The Brady Bunch Movie (1995)

Matt (00:00:21):

Hello and welcome to 1-Week Rental, a movie podcast. We spent the last seven days, one week, if you will, with the Brady Bunch movie. I’m Matt Stokes. I’m joined here by my stepsister.

Laci (00:00:32):

Laci Roth, who we do tongue kiss together with each other. And my hair’s red, unrelated, but I wanted to announce it in case people are not seeing.

Matt (00:00:42):

And if you’re just listening on the audio, you got to go head over to the YouTube to see Laci’s red hair. You

Laci (00:00:47):

Won’t believe it, but the things they can do with hair these days.

Matt (00:00:51):

Anything else about the red hair?

Laci (00:00:52):

Nope.

Matt (00:00:53):

It’s a

Laci (00:00:53):

Red herring.

Matt (00:00:54):

So this is a podcast where we take a long look at a movie or movies. Last week we said we were doing a very Brady sequel and then we both, because we’re very good at our job, we watched both the Brady Bunch movie and a very Brady sequel. We watched them independently of each other. And I then said to Laci, “Hey, of these two movies, which do you think would make a better episode?”

Laci (00:01:12):

And lo and behold, we were victims of sequel bias when we announced what we would be watching last week because we both agreed the original The Brady movie is, it’s by far the better movie. Or at least definitely better to talk about. It’s a movie. It’s

Matt (00:01:27):

A movie is the thing. It’s got all

Laci (00:01:29):

The stuff.

Matt (00:01:29):

It’s a movie with things move in it. People say stuff.

Laci (00:01:34):

The hook of the movie was substantial and it worked and it was enough to sustain a movie. Was it enough to sustain two? I don’t know.

Matt (00:01:45):

Well, I like both of these movies. I think both are good. I think the first is better, but I think more importantly, there’s just more to chew on. And like Laci said, the important part, it is a movie. It makes stylistic choices. Whereas the second one is very fun, but it is kind of just let’s do a sitcom. I think it’s so important in the first movie that you break the perspective and you go out into the real world. And in the second movie, it’s pretty much all inside the Brady’s house. And you’ll notice in the first movie, you only hear the Brady Bunch symphonic ’70s score whenever you’re on their set. As soon as you go out into the real world – Grunge

Laci (00:02:22):

’90s, baby. Or

Matt (00:02:23):

Even if it’s not grunge, it’s just like now it’s a normal movie score and even the camera’s not locked down, the camera’s moving around. The second one doesn’t do any of that. It just blends everything. I

Laci (00:02:33):

Was very excited when the very beginning of the first movie, it is your standard flyover ’90s aesthetic to open a movie with flyover credits of a city with metal. And it’s like, yes, they are situating us. I get it. I get it. We’re in the 90s.

Matt (00:02:50):

They’re in the

Laci (00:02:51):

70s.

Matt (00:02:52):

Which is the best time of all time to be alive. I don’t think that’s because that’s when we grew up. I think that’s unrelated. I think I’m just objectively saying that – But

Laci (00:03:02):

They already had the existential dread. You saw those people on their giant phones not paying attention to one another in the opening, just everybody on their giant flip phones, which was like a funny joke when the movie came out, but well.

Matt (00:03:18):

When I think of the difference between the 70s and the 90s, at least in terms of there being a monoculture, everyone watches the same TV shows, fashion all looks exactly the same at the exact same times. It seems like 1975 and 1995 are worlds apart, but now it kind of feels like, I don’t know, maybe they were the exact same. And even me in 1998, I watched The Brady Bunch because it came on Nick at Night. Just like if I were a kid in the early 70s, I’d be like, “Now the Brady Bunch is on TV, so I watch it.” Right. Did you watch the Brady Bunch on TV?

Laci (00:03:51):

I did. It was not one of my shows. It was definitely something I watched because it came on after something I liked or before, but I never ended up turning it off. It’s infectious.

Matt (00:04:03):

It was enormous for me. Huge. And I have not seen – And we’re

Laci (00:04:07):

Just discussing this.

Matt (00:04:08):

I know. I haven’t seen an episode of The Brady Bunch until yesterday for more than 25 years, but the movies were also huge for me. But I was thinking about how weird it is when you’re a kid, you just accept things. I saw the trailer for a very Brady sequel, was not aware of the Brady Bunch movie or The Brady Bunch. I don’t even think I knew what the word sequel meant. And I went to see it at the movie theater. I didn’t know it was a spoof. I just take it on face value and I’m just like, “That’s a fun movie. See it a billion more times.”

Laci (00:04:42):

When did Austin Powers come out? Because Man out of –

Matt (00:04:45):

97. And

Laci (00:04:45):

When did this one sequel?

Matt (00:04:47):

95. Oh, Sequel came out in 96. I

Laci (00:04:49):

Mean, Man Out of Time, that was totally a formula. These are weirdos who don’t fit in in this time, but they’re still kind of groovy.

Matt (00:04:58):

I also loved Austin Powers as a kid, and I never thought about the man out of time thing. I never though he was goofy. I never thought like, “Oh, he doesn’t belong at all.” When you’re a kid, you just accept everything as normal.

Laci (00:05:08):

No. I mean, I completely was obsessed with that part of it. They’re not even trying to fit in. This is my worst fucking nightmare, but

Matt (00:05:15):

Still enjoyed it. You were

Laci (00:05:16):

Older.

Matt (00:05:17):

You were older. You got it. I

Laci (00:05:18):

Wasn’t that. Okay, fine. Pick a movie from when I would’ve been a tiny little Matt age. Let me see if I was also just a darling, not understanding things, you fucking idiot.

Matt (00:05:27):

But I saw A Very Brady sequel. Again, don’t know the word sequel, didn’t know it was a sequel. In my estimation, in my head, the only thing that exists of The Brady Bunch is this 80-minute movie.

Laci (00:05:38):

That was a dumb child. And

Matt (00:05:39):

Then my parents said, “Oh, there was a TV show.” And I was like, “What?” And then I don’t see it until a few years later when it starts coming on Nick at Night, and then I watch it obsessively. And I think I’d only seen the first movie one time all the way through, and that’s why we decided to do a Very Brady sequel, but then we watched both Back to Back and yeah, the first one’s a better movie and just has more to discuss. But yeah, I guess I never knew. Did you like the TV show and what about it?

Laci (00:06:06):

Just like you, I watched it because it was on Nick and Night, but not because. It wouldn’t have been the draw to me. I mean, I always liked the aesthetic. I like the way they dress. I like that they all lived in one house. I like when they come down the stairs. I like that they were all really happy, but a blended family. What? Stepdad’s going to be nice. But it was just Leave It to Beaver. But 20 years later, it’s so such simple topics they’re dealing with. It’s Saved by the Bell, which would come 15 years later. But it wasn’t super funny. So I mainly was on Nick and Night for Dick Van Dyke, Mary Tyler Moore, I Love Lucy. There were genuinely funny shows on Nick and Knight, and then there was this sitcom stuff, the Bob Newhart show. And I think that – I never liked I Dream of Jeannie.

Laci (00:06:59):

I never liked Bewitched. I didn’t find those things funny. And I would put Brady Bunch in that camp, like wholesome, fine, utterly disposable.

Matt (00:07:10):

And I think it didn’t matter to me at all that it was funny. I don’t even know if I would’ve said they’re good. I just watched them. I was transfixed by them. Specifically with The Brady Bunch. And again, I had not watched the show in I don’t know how long, but I’ve watched a few episodes and just more clips and there is something about it. It is very transfixing. I mean, I think 99% of it is just these kids are so. It’s not even that they’re great actors. They just have good chemistry. They have good screen presence.

Laci (00:07:37):

It’s just very satisfying to mirror a set of boys against a set of girls that they all partner up without any discussion. They all have a partner. Those partners are not their other sisters who they’ve known their whole life or their other brothers who they’ve known all their life. They partner by age, by their little one to middle one to. That’s just interesting because if you were a blended family, the reality would be you were very close with the people you’d been with for a decade before you met these guys. Yeah.

Matt (00:08:04):

But

Laci (00:08:05):

That’s not how this movie. I mean, the show works. It’s like, nope, the oldest kids are hanging out, middle kids hang out, and they all always do stuff together. And I also though it was really interesting that they had a housekeeper and she lived there. And I guess because there’s six kids, they all seem pretty self-sufficient.

Matt (00:08:26):

Yeah. I think that is the dad before he married Mrs. Brady, he’s raising three boys all by himself, so he needs a housekeeper. So she comes with him when they get married. But again, when I’m watching the show as a kid, I don’t know they’re a blended family. I don’t know their step siblings. They never say that. It’s in a song. Yes,

Laci (00:08:44):

The song is

Matt (00:08:46):

The intro

Laci (00:08:46):

Tells you.

Matt (00:08:47):

Oh, that means nothing to me. None of that is sinking in. Again, at least when I was a kid, and I saw it in our own kid before a certain age, is just your brain is stupid goop and whatever you see in front of you, you don’t ask questions.

Laci (00:09:01):

It’s literally explaining to you the dynamic.

Matt (00:09:05):

The pilot episode makes that very clear, but they then in the show, they de-emphasize that they’re a blended family because it’s always mom and dad, it’s always my sisters and my brothers. So there’s actually very little evidence that they’re a blended family after the early episodes. Except for that

Laci (00:09:23):

Full solid minute of intro every single time the show comes on.

Matt (00:09:28):

Yeah, I don’t know.

Laci (00:09:30):

It’d be like saying that there’s very little evidence that we are one week experts, except for the fact that at the top of every fucking episode, we tell you that. But we don’t bring it up a lot during. It’s almost like we don’t want you to think of that.

Matt (00:09:44):

You are dumb child. They’re not acting like a dumb child. Yes, I know. I keep saying that.

Laci (00:09:48):

Stupid child.

Matt (00:09:49):

These movies though, you liked them when you were young, you like them now? What’s going on?

Laci (00:09:54):

I definitely watched the first one more than the second one, and I’d say the first one I preferred. Then I prefer now. I would’ve absolutely watched the second one, but I wasn’t jumping out of my sofa to theater to go see it. It just seemed like bubble gum, eye candy, disposable garbage like Spice World. So that’s for me, I’ll go see it, but not anything that stuck.This

Matt (00:10:23):

Week preparing for this podcast, what did you think?

Laci (00:10:26):

So watching it this week, both of them, I immediately realized I’d seen the first one a lot, but never would’ve been like, “Oh, that’s my shit right there.” And I don’t know why, because I clearly found it watchable. The second one, I probably only seen all the way through one time. This would be the second time. And the formula was there. It was a little bit more playing into the parts that. It just felt like I was watching an episode of The Brady Bunch rather than a juxtaposition of The Brady Bunch versus the rest of the world. So still very watchable, but had less stick, had less substance. Less to say. Let’s say that.

Matt (00:11:12):

Yeah. And it was rushed into production and I feel like – I

Laci (00:11:16):

Mean,

Matt (00:11:16):

They’re

Laci (00:11:17):

The exact same age. I was going to ask you that. Did they immediately?

Matt (00:11:22):

Was it all once? It was eight months later, I believe, that they filmed. Wow. Although even then the young actors are like, “I totally changed.” The Cindy actress said they had to make her wear a. What do you do to make a teenage girl not have boobs? Sports

Laci (00:11:36):

Bra.

Matt (00:11:37):

A sports bra is what they call it. Stuff like that. But it feels like, “What’s the hurry? Take some time.” And the original director doesn’t come back because the first one has a big concept where the Bradys are interacting with the world. Okay, but

Laci (00:11:51):

It’s just like The Simpsons, right? We’re supposed to watch 25 seasons of these people and they’re not supposed to age. I don’t feel like The Brady Bunch ever really became about them aging because their dynamic needs. It’s not like Marsha or Greg ever went to college, right?

Matt (00:12:06):

No, but you follow them from junior high to high. Oh, it’s a big deal. Now they’re going to high school and their fashion changes, their hairstyles and all that change. See,

Laci (00:12:14):

I don’t know it like you do, but I feel like they’re supposed to be frozen in time. So for them to grow up would kind of fuck up the fourth wall and the concept a little too much for. I was relieved to see how similar they looked.

Matt (00:12:26):

Yeah. And I did like the second one. I was just kind of delighted by the first one, having not seen it in decades and just felt kind of in awe of the light touch the movie has and how just quickly it gets in and out. And I’m so grateful at how little excess there is and how. In my memory, it was like, let’s take the Brady Bunch, but add fucking lots of sex and stuff, but they don’t know it. And it’s a very wholesome movie, both of them.

Laci (00:12:56):

Yes. And the Bradys even evolve a little bit based on the knowledge that they take in from that. Marsha being confused by her tongues in her mouth and then her French kissing Charlie. It’s called a French kiss. They’re not completely stuck. They are working inside of their world, but their main world is the bubble they live in at home. So it’s very hard to undo that. It’s basically think of them as Mormons. Mormons in the wild, they can start to assimilate a little bit, but – Or

Matt (00:13:29):

Cullens. There is also why people like Twilight because they want to join the Cullen bunch and the Cullins are the Brady. No,

Laci (00:13:37):

Sorry. Yes,

Matt (00:13:37):

They are. You’re

Laci (00:13:38):

Very excited about this, but no, no one wants to be a Brady. Everyone

Matt (00:13:42):

Wants to be a Cullen.

