertrude and Claude (imaginary couple as Mike considers the first two unoriginal), George and Martha Washington, and Adam and Eve, but eventually they settle on Antony and Cleopatra. This choice means that Carol wants the earrings for the party, which puts more pressure on Cindy and Peter to find them. Peter has been boning up on his detective book and decides the next course of action is to question everybody in order to find the person most likely to have taken them. The questioning is not very professional and raises more eyebrows, but it eliminates suspects. The time comes for Carol and Mike to get ready for the party. Peter’s investigation has gotten nowhere and he has lost confidence in his detective abilities. Cindy has no choice but to tell Marcia. Marcia drags Cindy before Carol and Mike to explain what happened. Mike takes over the investigation and reconstructs the path of the earrings. After Cindy left the bathroom, Alice came in to collect the laundry. She put the towel in the laundry bag and inadvertently tipped the earrings into it. Then Alice put the towel back because of Carol’s instructions about teaching the kids to clean up after themselves. Alice left the laundry bag in the hall while she went to get something. Jan found the bag and took it to the service porch. Finally, Carol found the bag and emptied the contents into the washing machine. They check the washing machine, which yields one earring and part of the other one. The Great Earring Caper is solved. Cindy is sorry and promises her mother she will never again touch anything she is not supposed to. Carol appreciates it, but warns Cindy they are going to have a long talk the next day. Right now, she and Mike have to go to the party. Cindy asks Peter if she can borrow one of the disguises in his detective kit to hide from Carol. Carol and Mike return home from the party. They won third place and the Cunninghams came first. They tell Alice she will never guess who the Cunninghams came as: Romeo and Juliet? Nope. George and Martha Washington? Nope. The Cunninghams came as Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.

EPISODE #19: HOW TO SUCCEED INI BUSINESS? – Peter gets a job at the bike shop, but he is fired after three days. He doesn’t want to tell his parents the bad news, because he told the family he might be getting a promotion to salesman the day he got fired. An elated Peter has just been offered his first job, working for Mr. Martinelli at the bike shop on weekends. As it’s his first job, Mike advises him to be prompt, hard working and loyal. Peter ends up selling his parents on the idea of getting bikes for themselves and he is a diligent worker. However, he is not a “business” oriented worker, as he is slow in getting the jobs done and does maintenance that doesn’t need to be done nor was requested. And Peter doesn’t pick up on Mr. Martinelli’s hints to get the job done quicker. As such, Mr. Martinelli has no choice but to fire him. Mr. Martinelli tells Peter that he’d like to have a chat with him at the end of the working day. Peter interprets the want for a chat as a probably promotion, which he tells Carol and Alice. So when the news is the exact opposite, Peter is crushed. But when the family throws him a surprise “congratulations on the promotion” party, Peter has to decide how to give them the news while saving face. This may be difficult in light of the family’s want to frequent the store more and more because of Peter. Peter is ecstatic when he gets a job at Martinelli’s bike shop. However, his wanting to do a thorough job inhibits his speed and work begins pilling up and the customers begin to get angry and begin demanding their bikes. This leads Mr. Martinelli to give Peter the axe. However, Peter has a hard time breaking the news that he’s been fired to Mike and Carol.

EPISODE #18: THE SUBJECT WAS NOSES – Marcia breaks a date with Charlie when “big man on campus” Doug Simpson asks her out. However, after she gets hit in the nose with a football, Doug Simpson breaks his date with her. Marcia is in seventh heaven when the school’s star football player, Doug Simpson asks her out for a date this Saturday. After she accepts, she remembers that she already has a date for Saturday nigh with a nice but somewhat plain boy named Charley, who adores her. As she would rather go out with Doug, she uses the advice given to her by Greg. He says that to get out of a date, she should use the non-committal statement, “something suddenly came up,” which is what she tells a dejected but understanding Charley. She’s happy that she managed not to hurt Charley and keep her date with Doug, but she still feels terrible doing it. A few days before the date, Marcia gets hit in the face by an errant football, bruising and swelling her nose. Marcia tries to avoid Doug before Saturday, but if she does see him, she hopes he will be understanding of her less than perfect looks that she won’t hear the words “something came up” from him. Meanwhile, Mike and Carol can’t agree on which wallpaper to use for their bedroom. Marcia has a big problem when she inadvertently makes two dates for the same night: One with Charlie and the other with Doug, the big man on campus. She makes an excuse to Charlie to go out with Doug but quickly learns Doug was only interested in having a pretty girl on his arm after Marcia is hit in the face with a football, resulting in a swollen nose and a bruised conscious. Meanwhile, the parents’ bedroom is being painted.