Laci (00:13:43):

No one wants to go to their house. No one wants to know what they drive or why they’re sure they do. No, they are Mormons. They understand why they are like the way that they are. They are stuck in time. Their fashion does not make sense, but no one wants to be a Mormon.

Matt (00:13:56):

Everyone wants to be a Brady.

Laci (00:13:57):

No, they don’t. Yes,

Matt (00:13:58):

They do.

Laci (00:13:59):

There’s no evidence of that. Are you

Matt (00:14:01):

Kidding me? In either of the movies, there

Laci (00:14:02):

Is no evidence –

Matt (00:14:03):

Oh, I’m talking about people watching.

Laci (00:14:05):

People watching the Brady Bunch, the show? Uh-huh. Yeah, because

Matt (00:14:09):

At

Laci (00:14:09):

That time, that would’ve been cool to be a Brady. The fashion was correct. They weren’t stuck in time. They were the most trendy. No,

Matt (00:14:17):

But you strip all that away and you’re like, “I wish I had a family like that. I wish I got a cool stepsister who was the coolest girl in school and she liked me.” I get

Laci (00:14:26):

What you’re saying about the Cullens, but I mean, with Mormons, they have each other’s back. It’s very insular. They’re a giant family size. Now with the Cullens, yeah, there’s four of them, so that is a lot. Four, right? Yeah, four. You’re going to have to sell me on this shit. Okay. They’re not cool. They’re just confident. Mormons are confident in what they believe and how they dress and why they present the way that they do. They just go out in the world looking like that.

Matt (00:14:59):

I look forward to advancing my theory. I can’t wait. The Cullens, people like Twilight and the Brady Bunch for similar reasons is I wish I could join this family. And in Twilight, you get to, and in The Brady Bunch, you’d get to too, but only in the pilot episode.

Laci (00:15:12):

I can’t get over that nine people share one bathroom, and that is alone in itself the reason why I would never want to be a fucking

Matt (00:15:19):

Brady. With no toilet, as is always the joke.

Laci (00:15:22):

Yeah, which kind of points to your Cullen thing. Where if I could choose to be a Cullin and have fucking superpowers and look hot as shit and ever have to shit or piss, yes. Or sleep. Cullen me. And

Matt (00:15:33):

You get to have lots of loud sex and your parents approve as long as you’re married before the Holy God.

Laci (00:15:40):

Wait. Okay. Are we talking about Mormons or Colin? You know what? We’re not –

Matt (00:15:43):

All of it. It’s all of it.

Laci (00:16:09):

They did a good job casting, but Cindy is so much cuter in the show than in the. I don’t want to be mean, but of all the ones that got the short. And also Jan’s a lot cuter in the actual show. Yeah.

Matt (00:16:25):

They’re heightening the Jan, the cultural idea of Jan. Right.

Laci (00:16:33):

They synthesize. And I appreciate that. And it’s funny because the three boys, there’s not much distinction. There’s not much to say about them in terms of what is the ultimate Greg, ultimate Bobby, ultimate Peter?

Matt (00:16:47):

Yeah.

Laci (00:16:48):

Peter’s basically probably the one with the least to do in the show and in the movies, wouldn’t you say, out of the six?

Matt (00:16:58):

Not in the movie. In this first movie, yes. In the show, I feel like they distributed it pretty evenly. And I remember VH1 did the top 200 pop culture icons of all time, and I believe the actor who played Peter hosted it.

Laci (00:17:13):

And

Matt (00:17:13):

Then they name him as one of the great pop culture icons, no one else from the series. There’s no way. I remember thinking, Peter Brady? He’s at highest, the fourth Brady kid.

Laci (00:17:23):

At highest, yes. Yeah. But if you ask me what’s the deal with Marshall, what’s the deal with Jan and what’s deal with Cindy? I can tell you their deals. And then I see that in the movie and I’m like, “That’s their deals.” Yeah.

Matt (00:17:34):

Yeah.

Laci (00:17:34):

And even Carol and Mike and their flirtatious ways. And then of course that Alice has a relationship with Sam and Alice is just a big fucking woman from Showgirls that shows her boobs and honks like this. She’s just their version of that. She’s just the one-liner queen. She doesn’t have any wants or needs. Even when she’s tripping balls on a mushroom, she just goes in the refrigerator, comes back and is fine.

Matt (00:17:57):

I

Laci (00:17:58):

Love the first movie she has nipple tassels. Oh,

Matt (00:18:02):

In the closing credits? No.

Laci (00:18:03):

She also comes out that way whenever she’s sneaking around at night and someone’s looking for something. She comes out in that exact outfit with her. She

Matt (00:18:13):

Does? Yes.

Laci (00:18:15):

It’s the same night they go looking for Jan, I think, because that’s when Sam comes out in his bathrobe and he’s like, “Had to do a meat delivery.” Yeah, it was after their date. And then she pops out to sneak across the living room and she’s got the tassel swinging, and then she sees the kids doing something, so she runs back.

Matt (00:18:33):

That tripping joke, the mushrooms and then Alice going into the refrigerator, that’s an example of the kids just accept things. I remember thinking like, huh, the movie’s making a joke that she lives in the refrigerator. That’s funny.

Laci (00:18:45):

I thought that maybe the cartoon Brady stuff, the tripping must have been just a reason to introduce some property that already existed about the. I’m sure they were an animated show at some point or a graphic novel or a book. I’m like, there’s no other reason for. We have no reason to think this guy does drugs, let alone something cool like mushrooms. I know. I

Matt (00:19:07):

Know. And

Laci (00:19:08):

He doesn’t admit to anything. It’s not like it’s truth serum or something. Nothing really happens to Alice. So it was solely to get the animated thing in here. Which

Matt (00:19:17):

The animation looks good. I remember that sequence being like 15 minutes long. It’s very short, but – Thankfully.

Laci (00:19:23):

Yeah.

Matt (00:19:23):

So the history of a Brady Bunch movie starting with the history of the Brady Bunch. And I think that one of the fascinating things about the Brady Bunch is how much it has lingered in the culture and far more interesting than the Brady Bunch itself is all the ephemera, all the many different times they tried to bring back the Brady Bunch, but never just let’s do the show again, which they would do today. It’s like, we’ll just do a legacy sequel.

Laci (00:19:48):

So I know the Partridge family, their whole thing was that they sing, and I’m not sure that the actors actually sing. I’m guessing they did since that show was built around their traveling singing family. But the Bradys do form a band and have these songs. And then when I’m singing these songs in the first one, I’m like, “I love these fucking songs.” But I can’t remember, did they tour that way? Was it just different times on the show they

Matt (00:20:09):

Introduced? They released albums. I don’t know if they toured. Are they

Laci (00:20:12):

Actually singing the actors though? Is

Matt (00:20:14):

Those kids singing? Yes. Okay, that’s

Laci (00:20:16):

Interesting. And

Matt (00:20:16):

Those songs, I mean, I guess it’s like they’re the most pre-AI, AI, have these nonsense songs that don’t say anything, but you feel good when you’re listening and you’re watching these

Laci (00:20:30):

Kids. It feels like each of them could be a theme to the show. I mean, it’s just sunshine and happiness and positive vibes. I thought the Partridge family was piggybacking off of the popularity of a big family show. So in my head, the Partridge family comes after, but then I was wondering, because the Partridge family had such success and their whole hook was that they sang, I was like, “Well, is that then when the Bradys decided they also sing? They’re kind of the Stones and the Beatles. They each made each other better, you know what I mean?

Matt (00:21:10):

Not

Laci (00:21:10):

The singing part, but like,” Oh, you want to do a family show? Well, now we’ll take your thing and now we’re going to take your thing. “Okay.

Matt (00:21:16):

So I don’t know very much about the Partridge family. I always in my head though,” Well, that was before The Brady Bunch. It actually started one year later. “.That’s

Laci (00:21:25):

My memory of it. But

Matt (00:21:26):

I think that The Brady Kids singing didn’t occur until the third season of the show. Right. That’s what

Laci (00:21:31):

I’m saying.

Matt (00:21:31):

So it might have been exactly that, a reaction to the Partridge family, and both might have just been a reaction to The Monkeys, which started earlier than all

Laci (00:21:38):

Of that. Right, which is what I was going to say before that, right? So I mean, when you compare those three things, which is always who I think of, those three things together, they’re their own little music genre. It seems totally legitimate to me. Because what other sitcom can you say besides the Partridge family sold albums?

Matt (00:22:00):

There was a – Maybe

Laci (00:22:01):

Desi, because he actually sang.

Matt (00:22:03):

Yeah, I know. See, I think that’s this old school Hollywood razzle dazzle thing. If you’re an actor, you’re also doing tunes. Well,

Laci (00:22:10):

Because in Happy Days, they certainly sold their. Because they were known for their theme. I don’t know. But you have Mary Tyler More, you have Dick Vandit, and all these other Nick and I shows that had nothing to do with music at all. It’s just Lucy and Desi were the epitome of sitcom that I feel like they kicked off. This is a successful format. Everyone do this. Maybe the honeymooners did. I don’t know. But music was so integral into that show that it.

Matt (00:22:43):

I remember I read a book a year ago about all these Hannah Barbera cartoons that also had hit records where the cartoon characters sang songs. And maybe this was just Hollywood being like, “Hey, we also own a music publishing company.

Laci (00:22:57):

Let’s

Matt (00:22:57):

Be vertically integrated. It’s just what they do now, but not as big.” Well,

Laci (00:23:01):

In stage acting, especially musicals, you don’t get to be in a musical if you can’t sing and dance. They just don’t really accept. You don’t get to be a star definitely at that time, unless you are a triple threat, a Justin Timberlake.

Matt (00:23:16):

Right. And you audition for the Brady Bunch and you’re one of 10,000 kids auditioning. And it’s not like they tell you right then, “And by the way, kid, you also need to know how to sing and dance.” Right. So I think it was a thing where five out of the six of them just happened to be good at performing and one was not, but did their best. But I don’t remember which one. And

Laci (00:23:36):

It’s probably a very, very common start. I can’t think of something more applicable to someone who knows they want to act. You’re going to do community theater, you’re going to do school theater, and half of that, if not 70% of it, is musical theater. So those things just, they kind of come with the package.

Matt (00:23:53):

Yeah. We’ll get into all the Brady ephemera, including the Brady Bunch variety hour after the show itself, but Sherwood Schwartz is the creator of Brady Bunch. We last met Mr. Schwartz when we talked about Baywatch last summer, when we did the Baywatch movie, and he had a role in the creation of Baywatch. I think his nephew created Baywatch, and he put up some financing or stuff because that show was. Oh no, it was because the Brady Bunch became a hit in syndication and he told his nephew, “Forget the TV network. Sell your show directly to syndication.” Oh yeah,

Laci (00:24:24):

That was it. Because

Matt (00:24:25):

The Brady Bunch famously was not a hit when it aired for five seasons, but it never cracked the top 30. Wow. It not cracking the top 30 means it still gets 10 times as many viewers as any show today. Okay, but

Laci (00:24:37):

Captive audience, I really have to take all that with a grain of salt. But

Matt (00:24:41):

This new thing, syndication is what. It’s

Laci (00:24:44):

So interesting that that’s kind of telling that people of their time in that era when they could have appreciated this look the most just weren’t. What was beating it? Is it that people are still too conservative or that this was cheese immediately, like a reddish

Matt (00:25:01):

Cheese?

Laci (00:25:01):

It needs

Matt (00:25:02):

To be old

Laci (00:25:02):

Cheese for it to be loved. It

Matt (00:25:04):

Might be that and maybe as everything gets worse and worse in America, we retreat into fantasy. And so in the late ’60s, we’re like, we’re very serious right now. We’re watching serious movies that reflect the times and the Vietnam War and Watergate, and we want to think about all that. And then in the middle of the 70s, we’re like, “Fuck all that. Let’s just retreat into…” And this

Laci (00:25:22):

Is ’70s, right?

Matt (00:25:24):

The show runs from 69 to 74. 75 is when it takes off in syndication. So the show’s over, but now it’s becoming a big hit in reruns. How

Laci (00:25:32):

Quickly does it go into syndication? Like

Matt (00:25:35):

One year after the show ends,

Laci (00:25:38):

Then

Matt (00:25:38):

They sell it into syndication. And syndication is where instead of going through one of the big TV networks, you just sell it directly to the TV stations. Right. You can sell it to the – And they can

Laci (00:25:48):

Do with it as they please. The

Matt (00:25:49):

Company. You live in Baton Rouge, Louisiana? There’s a TV station, and the guy who owns that station just buys 100 episodes of The Brady Bunch from Sherwood Schwartz. And that’s how they end up making. And they just rerun it into the ground and now everybody’s watching it all the time.

Laci (00:26:04):

And they get paid per viewing.

Matt (00:26:06):

That’s because

Laci (00:26:07):

It’s ongoing money. Right.

Matt (00:26:10):

So Sherwood Schwartz created Gilligan’s Island, which was a very big hit, ran for three seasons, and then he had an idea with that show because the network’s like, “If people tune into this show, they’re not going to know what’s going on in the show. Why are they on an island?” So he’s like, “Why don’t we explain it in a theme song?” Oh,

Laci (00:26:27):

Weird. It’s almost like that could help unless you’re a stupid child like Matt. Yeah.

Matt (00:26:31):

Yeah. And you know who should write the theme song? Me, because then I also get the royalties from the music.

Laci (00:26:39):

It’s a clapper. TV

Matt (00:26:40):

Producers since then have.

Laci (00:26:42):

That song’s a clapper. No, it’s

Matt (00:26:44):

One of those clappers. No, I’m

Laci (00:26:45):

Going to get that to work. Yeah.

Matt (00:26:46):

No, I like it. It’s beautiful. TV producers have long since realized the hack of like, “If I can just co-write the theme song, I’ll get so much fucking money.” Then

Laci (00:26:54):

Game of Thrones came along and ruined it for everyone. People are like, “I can’t write that.” I

Matt (00:26:59):

Had the idea to go. I’m going to read now from The Way We All Became The Brady Bunch by Kimberly Potts’ 2019 book. “As he perused the Los Angeles Times during a routine weekday breakfast in 1966, a surprising statistic caught Showword Schwartz’s eye. More than 29% of all marriages now included at least one child from a previous marriage. Schwartz was in the middle of producing the third season of his high concept CBS sitcom, Gilligan’s Island, but his next big series seemed to be leaping off the newspaper page at him. If this was suddenly such a prevalent family configuration, wouldn’t TV viewers be drawn to a weekly depiction of one of these new modern families? But

Laci (00:27:37):

We have to make

Matt (00:27:38):

It

Laci (00:27:38):

So wholesome, so innocent. Oh, a widower and a widow eat? A widow widow eat? That’s so sweet. Then they should become a blended family. God would like it. And

Matt (00:27:48):

Pain in that, in that specific thing you just said, he wrote a pilot called it Yours and Mine and began shopping it because Gilligan’s Island was silly. I want to say something important about modern life. The Brady Bunch was a socially conscious show, you see, about the real issues that affect everyone. Uh-oh.

Matt (00:28:06):

So he called a script The Bradley Brood to avoid confusion with a movie called Yours, Mine and Ours. Reading again from that book, “Like fewer series had done since Leave It to Vieber premiered back in 1957, The Brady Bunch was going to unfold its stories from the children’s points of view. Each episode would spotlight one of the Brady kids in his or her relatable issues, creating Schwartz Hope, a series that would appeal to a wide variety of young TV fans and make for appointment viewing for the whole family. Adding to the portrayal of The Brady Crew as a realistic bunch, viewers would welcome into their homes every week. Schwartz also one of the young actors and actresses depicting the characters to come across as down to earth, charming kids. He wanted no entitled child stars, no demanding stage parents to complicate the production. Instead of writing specific outlines of the characters ahead of time, the actors’ personalities would shape the characters they were playing.

Matt (00:28:53):

He wanted the six Brady children to be portrayed by dynamic young people with pleasant temperaments. How dynamic

Laci (00:29:00):

Can you be if you’re pleasant? This is

Matt (00:29:02):

His job description, I guess. Capable of maintaining focus, working well together and behaving professionally on the set. So they cast the kids before the parents and don’t determine. Okay, they want the boys to have the same color hair as the dad and the girls to have the same color hair as the mom, but they haven’t cast the mom and dad yet. So they cast six girls and six boys, three blonde and three brunette for each.

Laci (00:29:27):

And then

Matt (00:29:27):

When they cast the mom and the dad, they’ll be like – Oh

Laci (00:29:29):

No. Come on brunette mom. Come on brunette mom. No.

Matt (00:29:35):

Oh,

Laci (00:29:36):

That’s fucked up to get that far. Yeah. I want a documentary following the lives of those blonde boys and those brunette girls and what they could have been. I want to know how they went to live their lives. Just

Matt (00:29:50):

The saddest shit you’ve ever thought.

Laci (00:29:54):

If they were good enough to get picked out of everybody, even If they were second.

Matt (00:30:02):

And maybe they didn’t even make the connection. No, I auditioned for the Bradley Brood.

Laci (00:30:07):

Brunettes is what they wanted. They couldn’t have been this.

Matt (00:30:09):

So one conflict that Schwartz had with the network was with the very premise of the show. This is a blended family. And in the pilot, Mike Brady is very clearly a widower. His dead wife lingers. The young Bobby’s like, “Will Mrs. Martin, Carol, be upset with me if I have a picture of my mommy up?” And he’s like, “No, son, your mom up in heaven. It’s very interwoven into the thing.”

Laci (00:30:31):

Okay.

Matt (00:30:32):

Carol, supposed to be a divorcee, but the network says, “Uh-uh, no way. We’re not having that. She cannot be a divorcee.”

Laci (00:30:39):

Just a slut.

Matt (00:30:41):

What they do is they never specify whether she’s divorced or whether she’s widowed.

Laci (00:30:44):

Oh, so that’s why in the second movie, it’s kind of both.

Matt (00:30:48):

Well, yeah. I mean, it is kind of clever because –

Laci (00:30:51):

I didn’t know that. I just assumed.

Matt (00:30:53):

I mean, you’re supposed to read it as he’s dead because it’s never brought up. It’s never like, well, this is the girl’s weekend with their dad.

Laci (00:30:58):

Right, right. Well, and I guess they’re all close enough to a war that it’s like, that’s what happened.

Matt (00:31:04):

What war would it have been?

Laci (00:31:05):

When was Vietnam?

Matt (00:31:06):

So he died. He pre-died. Your 40-year-old father died in Vietnam. Sorry. And they call the new dad dad. They’re calling their brothers, not stepbrothers, but brothers.

Laci (00:31:19):

Hey, stepbrother. That’s my stepbrother.

Matt (00:31:22):

That’s my stepbrother. That’s what we –

Laci (00:31:23):

It was also, this is one of those shows where it’s unclear if they are rich, but they’d have to be to have the housekeeper.

Matt (00:31:32):

No, man, that was just middle America for the 70s. That was the American dream. Mike Brady, he waited tables, paid tuition. Now he works 30 hours a week at the architect company and he goes home and he affords all of this.

Laci (00:31:45):

Because their wardrobes were just out of sight. They had so many things to wear.

Matt (00:31:51):

The first season of the show deals a lot with the friction of these family members who now are adjusting to life. Now I have three sisters. I don’t know about that. After the first season, that kind of goes away and it never really gets acknowledged anymore that they’re a new family, that they’re a blended family.

Laci (00:32:08):

Okay. Wait, but you said that the studio had a problem with the premise, so how did they correct it?

Matt (00:32:15):

With the idea that she’s a divorcee. Oh,

Laci (00:32:18):

They just leave

Matt (00:32:19):

It. Just leave it ambiguous. Yeah.

Laci (00:32:22):

She’s a foxy lady

Matt (00:32:23):

With a

Laci (00:32:23):

Lot of baggage.

Matt (00:32:24):

But if they’re both widowed, then this isn’t a socially conscious drama.This could be set in the Middle Ages. This

Laci (00:32:31):

Is like, thank God you guys found each other. It sounds expensive to have three kids. Why not six?

Matt (00:32:36):

Right.

Laci (00:32:37):

And Carol doesn’t work outside the house, so Mike just went from three kids to six. How is that good for him?

Matt (00:32:43):

Things were very good if you could work at the architecting company.

Laci (00:32:46):

That is why they make sure Carol puts out a lot because it’s like, we need to really show the upside to this woman. She loves to fuck.

Matt (00:32:54):

Yeah, because she’s got the housekeeper and one of the movies, she’s like, “Without Alice, who would make the lunches that I hand out?” Show runs from September 1969 to March 1974 when it gets canceled. The Mike Brady actor, Rex Reed, is not in the series finale. They didn’t know it was the series finale, but he’s just like. He said, “This script is too stupid. I’m not appearing in this episode.” Wait,

Laci (00:33:17):

Wait, wait. I’m sorry. I must have missed. I got distracted by my watch. Fucking phones these days. What is too stupid? Sorry.

Matt (00:33:26):

Said the script for the season five finale in which Bobby starts selling hair tonic and dyes the hair of the fur of these rabbits. What? He said, “This is so stupid.”

Laci (00:33:37):

Why

Matt (00:33:38):

Would that be

Laci (00:33:38):

A finale? Did they know it was

Matt (00:33:40):

The end of the.

Laci (00:33:40):

Oh, okay.

Matt (00:33:41):

No. And so they fired him from the series and then canceled the show. So it’s the last episode of all time and he’s just not in it.

Laci (00:33:48):

Bobby?

Matt (00:33:50):

Mike.

Laci (00:33:50):

Oh, I’m paying attention so hard right

Matt (00:33:53):

Now. Yes. Concurrently with the show is 22 episodes of the Filmation animated series, The Brady Kids in 1972 and 1973, which is the first Brady spinoff property. And they perfectly recreate the animation style and some of the background characters in A Very Brady sequel.

Laci (00:34:11):

Plus add pandas for some fucking reason.

Matt (00:34:15):

I remember seeing this as a kid and just being. This is when I actually, my critical faculties came alive. I’m being sold too. Sorry. No, what the fuck is this? No, thank

Laci (00:34:23):

You. I already have this in human form.

Matt (00:34:24):

They live in a tree house now.

Laci (00:34:25):

Oh, is that the deal? No, thank you. And it’s always bugged me that it’s in the song, the youngest one in curls. Where are the curls?

Matt (00:34:36):

They’re in the first season, I believe.

Laci (00:34:38):

Yeah, but the movies just have her in braids. Can’t you just put pigtails and then curl that?

Matt (00:34:45):

I think they’re going for the look of older Cindy to match the age of this actress. I don’t know. Laci, eagle-eyed Lacy.

Laci (00:34:57):

Is that Eagles?

Matt (00:34:59):

So 75, this show goes into syndication, becomes huge. So they’re like, all right, how are we going to capitalize on the Brady Bunch? First thing they do is the Brady Bunch Variety Hour. Have you heard of this?

Laci (00:35:09):

I feel like every single everything had a variety hour in a moment that looked like this. So I was watching Sunny and Cher. That looks like this. I don’t know that I’ve heard of it, Matt. I

Matt (00:35:19):

Got to say. Well, you’ve watched the Simpsons episode where they parody this, and that episode of the show upsets you because you don’t like episodes of TV shows that are different.

Laci (00:35:28):

I don’t like that.

Matt (00:35:29):

Yeah. So they have The Simpsons do a variety hour where Lisa doesn’t appear in their replacer with fake Lisa because in the Brady Bunch Variety Hour, Jan, Eve Plum is not there and they replace her with Fake Jan.

Laci (00:35:41):

Why have any Jan at all?

Matt (00:35:44):

Because Eve Plum was finding some success in made for TV movies and just asked for a little bit more money and they’re like, “Fuck you. We replace you.”

Laci (00:35:52):

Just to do the variety hour? Because it wasn’t even like we needed a fake one like they did with the fucking mom in Fresh Prince of Bel Air to get me started. They didn’t even bother making her look anything like the. I can’t.

Matt (00:36:07):

I think she is. She does look like Jan or maybe is even supposed to be more attractive than Jan, and that’s the joke in the Simpsons.

Laci (00:36:12):

Well, anyway, but so she only ever fills in for Jan in this variety hour thing.

Matt (00:36:17):

Right. But in almost every subsequent revival of the Brady Bunch, there’s always one missing girl. One of the actresses doesn’t come back and it’s replaced.

Laci (00:36:27):

But the other two resurface?

Matt (00:36:30):

There’s

Laci (00:36:30):

Always

Matt (00:36:30):

At least two. And it’s a floating one who isn’t there.

Laci (00:36:34):

But the guys, they’re available.

Matt (00:36:35):

They’re always available. Yes, exactly.

Laci (00:36:37):

I feel like Greg only goes on to do cameos of hisself as Greg Brady.

Matt (00:36:44):

I think all of them.

Laci (00:36:46):

But

Matt (00:36:46):

Greg

Laci (00:36:46):

Is the most familiar to me. I don’t know why. I feel like I’ve seen him in a bunch of

Matt (00:36:50):

Things. It’s like,

Laci (00:36:51):

“Hey.”

Matt (00:36:52):

Barry Williams is the one who had some success as an actual singer performer. But yeah, all of them just trafficked in, “I’m a Brady.” So they do this Brady Bunch variety hour. They only produce nine episodes. It airs at odd times. Everyone hates it. But it became this thing that people are fascinated with, especially in the YouTube era. Do you know this thing exists? This is insane. I’ve tried to watch it. It’s so boring.