EPISODE #17: BOBBY’S HERO – The Principal calls home to alert Mike and Carol to the fact that Bobby’s playing Jesse James at school. This leads Mike and Carol to learn just how obsessed Bobby is about his “idol” and try to dissuade him from worshipping a cold hearted killer. However, their attempts seem to backfire, that is until, Mike tracks down a man whose father was killed by Jesse James. Bobby becomes obsessed with Jesse James, Mike and Carol don’t approve of his new hero and try to find a way to convince him that Jesse James was nothing but a “mean, dirty killer.” Mr. Hillary, the Principal at the elementary school, requests a meeting with Mike and Carol, who suspect that what Mr. Hillary wants to discuss is some bad news concerning one of the kids. Indeed, Mr. Hillary’s concern is a composition Bobby wrote on his hero: Jesse James, the outlaw. In addition, Bobby, pretending to be Jesse James, brought a cap gun to school. After Mike and Carol speak to Bobby about the issue, Bobby says that he believes he will grow out of his fascination with Jesse James, but his actions say otherwise. In trying to make Bobby see why Jesse James is not a historical figure to be emulated, Mike and Carol come to understand why Bobby would idolize someone like Jesse James. After doing some reading on Jesse James, Mike believes that Bobby having a chat with biographer Jethroe Collins might have the result he and Carol are hoping.

EPISODE #16: AMATEUR NITE – Mike and Carol’s wedding anniversary is coming up and the kids all chip in to get a silver platter for them. Jan thinks it would be nice to have it engraved, but gets mixed up on the price of the engraving. So the kids try to raise an additional $56.23 for the engraver. This leads them to put together a musical act and try out for a TV amateur contest. The \kids want to buy Mike and Carol an engraved silver tray as their anniversary gift, but Jan goofs up on paying for the tray. To fix the mistake, Jan convinces her siblings to audition for an amateur talent show. Taking them six months to save enough money, the kids have purchased a silver platter for their parent’s wedding anniversary. Wanting the gift to be even more special, Jan, without telling her siblings, gets the platter engraved. However, she misinterprets the cost of the engraving which is not 85 cents as she believes, but rather 85 cents per letter for a grand total of $56, money which she and her siblings don’t have. So they have to figure out a way to raise money within the week. After the kids exhaust other options such as selling personal items and even trying to take out a loan from a bank, Jan has an idea that could net them $100: Perform on the Pete Sterne Amateur Hour, the first prize being that $100. But they have to pass the audition and win the contest, neither of which are guarantees and all without their parents or Alice finding out what they’re up to.

EPISODE #15: GREG GETS GROUNDED – Bobby mentions to Mike and Carol that Greg was in a near car accident on the freeway due to the fact that he was reading the cover jacket of a new record. This leads Mike and Carol to suspend Greg’s car privileges for a week on the eve of a big date with his girlfriend Rachel. Meanwhile, Bobby and Peter get prepared for a big frog jumping contest. After Greg is grounded for a week for careless driving, he gets in a dispute with his parents over their “exact words”. Meanwhile, Bobby and Peter enter frogs in a frog-jumping contest. After doing Bobby a favor of driving him to the pet store to buy a frog for the frog jumping contest which has a $25 first prize, Greg is rewarded for his efforts by getting grounded – no use of the car for one week – as Bobby tells his parents of Greg almost getting into a car accident purely out of his own carelessness. Greg is annoyed enough about Bobby’s blabbing on him and being grounded in and of itself, but he is more depressed about the repercussions on his dating life, as there is no way he can now pick up the concert tickets for his already promised date with Rachel. Greg thinks he’s found a loophole in the grounding as he drives a friend’s car to pick up the tickets instead .Caught in this action, Greg is further punished, which means that he will now have to miss his date with Rachel altogether. Feeling he is being cheated while still doing whatever he can to keep his date, Greg enters into a negotiation with his parents as his to his punishment. Based on Greg’s argument, Mike believes that there may be a better way for Greg to learn that what he did was wrong through another method. Meanwhile, Peter, when learning about the frog jumping contest, believes that a wild and free frog from Burke’s Pond will do better than Bobby’s $2 frog. Only the results of the contest will tell for sure.

EPISODE #14: LAW AND DISORDER – Bobby is crestfallen when he is picked to be safety monitor at school. With Mike and Carol’s encouragement, Bobby becomes determined to be the best safety monitor ever but in the process becomes the most unwelcome person at his school, not to mention at home. Meanwhile, Mike saves a sailboat from being taken to the junkyard and the Brady’s fix it up and names it the S.S. Brady. Bobby doesn’t want to be safety monitor for his class because his classmates now hate him. However, he soon abuses his power and begins reporting on his family when they break house rules. Meanwhile, the family salvages an old sailboat. Bobby is losing all his friends. The reason?: In his new role as safety monitor at school, he has to snitch on his friends if they break the rules. He didn’t even want the job, but since no one volunteered, the teacher chose him. As such, his parents convince him that he should be the best safety monitor that he can be.. So he decides to report every single violation he sees, big or small, and even if it involves a family member. In that vein, Bobby self-appoints himself as safety monitor at home, writing a report to his parents on every rule broken around the house, even if the offender has a good reason for breaking the rule. This act extends the bad feelings toward Bobby from his siblings as well. Bobby learns the hard way that there are good reasons for the breaking of rules. Meanwhile, Mike buys a small run down sailboat that he figures just needs some tender loving care to make seaworthy.

EPISODE #13: LOVE AND THE OLDER MAN – Marcia falls for Dr. Vogel, the family’s new dentist. When Dr. Vogel asks Mike if Marcia would be interested in doing some babysitting for his kids, she misinterprets it for him asking her out on a date. Marcia soon begins daydreaming of life with Dr. Vogel and begins breaking dates with boys her own age for the chance to date an older man. Marcia has a crush on her new dentist, which only intensifies when she mistakes an opportunity to baby sit for him as a date with him to the ballet. Marcia develops a huge crush on Dr. Vogel, the family’s young (but handsome) dentist. She delves into fantasy and envisions herself as “Mrs. Marcia Dentist” – a dream she believes may come true when Dr. Vogel asks her for a favor on Saturday night. The favor: To baby sit his children while he and his wife go out for the evening. Marcia is walking around in a daze following her visit to the dentist. It’s because she’s in love, namely with their regular dentist’s new associate, Dr. Stanley Vogel. Marcia gets the idea that she should become Mrs. Dr. Vogel from Jan, who reads in one of her teen magazines that women who marry men ten to twelve years older are in more stable relationships. What she doesn’t know is that he is already married with a child. Marcia’s thoughts about Dr. Vogel make her lose sight of more appropriate males her own age that are interested in her. Complications ensue when a request Dr. Vogel makes for her to baby sit is misinterpreted as a date. Meanwhile, Peter and Bobby are building a go-cart with Greg’s help.

EPISODE #12: EVERYONE CAN’T BE GEORGE WASHINGTON – Peter is determined to get the part of George Washington in the school play but the teacher thinks Peter would be better in the role of Benedict Arnold. When his friends start making snide comments about it he decides to get himself kicked out of the play, Meanwhile, Jan also has a part in the play she is in charge of set design and gets Mike to help in the endeavor. Peter wants to play George Washington in a school play but his teacher thinks he can be a great Benedict Arnold, but when his friends make fun of him calling him a traitor, Peter fries to find ways to make him get thrown out of the play. Jan becomes in charge of the sets because of Mike being an architect. Peter tries out for the role of George Washington in a school play, but gets the role of Benedict Arnold instead. But he then wants to quit the play altogether when his classmates start branding him as a “traitor.” Peter is trying out for the part of George Washington, the lead, in the school’s play on the American Revolution. Peter is dismayed that he instead gets the secondary but much more demanding role of the adversary, Benedict Arnold. Peter wanted the heroic lead and as such contemplates dropping out of the production. Carol is able to convince him that getting this role is indeed an honor, and that he has never quit anything before. But will he feel the same way when his friends start ribbing him for playing the part of a traitor? Meanwhile, Jan gets the position of set designer, as she has the best qualification of any student: Her father, the architect.