Laci (00:37:19):

I got you. Yeah. I was like, which one of them would have the personality to carry this? I can’t even think of who would do it except for maybe Greg, because he’s Johnny Bravo.

Matt (00:37:28):

Yeah. Apparently Greg and Carol, because both of them are trained musical performers were all in and the others were like.

Laci (00:37:36):

And just tell us where to put the camera. I mean our bodies.

Matt (00:37:40):

So in 1981, they do a TV movie called The Brady Girls Get Married.

Laci (00:37:44):

Ew, The Brady Brides. Ew. And you’re telling me they are Mormon? Come on. Well, the Cullens do it too, but that’s because the Cullens are Mormons.

Matt (00:37:53):

Yeah, the Bradys are Mormons too. But just like how the Cullens aren’t actually Mormons, but we know they’re Mormons. I think that is so of the Bradys. Now, this is the only instance where they have the entire original cash return is this 1981 made for TV movie, The Brady Girls Get Married. It then leads to a sitcom called The Brady Brides centering on Marsha and Jan as adults, which runs for 10 episodes before it gets canceled. It’s like this keeps happening. They make a TV movie that people watch and then they’re like, “Oh, you want this to be turned into a show?” And then people say, no. No,

Laci (00:38:24):

We didn’t. We just wanted a little bit of that spice.

Matt (00:38:27):

1988, a very Brady Christmas TV movie comes on. I watched this a billion times. I’ve

Laci (00:38:33):

Never in my life.

Matt (00:38:35):

As a kid

Laci (00:38:36):

Seen this.

Matt (00:38:36):

Original Cindy is not in this movie. Now the tone evolves. It’s a little more serious. We’re going to deal with real things. This movie, they make a joke about it in the Brady Bunch movie of Mike Brady’s building that he designs collapses and traps some children inside of it, and he has to go save them. Is Mike going to die on Christmas? What the fuck? But this was such a rating success that they made a new series, The Bradys, which was a sort of dramedy. It was inspired by 30 something. Now this time original Cindy is back, but original Marsha is out. Anyway, that brings us to the ’90s.

Laci (00:39:10):

Are they not allowed to be pregnant? Is that why are they. Oh, look at me. Wow, I’m the sexist. The

Matt (00:39:15):

Only

Laci (00:39:15):

Reason they’re not available is they’re pregnant.

Matt (00:39:17):

Well, I read about Cindy Susan Olson not appearing in a very Brady Christmas is she was on her honeymoon.

Laci (00:39:25):

Okay. Couldn’t they just wait

Matt (00:39:27):

A

Laci (00:39:27):

Week?

Matt (00:39:28):

Fuck you. You’re on your honeymoon. How dare you.

Laci (00:39:30):

There’s no loyalty. Oh, you know what? Bobby is the most familiar to me now that I look at that. He was the coach that does. I mean, he does the. There are a ton of cameos in both movies, but yeah, the first movie, he’s the coach.

Matt (00:39:43):

Peter is.

Laci (00:39:44):

Peter.

Matt (00:39:45):

Christopher Knight, yeah.

Laci (00:39:46):

The middle kid.

Matt (00:39:47):

Yeah.

Laci (00:39:47):

Yeah, yeah. That’s what I mean. Sorry.

Matt (00:39:50):

So early ’90s –

Laci (00:39:51):

His name is. Bobby’s not the middle?

Matt (00:39:54):

No.

Laci (00:39:55):

Then I mean Peter.

Matt (00:39:56):

Yeah.

Laci (00:39:57):

Okay.

Matt (00:39:57):

Sherwood Schwartz in the early ’90s sells, makes a deal with Paramount to produce a Brady Bunch movie. He and his son write a script, apparently a very straightforward but kind of serious. Okay. I just have to read from Variety. So they’ve turned in their scripts and here’s what Variety says about this script they’ve written. “Described as the Brady Bunch meets desperate hours, the feature is about a gang of escaped prisoners who hide out in the Brady House for the weekend and hold the family hostage. According to a source close to the production, Ellewany and Cop, who are these new writers that they bring aboard, were hired to bring more of a parody element to the script. “The Brady family will talk, walk, and act like it’s 1974,” said the source, “but they live in the 90s. The comedy will come from that situation.”

Laci (00:40:40):

So goodbye. I love what you did. Changing everything.

Matt (00:40:47):

But I mean, he’s a good sport and he’s a producer of the movie and he could have killed the movie, but he’s a good sport about the direction that they take the movie in. I mean, I’m just saying I think, because he could have insisted this has to be exactly like the show. But man, it’s so much more like the show than I remembered. And I just kept thinking that as I watched it is like –

Laci (00:41:10):

I’m going to watch a couple episodes tonight because I need this frame of reference you have. I mean, I clearly understand that they’re speaking to very famous elements from the show when they’re making their little jokes, but it seems very heightened, so I guess I need to reorient myself. Maybe it was always heightened.

Matt (00:41:31):

Yeah. And 21 Jump Street, admittedly, I’ve never seen the TV show 21 Jump Street, but I imagine it is not the tone of those comedy movies that they made. No. And so I assumed in my memory, well, that’s the relationship Brady Bunch movie has to the original Brady Bunch TV show, but I think it’s only like 15% more crass.

Laci (00:41:51):

Yeah, because the perfect comparison, and it’s why I brought up Leave It to Beaver, and I didn’t realize I was picking it out for the reason that the storylines happen from the kids’ perspective. I didn’t realize that’s why I found them to be similar, but those kids and adults in Leave It to Beaver are turned up to fucking 13. They are Pleasantville.

Matt (00:42:13):

In that ’90s Leave It to Beaver movie?

Laci (00:42:16):

No, no. I mean, the show itself when it came out was such like, “Ah, OG dad.” So it’s not shocking that the Brady Bunch, the actual show also were cartoon characters of children, which would then make the movie be closer than you think to

Matt (00:42:35):

The

Laci (00:42:36):

Show because there’s not much place to go.

Matt (00:42:38):

Right. And they can get so much mileage out of like, “Okay, they’ll act exactly like they did on the show, but the world around them will be. But it’s always satisfying in a story like this, when they bend the world outside to their will without meaning to.

Laci (00:42:52):

Yes. Or when it doesn’t quite go the right way either. That’s also funny, like on the airplane. It’s like,” Yeah, sit down. “But then at the talent show, you’ve got a few people who bothered to get to know these lovely Mormons who are like,” Yeah, that wasn’t weird at all. Woo.

Matt (00:43:09):

“Or the dance when Davy Jones comes on stage and it all kind of works out. But it’s like

Laci (00:43:14):

Because it’s a Marsha plan, it has to go

Matt (00:43:16):

Well,

Laci (00:43:16):

Even her stupid dance.

Matt (00:43:19):

Betty Thomas is the director of the Brady Bunch movie. We’ve talked about her a few times. She directed the Howard Stern movie Private Parts, which was a previous episode. I believe that’s episode 81. She also produced Can’t Hardly Wait, which we covered earlier this year. So Betty Thomas was an actor and a comedic performer. She trained at Second City with Bill Murray. She won an Emmy for the TV show Hill Street Blues. She co-starred with Shelly Long in the 1989 comedy troupe, Beverly Hills. And her feature film debut was a 1992 movie called Only You starring Andrew McCarthy. Is this a Laci movie? So that was the first movie she directed. Brady Bunch movie is her second movie. She directs private parts and then Dr. Doolittle, the Sandra Bullock movie, 28 Days, and Alvin in the chipmunks, The Squeakel.

Laci (00:44:00):

Okay. And I’ve said this then. I had to have. What a mixed bag. That is just fully genre jumping.

Matt (00:44:09):

It is. Yeah. It

Laci (00:44:11):

Just is.

Matt (00:44:11):

But she was until a certain point the most successful woman director in movie history, at least in Hollywood history, mainly because of Dr. Doolittle. Very good oral history of A Very Brady sequel in Vice by Ashley Spencer published in 2021, link in the description. And what I’m mostly going to be doing now is sharing fun stories that the cast tells. So the actresses who play Marsha and Jan were huge Brady Bunch fans, and you can see it in their performances how devoted they are to recreating the way the original actors played the characters. Jennifer Elise Cox plays Jan. She says, “I was a ridiculous crazy fan of the Brady Bunch. I was right out of college and I’m a theater girl, so I came dressed as Jan and a friend of mine did my hair with the curls in the front and I had a whole corduroy outfit.

Matt (00:44:59):

I remember going into the casting office and there were a bunch of really cool Hollywood girls there. One of them was Leslie Bibb in cute jeans and a baby tee. I was like, Oh, maybe I went too far. I think that was kind of what you had to do to get the part, really commit to the Brady that you were playing. At the end of my audition, I started doing the keep on moving dance out of nowhere and they were totally into it. It was one of the best auditions of my life.” Christine Taylor, who plays Marsha, she had done a theater production of a play called The Real Live Brady Bunch in which she played Marsha. “My friends and I were huge Brady fans in high school and I’d heard I looked like Marsha all my life. When I called my agent about doing the stage play, their reaction was,” We didn’t know you did theater.

Matt (00:45:37):

“And I said,” Well, I love theater, but I also just do a great Marsha Brady impression. Then when I was finishing up my run in the show, they said, Did you know Paramount is trying to make a Brady Bunch movie? “I remember thinking,” I’ve done the impression my whole life. I look like her. If I can’t get this, then maybe I’m not in the right industry.

Matt (00:45:53):

“So she says later about a moment in a very Brady sequel, Betty Thomas, the director of the first movie doesn’t come back for the second movie. They have a new director and Christine Taylor pronounces the word school a certain way. And the director’s like,” Hey Christine, can you say it normal? “The way Marsha says skill was very important to me. I slipped it in there and Arlene says,” We’re going to do it again. You said school a little weird.” Jennifer and I looked at each other and I was like,” That’s the way she said it. I have to stand by that. “Yes. And Arlene’s like,” Okay, you’re the experts. Skill was such a Maureen McCormick-ism. “Then Jennifer Cox, who plays Jan says,” On the show, it sounded like Eve and Maureen, “the actresses who played Marsha and Jan,” Went to a dialect coach where they taught them Eastern standard speech.

Matt (00:46:40):

Eve spoke beautifully, but it was wet instead of wet. I remember Betty Thomas said to me, Look at Eve’s walk. She has a weird walk. I just kept studying the episodes and the way her hair swings back and forth. “Now yeah, if you watch the actual show, it’s like, yeah, it’s there. It’s not as crazy as in the movie, but that’s what’s great about the movie is these things you would pick up on if you just kind of absent-mindedly watched the Brady Bunch for 10,000 hours

Laci (00:47:08):

Over the

Matt (00:47:08):

Course of your life.

Laci (00:47:08):

What would I need to do to do an impression of a character? I need to do a caricature. I need to take their essence and make it big.

Matt (00:47:19):

Yeah. Noticing she always says skill. And I was looking for a clip of her saying that, and all I got was the ’90s actress doing it. So I scrubbed through a few episodes and I noticed the actor who plays Mike also says skill weird skill. Maybe it’s just one of those words that people say differently over time. I don’t know. Gary Cole was very serious. Like

Laci (00:47:41):

Coupon?

Matt (00:47:42):

Yeah. Or a die-upper for dieper. No, no. A die-upper. No.

Laci (00:47:47):

No, they don’t do that.

Matt (00:47:49):

Gary Cole, very serious stage actor, had never done comedy before, but he had been on this TV show Midnight Collar with Betty Thomas and she thought he’d be good for Mike. So he comes into audition. Gary Cole says, “They wanted me to look like Mike Brady, but they provided nothing except a wig that wasn’t fitted at all. I looked like a clown from Ringling Brothers, so I went down to Melrose somewhere and bought a bad loud polyester shirt and I went in and read.” So then the casting director, Deborah Akilah says, “Gary goes into the bathroom in my office to change. He closes the door and I’m watching Betty’s reaction to Gary coming out.” Gary Cole says, “Betty never laughs. She barely cracks a smile. She was looking at me as if I were some experiment that she was wondering whether the experiment was going to work.” And the casting director says, “This is what I remember.

Matt (00:48:34):

Betty started laughing so hard that she rolled from the couch onto the floor. I swear this is what I remember, whether I made it up or not. When he walked out, he had the voice, he had the look, he had the wig. We lost our minds. He became Mike.” And Gary Cole says, “It was mimicry, basically. That’s what I felt would make it funny. Obviously I was helped by the polyester clothes and the hair. I noticed that Robert Reed had a very specific rhythm, and when Mike finishes whatever he’s saying, you realize he makes absolutely no sense at all, but everyone just nods their head.” Shelly Long was the big name among the cast because of Cheers. She’s one of those actresses who had the difficult reputation. Now you always have to be skeptical of that because it turns out skeptical means Harvey Weinstein called her difficult because she refused her advances.

Matt (00:49:21):

I’m not saying that with her. I’m just saying that’s one reason to be skeptical, but people like Bette Midler said she was difficult. And in this oral history, it seems like they’re kind of suggesting. So the actress who plays Cindy in the Brady Bunch movie said Shelly Long thought that the actress who played Alice, an actress named Henriette Mantel, was her actual maid because she treated her like her actual maid because they had been together on a sitcom where Henriette Mantel had played Shelly Long’s housekeeper in an earlier city.

Laci (00:49:53):

Oh no.

Matt (00:49:55):

Henriette Mantel, this sucks for her. She was Meredith in the pilot of the American Office. Oh, I can see that. She’s the background and then she’s just. And it might not have even been recast. It might just be an extra thing. And then the movie, Brady Bunch movie makes $54 million on a $10 million budget, so they rush a sequel into production. And yeah, you made a good point, Laci, is like these kids, you got to strike right now. And Betty Thomas isn’t available because she’s doing private parts, so they hire Arlene Sanford. The budget is $15 million, but this movie only makes $20 million a very Brady sequel, gets worse reviews than the previous one. And then I just found out in 2002, there’s a TV movie called The Brady Bunch in the White House.

Laci (00:50:37):

Holy shit. Who are those people?

Matt (00:50:39):

With Gary Cole and Shelly Long back, but everyone else is recast.

Laci (00:50:42):

Oh, that’s uncanny. That’s unfortunate.

Matt (00:50:45):

Yeah.

Laci (00:50:45):

Don’t do that.

Matt (00:50:46):

And in this movie, Mike Brady is elected president and they all move into the White House.

Laci (00:50:50):

Fantastic.

Matt (00:50:52):

And Gary Cole is hilarious, and I think Shelly Long’s also hilarious. They’re great. But what’s appealing about this movie is just these kids and how well they get the energy. I mean, they’re all great. All the cast is great, but yeah, those kids are so fun in these movies. That concludes the history of the Brady Bunch movie. So we’re going to retire to our den, take some mushrooms and watch the Brady Bunch movie again, and we’ll talk to you – We’re going to wait for a meat delivery. In a second. The Brady Bunch movie. It’s the goddamn 90s. But how do we tell it’s the 90s? How can we tell?

Laci (00:51:44):

Are you asking?

Matt (00:51:45):

Yeah, sure.

Laci (00:51:46):

Okay. Grunge, baby. Flip phones. No one’s talking to one another. People are hanging out on the street in a weird way.

Matt (00:51:54):

Do you know this song? It’s called I’m Feeling Nothing by Da Da.

Laci (00:51:57):

Oh.

Matt (00:51:58):

Even

Laci (00:51:59):

Da Da is such a ’90s thing to call yourself.

Matt (00:52:02):

I don’t know this song, but it just sounds like 1995. Three years after Grunge, but still riding the coattails, but also maybe Little Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Laci (00:52:13):

All I know is that this song is no poser and they’re over it.

Matt (00:52:18):

Helicopter shot of skyscrapers.

Laci (00:52:20):

Got to do it. Because

Matt (00:52:22):

For some reason –

Laci (00:52:23):

Because Empire Records.

Matt (00:52:26):

Those two, nothing but trouble. Teenage Mutual Turtles. For some reason, that is a thing we’ve forgotten how to do in this country is to open a movie. 10 things I

Laci (00:52:34):

Hate about you.

Matt (00:52:35):

To open a movie with helicopter shots of skyscrapers. That’s all you got

Laci (00:52:38):

To do.

Matt (00:52:39):

Just

Laci (00:52:40):

Tell me what city I’m going to be in for a little bit. You don’t even got to stay there.

Matt (00:52:43):

Los Angeles. City of Angels. The

Laci (00:52:44):

Sprawl.

Matt (00:52:46):

Go street level. See some grody looking ’90s grocers hanging out in front of tattoo parlors, but then pan over to some – Loitering,

Laci (00:52:56):

I’d say. They’re no good nicks.

Matt (00:52:58):

Pan over to some yuppies on flip phones, signs about gang riots and drive-bys and divorce and bankruptcy and smog. And then Michael McKean is on a car phone and he’s talking about orchestrating this real estate deal where if he can get his entire neighborhood to sell their homes, then they all get a lot of money or something.

Laci (00:53:18):

It’s all about capitalism. The ’90s was worried we were getting too capitalistic and it’s like, “Yeah, we were. It’s not about community. It’s not about roots. Sell, baby.”

Matt (00:53:30):

No, and luckily after this movie, everything got better.

Laci (00:53:33):

It was fine. Yeah.

Matt (00:53:34):

Yeah. So they’re trying to build a residential mini mall. It’s just there’s one house that’s a holdout. There’s some really weird people. And you hear this guy over the phone and you can’t hear him that well, but he’s like, “What’s their story?” And that’s what kicks you off into the thing, into the opening credits. We get the full opening credits of the Brady Bunch. And then we switch to the sitcom and I can’t say enough positive things about how well they approximate the look just both from production design, from the actors, the way they’re delivering the lines, from the way the shots are composed.

Laci (00:54:10):

Especially Carol and Mike. I mean, all of them, but Carol and Mike are nailing it. Carol particularly.

Matt (00:54:18):

But also she’s the one who feels like she’s going straight with the most straightforward imitation.

Laci (00:54:23):

Where the other ones seem like they’re kind of a blob, kind of the substance blob mashup of all of the characteristics dialed up just a scooch. Maybe each character at their most annoying rather than the most baseline of

Matt (00:54:39):

Their personalities. Where she’s like, no, I’m just literally going to do what Florence Anderson did.

Laci (00:54:43):

Because Alice is actually really fucking cozy and sweet and this comforting presence and is often doing things that you would think Carol would be doing. And it’s interesting. I guess helicopter parenting and being really involved didn’t really happen yet because it’s like, oh, she’s got six kids. But Carol is equally absent with all of them and just hanging with Mike the whole time. But they kind of turn Alice into this one-liner machine, this almost kooky, where in the show she’s much more motherly.

Matt (00:55:20):

But she was the funny one. She is funny.That was supposed to be the. And Alice is the funny one. I’m the funny one. Oh,

Laci (00:55:26):

Alice.

Matt (00:55:27):

And the humor of the movie is they’re just having her deliver the exact same kinds of jokes she would deliver on the show. So Cindy’s like, “Alice, can I make cookies with you and my Dolly?” It’s like, “As long as your doll isn’t Betsy Wetsy, she gets my cookies soggy woggy.” And everybody’s like, “Alice.”

Laci (00:55:46):

See, no one actually finds her funny. They just wanted to. I’m

Matt (00:55:49):

Laughing. Yeah. That was

Laci (00:55:52):

Humor.

Matt (00:55:53):

It’s got the look perfectly down. And somehow it just has the sound down perfectly too, because it has the symphonic Brady score that’s like opening credits are over. I can’t do it, but. Yes. And it sounds just like you’re on the set of the sitcom or you’re watching the sitcom.

Laci (00:56:13):

But yeah, the pausing, the looking around, there’s a little bit of fourth wall breaking, but it’s just enough to keep the pacing right because pacing was different. I mean, different aesthetics evolve and stuff and become. It feels like the ’90s when you’re outside of them, the way the lines delivery is happening and different sound intrusion and whatever. And then when you’re back with them, it’s just. We all had a little more space and time to let our jokes land.

Matt (00:56:40):

Yeah. The audio is probably – Reaction.

Laci (00:56:42):

Reaction.

Matt (00:56:44):

The audio is probably even recorded differently. It might even be using sitcom microphones, so it sounds – Spatial. Sounds with more reverb and stuff.

Laci (00:56:52):

Right. Well, and only hearing what they want you to hear, which is crystal clear voice and score and no atmospheric noise where. Yeah. Then you go into the 90s, go to the neighbor’s house even, and there’s other shit. There’s a honk. You can’t hear people talking outside the house of the Bradys,

Matt (00:57:14):

Not

Laci (00:57:14):

Even a car honk.

Matt (00:57:15):

And so what I’m so grateful that the movie doesn’t do is there’s no moment where anybody’s like, “Why are you talking like that?” Or like, “Hey, how come we’re…” It’s all

Laci (00:57:23):

Implied.

Matt (00:57:24):

It’s like, “Hey, you’re

Laci (00:57:24):

Mormons.”

Matt (00:57:25):

I’m so glad there’s no fourth wall breaking.

Laci (00:57:27):

Yeah, no, no, no. It didn’t need it. I mean, that’s what I’m saying. The knowing looks, the times where Carol’s getting a little bit annoyed with Mike where she’s kind of giving him eyes, that’s the knowing without breaking the fourth wall.

Matt (00:57:42):

Yeah.

Laci (00:57:42):

It’s just enough.

Matt (00:57:44):

And Shelly Long as Carol is putting sugar in her coffee, and they don’t put a fine point on it, but every time the camera cuts to her, she’s still shaking a giant jar of sugar into a tiny cup of coffee.

Laci (00:57:55):

I didn’t even notice.

Matt (00:57:56):

Yeah. I just

Laci (00:57:56):

Noticed the lard when Alice is making the meatloaf, but that’s the second movie.

Matt (00:58:00):

That’s the second one. Now, what is lard?

Laci (00:58:02):

Lard is animal fat. I don’t know why. Crisco, what you put in. Well, you put it in a ton of things, but it’s adding oil to meat. I have no idea. It would make a very creamy meatloaf, but all the wrong kinds of things.

Matt (00:58:19):

So in my memory, there were way more jokes like that of these people do things insane. And maybe it was all the trailer moments. I thought, “Carol, you still feed your family red meat. Come on, man. Get with the times.” But there’s not that much of that. It doesn’t seem like the movie’s actually trying to make a comment on, “This is how we live today versus this is how we used to live.” And I think that’s to the movie’s credit.

Laci (00:58:41):

Yeah. Right. That would get boring. Yeah, things are different when times are different.

Matt (00:58:46):

I get it. Yeah. And also people didn’t live like this in the ’70s either, the way that you live.

Laci (00:58:51):

Right.This is wholesome as hell. You guys are on such a schedule. The troops are trooping. This is so little chaos with six children.

Matt (00:59:02):

Yeah. A family of six kids, they weren’t having little meetings where they get to discuss the problems that the family’s having. Let’s get

Laci (00:59:09):

Our shit together before we go to mom and dad. We’ve only got one crack at this. The bosses are busy and they’re going to need to be flirting with each other in the kitchen, then in the living room, then in bed. That is the three things they do. That

Matt (00:59:22):

Is it. And they’re always – Oh,

Laci (00:59:23):

And the din. They need to be seen in those locations, giving each other like.

Matt (00:59:28):

Her sitting in his lap.

Laci (00:59:29):

Mr. Brady.

Matt (00:59:32):

They got the neighbor’s mail again. You’d think they’d know where to deliver the mail. Well, I always know where to deliver my mail.

Laci (00:59:38):

Okay.

Matt (00:59:39):

Mr. Brady.

Laci (00:59:41):

Your dick. That’s probably one of the most over the top. It’s hard to say what’s over the top, but I mean, they’re super sexual.

Matt (00:59:50):

But they were on the show too. It’s just –

Laci (00:59:54):

It’s just all they do.

Matt (00:59:55):

The movie just makes

Laci (00:59:56):

It literal. Oh Mike, what are we going to do? That is the biggest That is the most common phrase amongst everyone. What are we going to do? We sure do have a problem to solve.

Matt (01:00:09):

And I was reading more about the making of the show and how it was a conscious choice. So if you want to have fun, just read critical reviews of The Brady Bunch when it came out. They were so vicious about it, but the idea was like, we’re going to take the kids’ stupid problem seriously. So Cindy’s like –

Laci (01:00:28):

We’ll have a trial and a jury and we’re going to have a moot court and a mock courtroom all the time. Exactly. I watched best of clips and two or three times it came down to them needing a jury.

Matt (01:00:41):

They did often seem to need a jury. There’s usually like Marsha’s dating somebody who’s a rival of Greg’s. That happens a lot.

Laci (01:00:49):

Jan’s lying about something and instead of giving her mental help, they just talk to her friend’s school and – Oh

Matt (01:00:56):

Jan.

Laci (01:00:57):

They just go around her and just, “Is our kid fucking crazy?” Yeah, because she’s a pathological liar. You can’t ask Jan.

Matt (01:01:07):

So these older kids are fighting over the bathroom as Martha Marsha brushes her hair 5,000 times. And then Jan wants to borrow a pair or steals a pair of Marsha’s socks. Jan, return my socks and close the drawer when you’re done.

Laci (01:01:23):

That hair though. How did they get it so shiny? It’s like Barbie hair and it’s only Marsha’s. Marsha just has this bend in it and then she’s got this frosted lip gloss on. She looks plastic. She looks impossible.

Matt (01:01:39):

It’s a result of brushing 5,000 times I guess.

Laci (01:01:42):

I think you’d go bald. I think it’d be more like that actress in the craft. It just keeps coming out. I sound like her. And

Matt (01:01:51):

Then you get scarred.