EPISODE #11: GREG’S TRIANGLE – Greg is crazy for his latest girlfriend Jennifer but things get difficult for him when he learns that both Jennifer and Marcia are competing for head cheerleader and he just appears to be one of the judges. Greg thinks he has an easy out, since he won’t have to judge himself, but that when it becomes a three way tie and Greg must choose: Jennifer, Marcia or Pat Conway. Marcia thinks that a girl who is suddenly interested in Greg is actually using him so that Greg will vote for her as head cheerleader – over Marcia. Jennifer Nichols, a student at Westdale High, is forthright in her pursuit of Greg, who quickly falls under her seductive charms. Jennifer and “Greggy”, as she calls him, have a surfing date on the weekend. He is so preoccupied by thoughts of Jennifer that Greg forgets about a previous doubles golfing engagement that day with Mike and another father-son duo, leaving Mike to scramble for a last minute replacement. Mike’s wannabe alternate for Greg isn’t quite who he was expecting or hoping. After Mike and Carol meet Jennifer, they can tell that behind her sweet demeanor, she’s something from Greg. Meanwhile, Marcia is practicing hard for the upcoming head cheerleader tryout. Although Greg is chair of the selection committee, Marcia doesn’t want to take for granted that she’ll get chosen just because of her personal relationship with Greg. Although Greg may not be able to see it, what Jennifer wants too is to be chosen head cheerleader. Greg vows to Marcia he will be fair and impartial in his judging, although Marcia doesn’t believe Greg will be with his girlfriend also in the contest. Can Greg be fair and impartial, and will both his sister and his girlfriend respect his decision?

EPISODE #10: GOODBYE, ALICE, HELLO – The kids begin to give Alice the cold shoulder treatment after she reveals that Greg and Peter broke an antique lamp of Carol’s. The girls join the bandwagon when Alice innocently tells Carol that Marcia left the stereo on all night .Feeling unwanted and no longer needed, Alice quits. The kids give Alice the cold shoulder after they think she has broken their trust, so Alice decides to leave her job as housekeeper. However, the kids soon regret the decision after the new housekeeper teaches them a lesson. A series of miscommunications and misunderstandings leads Alice to believe she has irrecoverably breached the Brady kids’ trust, prompting her resignation as the Bradys’ housekeeper. Her friend, Kay, takes over but is a little too professional about her work. This leads the kids to go all out to beg Alice for forgiveness and to come back. An incident between Peter, Greg and a Frisbee inside the house leads to an antique lamp in Mike’s den being broken. Alice is aware of the boys breaking the lamp, which Greg and Peter try to repair without their parent’s knowledge. As such, the boys ask Alice to keep their secret from their parents, which she vows to do. But when Carol discovers the lamp has been broken, Alice is caught between her vow to the boys and the fact that she has never lied to Carol. As such, Alice feels like she has no choice but to tell the truth to Carol. Subsequently, Carol asks Alice a seemingly innocent question about who used the record player, that person being Marcia, who apparently left the record player running all night. Both the boys and Marcia get punished for their deeds. Because of these incidents, the kids feel like Alice has betrayed them. All six decide to give her the cold shoulder. Feeling now unwanted and unloved by the kids, a heartbroken Alice, using the old excuse of a family situation, decides to take direct action by immediately quitting, not even saying goodbye to the kids. So when the kids find that Alice’s friend Kay has taken her place, Kay who has a less emotional approach to being a live-in housekeeper than Alice did, the kids have to figure out how to get their beloved Alice back.