Laci (01:01:52):

Now we’ve got the first real injection of the two worlds colliding where they send the smallest, most innocent of them, Cindy, to the Dittmeyers to give them their mail. And it’s like the most wholesome thing you can do for an entrance to your house is have a barn door? Why do they have the folks the adorable. Because you need this split screen. These Bradies are not allowed in, but we need some way of seeing them at the same time as outside. It’s not like the Bradies are ever coming in.

Matt (01:02:24):

So you’re talking about their next door neighbors who have the split – The

Laci (01:02:26):

Ditmeyers, right. When the door opens in half, the top and the bottom can open independently.

Matt (01:02:35):

Yeah. It’s like

Laci (01:02:37):

A walk up. It’s like a lemonade stand. It’s like a drive-through counter thing.

Matt (01:02:42):

Maybe that was like they write in the script, Cindy goes in and then they’re like, “But wait, why would she go in?” Why would she go in?

Laci (01:02:47):

Right.

Matt (01:02:48):

And they spend three weeks trying to solve this problem like, “Oh, a half door thing. Okay.” Which

Laci (01:02:53):

Is so odd. I don’t know anyone from my life that had one of these except for our babysitter who had one in the inside of her house. I love Jean Smart. I love her every time she’s in anything, but she’s so funny in this, especially when she’s going through the aisles of the talent show, not planning to sit anywhere, but just wanting to show her ass to every single high school student and then pick a cute one and sit and be like, “Oh my God, I’m so sorry.”

Matt (01:03:20):

She’s Mrs. Dittmeyer. Michael McKean is Mr. Dittmeyer. You’re so

Laci (01:03:23):

Miserable.

Matt (01:03:24):

And she’s just gets drunk and lusts after all the men that she sees. But I think this is an exceptionally well-directed movie by Betty Thomas. And I think the moment when Cindy leaves the Brady compound where she walks out of the house, walks into their yard, which is clearly on a sound stage and the grass is just green carpet and then opens up her fence and then crosses over. And I just got this 20 second clip just to show how they dramatize this. And suddenly the camera’s handheld.

Laci (01:03:57):

Exterior noise, diegetic noise coming, music coming

Matt (01:04:03):

From

Laci (01:04:03):

The car. There’s an alarm. There’s a cop car coming.

Matt (01:04:08):

Yeah. And you’re probably using a different kind of camera and different lens, a different film stock.

Laci (01:04:13):

Yeah. It’s all over the place.

Matt (01:04:14):

And it is just jarring to suddenly see Brady’s be filmed like this. She

Laci (01:04:17):

Needs to be put back in the. She seems unsafe here.

Matt (01:04:20):

Right. But

Laci (01:04:20):

They’re also impenetrable. They seem to have a force field around them. Exactly, yes. Nothing bad. You know that sitcom mentality is protecting them wherever they go, so she could go into Jeffrey Epstein’s

Matt (01:04:33):

Florida. And I’d like to see that movie.

Laci (01:04:36):

Hi, Mr. Epstein. Gee, I could see your penis.

Matt (01:04:41):

You

Laci (01:04:41):

Seem to have your penis out of your pants, Mr. Epstein.

Matt (01:04:44):

They go to the White House, they go to Little St. James, and what a great lisplace he can do. Lisplace he can do. Lisplace he can do.

Laci (01:04:51):

Thank you. 23 Ski-Doo.

Matt (01:04:53):

They wrote the lisp for the original Cindy because that was the actress had a lisp. Oh, that’s adorable. A lisp.

Laci (01:05:00):

I do enjoy. I do like when she loses it, someone else gains it though. That’s funny.

Matt (01:05:05):

Right. Well, I guess you have a handful of traits in this movie. You have a lisp. If you lose it, someone else gets it. You’re paranoid schizophrenic. If you lose that, someone else gets it. Just hopping from person to person. I

Laci (01:05:18):

Would like to point out that Jean Smart, the wife of Mrs. Dittmeier, we don’t really ever get to see her drunk, only ever very hungover and trying to get rid of her hanger. She’s just perpetually in an eye mask and just over it fully. A different kind of housewife. And

Matt (01:05:36):

She sees Cindy, she’s like, “Hi, honey.”

Laci (01:05:41):

But

Matt (01:05:41):

She

Laci (01:05:41):

Doesn’t have any time for Cindy. It’s like, “You tell your dad that this Christmas, I’d love to help him wrap his package.”

Matt (01:05:48):

Okay. And then Michael McKean is just so mean to her.

Laci (01:05:54):

She does it right in front of him.

Matt (01:05:56):

Michael McKean is so mean to her. “What the fuck do you want? “She’s like,” I got some mail for you.

Laci (01:06:01):

“He’s like,” Oh, okay. Well, I’ve got some mail for you too. “And

Matt (01:06:05):

She overhears some of their business and goes back home and tells her parents are like,” Now Cindy, no one likes a tattle tale. “That’s

Laci (01:06:12):

The running theme through this movie is that Cindy’s not allowed to talk about her life because apparently things that happen to children are tattling rather than.

Matt (01:06:20):

Right, exactly.

Laci (01:06:21):

Someone had a conversation with me and said this, so I’m telling you about it. And

Matt (01:06:26):

So anytime she approaches anybody with anything, they’re like,” Cindy, is this something I should hear?” Did

Laci (01:06:32):

You experience this or did you see someone else experience it in front of you? The

Matt (01:06:36):

Bradys have received a letter from the county saying they owe $20,000 in back taxes.

Laci (01:06:42):

It’s the fifth notice, and this seems like a big oversight for such a perfect family. So of course I’m thinking, oh, the Ditmeyers are intentionally withholding their mail. I mean, you have that whole premise there. Why not have that be the reason? I

Matt (01:06:56):

Feel like that has to be in a deleted scene because that makes. I fill that in my memory

Laci (01:07:01):

And it’s not in the movie. Well, but if he has this in his back pocket, Mr. Dittmeyer, he doesn’t need to also be pushing and pestering Mike the whole time. So it’s like, I guess they can’t have him have this power, but he needs to become aware of it. But I do feel like, oh, they should have had Tiger. I’ll bet they did have a dog and I’ll bet Tiger was taking the notices one by one and bringing them to his doghouse just like he did with the doll that –

Matt (01:07:31):

Tiger, come on.

Laci (01:07:33):

And then he finally gets the fifth notice. Tiger takes it out of his hand, goes to his dog house, and then Mr. Brady gets in there and goes, “Notice one, notice two.” And then they put the dog on trial, which they did. That’s good.

Matt (01:07:48):

That’s

Laci (01:07:48):

Good. He taped in an episode. They did whenever he took the doll from Cindy. And

Matt (01:07:52):

You’re sending me into this reverie. I’m Joe Biden now remembering all the ice cream I’ve eaten like, oh yeah, the dog trial. Oh, kitty carry all is missing. Oh, they install a payphone in their house. They

Laci (01:08:02):

Do?

Matt (01:08:03):

Yeah, because those kids, they’re racking up the phone bills. Wow. And Mike needs to make an important business call and he nearly loses a client because he doesn’t have any dimes. I wish he’d

Laci (01:08:12):

Go into the office ever. But

Matt (01:08:13):

Then you know how it gets resolved? The important client’s like, “Oh, you’re talking on a payphone? I got my kids at my house. I need to do that too.” That’s how all episodes are resolved. It’s like the thing you thought was important, it’s going to be okay. No need to worry.

Laci (01:08:27):

And Mike’s internalized this over the years. So by the time we see him in the movie, it’s like season six, Mike, and he’s like, “You know kids, I realize global warming.” But you see, when you warm a globe, you’re really telling the globe that you’re cold. And then that globe feels like, “Well, I guess I should warn you.” He can brush off everything. Nothing really alarms him.

Matt (01:08:48):

So there you go. That’s why he seems like such a goodie two shoes who paid his taxes. No,

Laci (01:08:54):

It’s

Matt (01:08:54):

Going to be fine. No, it’s

Laci (01:08:55):

Going to be fine. That is just a funny way to think about this character is that, guys, I’ve sat through five seasons of me on TV. I think I know every single episode resolves and totally everything’s fine. So that’s why I’m like this. And

Matt (01:09:08):

He’s right. That is what happens over the course of this movie.

Laci (01:09:11):

He’s actually a very smart man. That is the lesson he should have learned.

Matt (01:09:14):

Yeah, because instead the joke they do with Tiger is just like, “Tiger, whatever happened to that dog?” It was like a fan thing. People notice, “Hey, the dog was very prominent for a few years and then just was never mentioned again. What’s up with that?”

Laci (01:09:26):

Alec Baldwin shot him.

Matt (01:09:28):

Does Alec Baldwin shoot dogs? No,

Laci (01:09:31):

Just women, but.

Matt (01:09:32):

What?

Laci (01:09:34):

On that set, he accidentally killed a woman?

Matt (01:09:36):

He killed one woman and you get this reputation for doing it all theime. Th’s ridiculous.

Laci (01:09:40):

You suck one dick, Matt. Dick sucker.

Matt (01:09:44):

The whole gang is sitting down for breakfast. Jan is feeling bad because she doesn’t want to wear her glasses because they make her look positively goofy. And then she puts them on, but then takes them right off and rides her bike and then crashes into the fence. It’s

Laci (01:09:56):

Into several fences.

Matt (01:09:58):

We follow her out onto the street and then now it looks like a movie and get the handheld camera in the film grain and it just looks. It’s so disorienting. You

Laci (01:10:06):

Fucking can’t get out the way. But yeah, you really are at ease. This movie is so easy to watch, especially as a kid you just know they really are fine. Literally anything could happen to them. So I’m just going to watch with no pit in my stomach.

Matt (01:10:21):

Right. There’s

Laci (01:10:22):

No they go to the hospital episode that I know of. Got to be a little something.

Matt (01:10:28):

There’s an episode where they get the measles. The doctor comes to them. Oh,

Laci (01:10:32):

They’re anti-vaxxers. Got it. And

Matt (01:10:35):

I like that there’s no. The movie never provides an explanation like you see the Brady House has an invisible orb or was built on a. I don’t know. No,

Laci (01:10:45):

You don’t need it. You don’t need it because all you have to know is that this is a sitcom and sitcoms do not. This not a soap opera. This is not primetime television even. They don’t deal in that kind of thing. Every episode is going to finish nicely so that you feel nice and look forward to the next episode. So it’s just sitcom logic.

Matt (01:11:05):

You

Laci (01:11:05):

Don’t need a force field. It’s genre.

Matt (01:11:10):

They’re

Laci (01:11:10):

Protected by genre.

Matt (01:11:11):

I feel like if they made this movie today, they’d be like, “But we need to explain why.” Even the Barbie movie had to provide some sort of. See, you pass through this temporal membrane and now you’re in the Barbie world.

Laci (01:11:22):

You don’t need to do that. People just understand, you give a child a Barbie, they’re going to do five to six things with it. That’s the reality. We understand you don’t need to say it. Just show me those things. And I’m like, “I totally did that when I was a kid.” You always make them fuck. Well, you don’t. You make them scissor and you make them French kiss. This isn’t about that though. Here’s their friend Eddie.

Matt (01:11:46):

Well, there is a French kiss, so maybe their world does get poisoned in the Barbie movie.

Laci (01:11:52):

But as a child, you do make them French kiss. Or you imagine you don’t know theirs tongue, you just push their faces against each other real hard and feel weird feelings in your lower.

Matt (01:12:05):

Greg and Marsha are driving to school and this guy knocks on the window and is like, “Get out. This is a car, Jack.” I’m like, “Well, of course it’s a car, but I’m not Jack. I’m Greg.” And you are? And I love that this guy – Eddie. He’s the first to be beaten down by their optimism. So he goes, “It’s Eddie. Didn’t you hear me? Gaw.” This

Laci (01:12:21):

Is clearly a gun in my hand. I mean, a hand in my gut. Fuck, it’s a gun. But in the Brady world, there’s no such thing as guns. Yeah.

Matt (01:12:29):

So they just see it as a walkie-talkie.

Laci (01:12:31):

You’re just pointing a lot with your jacket. What a fun thing to do, Eddie.

Matt (01:12:34):

Marsha’s like, “Greg, I think he needs help. He needs to change his tire. He needs a tire jack.” It’s

Laci (01:12:39):

So funny. Marsha’s there to translate all the weirdos that live outside of their house. Greg, let me try and explain to you what this man is saying because it’s not us. We’re not the ones speaking the wrong language. They are. She’s

Matt (01:12:53):

Definitely the most charmed. She’s the one who the world will be like. She’s so attractive that we’ll respect her weirdness.

Laci (01:13:00):

Hotness transcends weird.

Matt (01:13:02):

“Don’t worry. I’ll call AAA as soon as I get to school. Yeah. “And they just happily drive away. And then Mike is leaving for work and his wife is like,” Mike, I’m worried about $20,000. “And he’s like,” Well, don’t worry. It’ll be okay.

Laci (01:13:15):

“That would be a huge amount of money back then. I was surprised at how much it is. And then I’m like,” Okay, only because this is LA will I even fathom that there could be a contest that gives $20,000 to some random auditorium fucking act that shows up to this. “And

Matt (01:13:32):

I think that that itself feels like the movie needs to take the joke and extra beat of like,” It sure is nice that we need $20,000 and this little rinky dink contest just happened to appear, but we’re the Brady, so stuff like that happens

Laci (01:13:47):

To us.

Matt (01:13:47):

“But

Laci (01:13:48):

Then you’re like,” But they chose LA for a reason. They could have chosen any other place, but they chose it because I guess that’s where the literal studio would’ve been when they made the show.

Matt (01:13:58):

The show, it never specified that they were in LA, but it had all these – No, no, I don’t mean them as a

Laci (01:14:02):

Family. I mean, that might be them giving a nod to the fact that they’re on a set. It’s LA. They literally live on a sound stage.

Matt (01:14:11):

But I think that the show, it didn’t literally say they’re in LA, but gave all indications that they were. It did

Laci (01:14:17):

Look like California. I mean, just the hair and the tans on the girls alone.

Matt (01:14:20):

They were fans of the LA sports teams and I don’t know. They’re always going to music studios and crooked managers were always trying to hire them. I don’t know.

Laci (01:14:29):

They almost became the Jackson five, but there’s six of them.

Matt (01:14:33):

I think in the history section, the word I was looking for that I couldn’t find was just bubblegum pop. That’s how you described the genre of music that they did.

Laci (01:14:41):

Bubblegum pop.

Matt (01:14:42):

But this movie, which I’ve now watched for a second time and I think what’s stopping me from giving this five stars? The only thing is it just feels too slight. It feels like bubblegum pop, the movie. It’s too light, but that’s insanely difficult to do. Right.

Laci (01:14:59):

That’s why this movie’s so much more interesting to talk about than the second one, because this director bothered to give you. I don’t know. I can’t even think of what I could compare it to, except for Austin Powers kind of. But there is a certain magic around this family and it’s almost so good at showing you when it’s time to think of magical things that you don’t even feel it happening. It’s seamless, but you’re like, “Why do I feel different? Why

Matt (01:15:31):

Am I

Laci (01:15:31):

Calm?” I’m safe in this house again.

Matt (01:15:35):

It’s a very soothing movie, and that was a common response to the TV show is it’s just soothing, it’s comforting. If you don’t have a family that’s like this, it’s comforting to watch to get your wish fulfilled. If you can relate, you feel comforted. But this movie’s so good. Why does Marsha’s lesbian best friend, it takes her seriously and lingers on her and you feel bad for her? The movie doesn’t need to be doing that, but it’s just that good of a movie that it can have these subplots occurring to the 18th most important character in the movie. Right.

Laci (01:16:09):

But it is a beautiful little underline of Marsha’s character that she thinks, “Well, yeah, this is my best friend. Of course she

Matt (01:16:15):

Wants to hold my

Laci (01:16:15):

Books for me all the time.” After

Matt (01:16:17):

All, you are my best friend.

Laci (01:16:18):

Right. After all, this is exactly the kind of treatment I get.

Matt (01:16:22):

When Mike Brady goes to talk to Mr. Dittmeier over the hedges like Dennis the Menace, and Mr. Dittmeier says, “Hey, you know where you guys should move Utah. I think you’d be right at home.” Speaks to what Laci said. You guys would be right at home there. So Mike goes to work and he asks his boss for a $20,000 advance and his boss is like, “What? No way, Mister, you got to sell a design first.”

Laci (01:16:45):

I’d say Mike’s boss is the closest we get to extending their universe, because what boss would come up with this? Why does he have this job? You’ve got three fucking chances to actually make some money for your business and you let him take the swings at it? That is so odd. It’s almost like he’s fatherly to this guy. He clearly thinks Mike’s an idiot, but was he maybe they get a government kickback? So

Matt (01:17:11):

There’s some sort of quota system for Brady’s. Yes. Okay. To correct some sort of historical wrong, it’s sort of like reverse apartheid South Africa.

Laci (01:17:19):

Or some sort of understanding of limitations here. He’s almost like a pet rather than a professional. Yeah.

Matt (01:17:27):

Think about if Roger Rabbit continued the story of Roger Rabbit and there were reparations paid to the tunes for their mistreatment under Judge Doom, you have to hire a tune. It doesn’t matter if he’s bad at his job. Yeah, he’s going to keep fucking up, but you have to just let him keep working there. His limitations

Laci (01:17:41):

Are tune limitations. Yeah. And

Matt (01:17:42):

Mike’s boss even tells him, “But Mike, your designs are terrible.” Well,

Laci (01:17:46):

And the real world would eat him up. He’s a nice guy. I just want to

Matt (01:17:50):

Keep

Laci (01:17:50):

Him safe here. I keep giving him my shitty clients anyway. A gym, a gas station. But

Matt (01:17:57):

Especially if you were a white man in the ’70s, just go get a job. You can get paid and support this family of nine, have your live-in housekeeper.

Laci (01:18:08):

If he can get a $20,000 advance on one project going through, that means he’s making at least probably 30 to 40,000 every time he gets a project as an architect, if you want to make. I mean, that’s the only thing that makes sense. A $20,000 advance on his salary based on getting. So it’s kind of like an engineer job where it’s feast or famine.

Matt (01:18:32):

You

Laci (01:18:32):

Work based on. It’s not a constant salary. It’s if I have projects to work on, I’m getting paid.

Matt (01:18:38):

And he designed their house, but as we’ll see over the course of the movie, everything he designs looks just like their house. So it designs a gas station. It looks just like their house with a gas station design. This is

Laci (01:18:46):

Why they should have had Tiger and his house should have been this house.

Matt (01:18:50):

Wait, what?

Laci (01:18:51):

Tiger’s dog house should have been a tiny –

Matt (01:18:54):

Oh, that’s funny. That’s funny. Hey, I want to put this out to the masses. I was talking with my dad about this. Oh. “Dad, you’re old, “I said. Back in your day when you were a child, did you know a single dog that lived in a dog house? And he said,” No, of course not. “But

Laci (01:19:10):

That could be another thing about this is Louisiana, the dog would die very fast.

Matt (01:19:15):

Okay.

Laci (01:19:16):

So

Matt (01:19:16):

If you live other places, do you know of a dog that has actually slept in a doghouse outside? Because I suspect that’s only from fiction.

Laci (01:19:25):

Right. Why would you even need it? That’s assuming you don’t have a porch. Right. I feel like if you have a dog now, you don’t have an outside dog.You’re a dog person, so the dog’s inside. It’s a weird middle ground we used to have where it’s like we like animals just fine. It was

Matt (01:19:46):

The weird thing about the end of Oak Street, and I know that movie takes place in the 80s, but this is when I started thinking about it. I don’t think dogs in the 80s were sleeping outside either. But

Laci (01:19:53):

That’s what I’m saying. I think children were less precious and we were less helicoptery and less worried about spending time with them. And dogs were seen as a second tier member of the family. They treat dogs in the 70s, 80s, the way we treat our dogs. Yeah, we

Matt (01:20:10):

Have to go back.

Laci (01:20:11):

No, but that’s just not the case anymore. I mean, people who have dogs fucking love their dog. I don’t even see how you can have a middle ground unless your child begged you for one.

Matt (01:20:25):

It’s a nice thought. The dog house will make the dog feel like he’s got a place of his own. But he

Laci (01:20:32):

Lives inside. I don’t get it.

Matt (01:20:35):

Mike, your designs are from another time. And he says, “Well, thank you. I’ve always thought of myself as a classicist.”

Laci (01:20:41):

Now, RuPaul, I want to think like, oh, this movie was ahead of its. I mean, this is the very nice, current, funny, 90s thing to do is have RuPaul, because RuPaul has always been cool. I don’t think RuPaul’s ever been a joke, but I was a little concerned. Is RuPaul the joke in this movie? I

Matt (01:20:57):

Think RuPaul wasn’t famous. This is just a role.

Laci (01:21:00):

But I mean, in the credits, it’s RuPaul, their

Matt (01:21:04):

Persona.

Laci (01:21:05):

No,

Matt (01:21:05):

I know. But I’m saying, I don’t think this was a. When

Laci (01:21:08):

Did Cover Girl come out? Oh,

Matt (01:21:10):

I don’t know. I think I remember from the oral history, they’re saying RuPaul wasn’t that well known. This was essentially just, we’re hiring RuPaul as an actor for this movie. And sorry – Well, why

Laci (01:21:18):

Get a man if they’re not trying to say something and call her Mrs. Cummings?

Matt (01:21:23):

I don’t know.

Laci (01:21:24):

Come on, Matt. Hold on. RuPaul’s first hit single.

Matt (01:21:33):

RuPaul’s a singer?

Laci (01:21:35):

Yeah, supermodel. You better work. Cover girl. Work it now. She has so many albums. 1992 was a huge hit for her. Okay. So

Matt (01:21:44):

I’m wrong.

Laci (01:21:45):

Yeah, you were very wrong.

Matt (01:21:46):

95. Because

Laci (01:21:47):

She was a big deal on MTV and everything.

Matt (01:21:50):

There’s a

Laci (01:21:50):

Reason why this very innocent, stuck in time child is going to a known drag queen for motherly advice. If only the ’90s could have seen how we would actually fucking treat people who play with and flex their gender style. With

Matt (01:22:12):

Gender, yeah. So then it probably. Okay. Then the joke was probably like, things are pretty different these days, but the movie’s so humane and – It is really

Laci (01:22:20):

Nice about it.

Matt (01:22:21):

Yeah, it’s good

Laci (01:22:22):

Advice.

Matt (01:22:23):

And maybe just Betty Thomas as a filmmaker is like, “Well, that’s not the joke. The joke is that kids have such horrible problems. Is it teen pregnancy? Is it drug addiction?” She’s like, “It’s my stupid glasses.” Right.

Laci (01:22:40):

Right. The joke is Jan’s problem, and I think it’s just supposed to be this big ’90s signifier to have someone like RuPaul, not like RuPaul’s the joke. Right. She’s the evolution or something. Yeah.

Matt (01:22:55):

But Ms.

Laci (01:22:56):

Cummings. Mrs.

Matt (01:22:57):

Cummings. Come

Laci (01:22:57):

On. Unless that was the name of the guidance counselor on the actual show.

Matt (01:23:02):

That’s just the last name. I don’t think that’s a – You don’t think

Laci (01:23:04):

That’s a joke?

Matt (01:23:06):

No, I don’t think that’s a joke. Oh

Laci (01:23:08):

My God. Okay.

Matt (01:23:09):

Oh, man. Well, you were

Laci (01:23:11):

Wrong about the first thing, so I’m going to just stick with my thoughts.

Matt (01:23:14):

Paranoid schizophrenia is very common among children with blended families. Her high school guidance counselor is telling her, “It seems like you have a serious case of middle child syndrome. Here, I want you to read my book and my tapes.”

Laci (01:23:27):

That’s very ’90s. Yeah.

Matt (01:23:29):

And until then, do something to make yourself stand out apart from your siblings. It’s like, “Wow. A new look. A new look. Gee, thanks, Ms. Cummings.”

Laci (01:23:40):

I know

Matt (01:23:40):

She doesn’t have the lisp. But that’s another thing is they’re always so grateful for getting advice. Right,

Laci (01:23:46):

Because they’re used to their dad whose advice is usually kind of obvious and circular, and all they’re allowed to say is, “I never thought of it that way.” So when they actually get a little something, they’re like, “Wow.” They’re also

Matt (01:23:59):

Just always going to each other for advice. And I think that’s just a huge part of the. I know this is obvious, is just, “Hey, what if I suddenly inherited some brothers or sisters who were around my age and could just coach me through all my stupid little problems?” What if

Laci (01:24:13):

We were all the same amount of earnest? Right.

Matt (01:24:16):

We

Laci (01:24:16):

All decided to be witches.

Matt (01:24:18):

It always comes back to witches. It really does. It

Laci (01:24:21):

Does. As long as you can be all in, we can be all anything. Look at this. Look at this fucking shit. I feel like the meetings are always in the girls’ room. No, they’re not.

Matt (01:24:30):

Cindy overhears Mike Brady talking to his wife. Carol Brady is his wife saying, “Maybe we should accept that half million dollar offer to sell our house because if we don’t come up with $20,000 by the end of the week, we’re going to lose our house.” Oh my. But

Laci (01:24:43):

When you think of money plus Brady, when you think of them having anything more than what they already have, doesn’t it instantly feel corrupted, like some kind of back rooms kind of version of them would be shot out the other side? It’s Brady-ish, but it’s not as sincere. They have more than one car to share. They have diamonds on. I don’t know what it is, but whatever, any excess other than what they have here would corrupt them in some way. They wouldn’t become as wholesome. They wouldn’t stay wholesome. I

Matt (01:25:22):

Agree, yes. Which is why in the show, money only exists in jars of change. And in this movie, when they get the $20,000, it’s a giant cardboard check. Right.

Laci (01:25:33):

So it’s

Matt (01:25:33):

Like actual money – Never

Laci (01:25:35):

Touches their hands. No,

Matt (01:25:36):

It can’t.

Laci (01:25:37):

That’s probably why they didn’t get the notice from the bank. Literally talking about money can’t even. It just goes around the house. There’s some kind of fucking prestige area with lots of top hats in those

Matt (01:25:50):

Bank

Laci (01:25:50):

Statements. Which is

Matt (01:25:51):

Bank statements. Tesla

Laci (01:25:53):

Put an

Matt (01:25:53):

Orb around them. It’s a bloodbath. It’s blood curdling the amount of invoices in this field. Cindy overhears this and goes in tattles to her brother and he calls a kid meeting and they’re like, “Wow, we can all do our own jobs and we can raise the money ourselves.” Yeah, that’s a Neato idea. That night, it becomes a horror movie briefly when Jan wakes up with a huge pair of scissors that she’s sleeping with, and she’s going to chop off Marsha’s hair and sell it. But then it turns out she gave Marsha a great haircut like, “Marsha, you look so beautiful.” I forget this

Laci (01:26:25):

Is a dream when I watched it the other day and I’m like, “Please God tell me Marsha does not have this stupid fucking haircut the rest of the movie.” And I’m like, “Oh God, it was a dream. What a horrible dream.”

Matt (01:26:34):

Yeah. She keeps waking up in this movie and comments on the dream she just had like, “Well, that was a nice dream I just had.” She

Laci (01:26:40):

Only calls this one horrible so that she can call the. Oh my nose. Oh my nose. What a wonderful dream.

Matt (01:26:47):

Yeah. Greg’s thing is he wants to ask out lots of different ladies, I think. It’s always

Laci (01:26:52):

This one. It’s this

Matt (01:26:53):

One Donna? Danielle.

Laci (01:26:54):

Oh.

Matt (01:26:56):

Danielle.

Laci (01:26:57):

Okay. And

Matt (01:26:58):

He’s kind of being a creep about it. Clowns never laughed before. Beanstalks never grew. But she’s not interested. And he’s like, “Why about I carry your books to history class?” She’s like, “Greg, it’s called Herstory.” And she walks off and he’s nods and he smiles. He’s like, “Wow.” Cool.

Laci (01:27:18):

They’re so nice about new knowledge. Yeah.

Matt (01:27:20):

They’re not

Laci (01:27:20):

Shitty about it. And because they don’t shield themselves from learning, it makes them really. You never get annoyed with them. You only ever feel a little worried for them like, “Oh, you’re not going to fit in like that.” Okay, you’re catching on. Yeah, you’ll be

Matt (01:27:34):

Fine.You’ll

Laci (01:27:35):

Find a Charlie. You’ll find a George Glass. There’s people out there, man. That’s

Matt (01:27:39):

The thing is there are people out there. There are

Laci (01:27:41):

Other Mormons. Or

Matt (01:27:42):

There are people who are searching and what they’re searching for is, oh, I need to be Mormon.

Laci (01:27:47):

Yeah, I am available.

Matt (01:27:50):

So the cool kind of goth girl who likes Peter. If

Laci (01:27:54):

You join the Bradys, you would have to then wear what they’re wearing. Right.

Matt (01:27:58):

If we saw her after this movie, she now. It’s like Winona Ryder at the end of Beetlejuice becomes more conservative. But everybody wants a piece of Marsha, piece of Marsha, including this guy, Doug. The

Laci (01:28:13):

Best 30-year-old looking man at school. Man,

Matt (01:28:16):

I kept looking at this guy’s IMDB thinking like, “I know I’ve seen this guy.” I know he’s like

Laci (01:28:20):

A GI Joe or something. What the fuck is he? As a

Matt (01:28:23):

Shitty boyfriend in some other movie and didn’t recognize anything. Is he a

Laci (01:28:27):

He-man? He’s in some kind of fucking army thing? God, he looks familiar and it can’t just be this. But

Matt (01:28:33):

He has this girlfriend who he treats really poorly.He’s like, “Go take my biology notes.” See,

Laci (01:28:37):

But they both, him and the long-haired guy who are their neighbor, coincidentally, both seem to be in situationships because none of them seem weird about the fact that he then immediately goes and asks Marsha to the dance, doesn’t take his girlfriend. And the one who likes Bobby says right in front of the guy she’s hanging with. I think Bobby’s kind of a bit. No Bobby.

Matt (01:29:01):

Peter. Peter.

Laci (01:29:02):

I think Peter’s kind of a babe. So

Matt (01:29:04):

Yeah, I think they didn’t have the word situationship, but it was the ’90s. We’re not just getting pinned and going around with people. Now it’s all a little looser. We don’t know. We need to lay out rules. I’m not labeling

Laci (01:29:18):

Man. Unless I’m a feminist, then I’m labeling myself. Marsha

Matt (01:29:22):

Has her best friend, Noreen, played by Alana Ubach, who is. She’s very

Laci (01:29:26):

Funny in this movie. In love

Matt (01:29:27):

With Marsha. Yeah, very funny. Marsha –

Laci (01:29:30):

Little micromannerisms and just kind of doing her own thing on the side of Marsha. It’s so hard to pop next to her, but she does. Right.

Matt (01:29:37):

And I just think it’s one of the magical things about this movie is that in the background, these non-Brady characters have complete art – Have these little moments. And get to have their own little moments. Even

Laci (01:29:48):

Davy Jones, I’m worried about him when he’s so excited and looking for the school. And I’m like, “What if they’re mean to him?” Because I forgot what happens and he’s so into it. Yeah, it’s so nice for him. He’s in their orb.

Matt (01:30:03):

Noreen is going to sleep over at Marsha’s house tonight. On a

Laci (01:30:06):

Skill night.

Matt (01:30:06):

It’s

Laci (01:30:07):

Weird.

Matt (01:30:08):

Then Doug comes up and he’s like, “Hey, Marsha, can we go to dance?” She’s like, “Yes, but then she forgets, oh, she already told Charlie she was going to the dance. This is the worst dilemma ever.” Last sitcom

Laci (01:30:16):

Issue. What am I going to do? And then I was going to say that that kids meeting could just be to solve this issue. No, I

Matt (01:30:25):

Know.

Laci (01:30:25):

That’s just as important, but that is what happens. They briefly discuss how to make $20,000. Then Marsha goes, “And now for the real issue, what am I going to do?” Just tell them something suddenly came up.

Matt (01:30:37):

That’s what you got to do. And that was definitely a thing in the show is that something suddenly came up and then suddenly you notice, oh, other people are saying it to me. Oh no. That’s how you handle the thing when you have two dates on the same night. She tells it to Charlie and Charlie’s like, “Yeah, okay Marsha. Sounds great. No problem.” She’s like, “Well, that takes care of that.” Sure,

Laci (01:30:56):

Charlie. I really can’t do a good Marsha. Maybe it’s

Matt (01:30:59):

Just not hard. So say this, that takes care of that.

Laci (01:31:02):

I don’t remember how she said. I don’t know how she says it.

Matt (01:31:05):

So she opens up her notebook and she has a to-do list.

Laci (01:31:10):

She

Matt (01:31:10):

Skips right to number

Laci (01:31:11):

Four, which is brush hair.

Matt (01:31:13):

Get $20,000. Get Davy Jones.

Laci (01:31:16):

Girl.

Matt (01:31:18):

Greg – Look

Laci (01:31:19):

What you’ve done to me in my whole world.

Matt (01:31:25):

I think the version of this movie is really good. The back and band. Girl. I do too. I was

Laci (01:31:30):

Like, I hope he ends up doing that at his shows.

Matt (01:31:33):

Greg goes to a recording studio because he’s always going to recording studios in the TV show and he’s talking to a record executive played by the original Greg Brady, Barry Williams. And he’s like, “Gee, Mr. Record Guy, won’t you let me record my song about bean stalks?” And the guy’s like, “Listen, Greg, today’s sound is about, it’s raw with an edge, Seattle grunge.” And he says, “They don’t have bean stalks in Seattle?” I like that line. Then he goes over to the Dittmeyer’s house and he’s going over there to talk to the older boy there. And then he’s talking to Jean Smart and she’s like, “Oh, you’re so big and strong like your dad.” And then Peter comes up and stands on the other side and she like, “Wow, two babies. Later you boys come inside and help me make a sandwich.” So yeah.

Laci (01:32:19):

He needs some extra money. So he wanted to cut her lawn.

Matt (01:32:23):

That’s why he walked up. But she gave him $15 for cutting the lawn. But yeah, they could have made a sandwich out of her and who knows what she’d have given them.

Laci (01:32:32):

Oh, that kind of sandwich. I’ll call that back.

Matt (01:32:36):

Also known as an Eiffel Tower.

Laci (01:32:38):

I though an Eiffel Tower, you’re sucking a dick while someone’s in you.

Matt (01:32:42):

Yeah. I assume that’s what she wants to do with them.

Laci (01:32:45):

I thouht of sandwiches as being more parallel and less perpendicular line to

Matt (01:32:51):

It.

Laci (01:32:53):

All three of you, like little sardines and just whatever you can get in each other. Okay.

Laci (01:32:58):

Yeah. It’s not practical like an Eiffel Tower. So we learned a lot in the last 30 years. And then there’s the sleepover, which looks like the most. I just remember being so bummed out about this sleepover as a kid because I just remember thinking, why would you want to do that? Why would you want to be quiet in someone’s room and go to sleep? There was nothing more scary. As a person with insomnia my entire life, there was nothing more scary than number one, a friend who does not have a TV in their bedroom. Number two, a friend that does not go to sleep to the TV. Number three, a friend that gets tired easily and will not let you turn on the TV. I severely truncated my sleepovers based on this. I would spiral. I would get scared. I would get sad. I’d cry.

Laci (01:33:45):

I’m just low on my thoughts. I need naked night motherfucker.

Matt (01:33:48):

Right.

Laci (01:33:50):

And would put a timer on, that was her compromise. She didn’t want to wake up to a TV on, but she would let me go to sleep. But if the 30 minutes was up, and then I’d see the little digital countdown happening.

Matt (01:34:04):

Which is also what happened in our marriages. I also don’t want the TV on.

Laci (01:34:09):

I’m better about turning it off if I’m aware enough to.

Matt (01:34:15):

Whatever. The sleep timer never though of it like that. Just your anxiety just shown on a TV screen mocking you. 29, 28.

Laci (01:34:26):

Why couldn’t he goes to four hours and give me a fucking hour? And she’d even be like, “How much do you need? 15? 30. Does it sound like a dog?”

Matt (01:34:37):

That should do it 30. Son

Laci (01:34:39):

Of a bitch.

Matt (01:34:41):

So this sleepover is yes, sleep in the same bed with me. We’ll go to bed at 8:45. In

Laci (01:34:46):

A single bed. Wiped out.

Matt (01:34:47):

Yes. Marsha, I have to tell you something. You’re the prettiest girl in school. And she’s like, “I know. But how can I use my looks to make money and save our house? That’s how I know I’ll be a teen model. You’re the greatest, Noreen.

Laci (01:35:02):

Is that you? Is that you on my thigh? No, no. Is that you?” And then Doreen’s, “Huh? Oh, I though that was my thigh. Okay.”

Matt (01:35:11):

And so the next day she and Marsha and Jan go to audition to be teen models or whatever. His lips

Laci (01:35:15):

Went free in my brain, this guest jeans. Oshkosh Bakosh. I think about it all the time.

Matt (01:35:23):

But even a Brady saying these brand names feels wrong. Yo shouldn’t be able to say Oshkosh Bakash.

Laci (01:35:27):

No, these are Dungaree. These are all very much of that time. They picked the exact right three. None of them have sexy commercials. They’re all childlike. They all existed and were popular in the ’70s.

Matt (01:35:41):

The sleazy talent manager or whatever is like, “Marsha, you’re perfect. I just need you to cut your hair, get your teeth catched, lose 30 pounds.” 30 pounds. How do you feel about getting your breasts done? She slaps him.

Laci (01:35:53):

Cut my hair. The most affected by the outside world I feel like the Bradys ever are is in that moment. She seems upset. Something he said really penetrated there.

Matt (01:36:04):

But just cut her hair. These other ideas are like that she doesn’t even understand them.

Laci (01:36:09):

My little sausage. Does he call her a

Matt (01:36:11):

Sausage? Yeah. So Jan, it’s the next day. This actress who plays Jan is so, so funny. She’s looking at the bulletin board and she does such a good job of somebody who’s supposed to be wearing glasses, not wearing glasses and reading a bulletin board. Search for the stars. $20,000 prize. Say fresh young musical acts. Too bad I’m not a musical act.

Laci (01:36:37):

Hair, hair, hair, hair.

Matt (01:36:39):

And then Peter and Greg are throwing footballs to each other in the backyard and hits Martha in the nose. Oh my gosh. Marsha. Damn it. Damn it.

Laci (01:36:46):

Matt has a cousin named Martha and he’s just reminiscing.

Matt (01:36:48):

And I’m just also always thinking about Martha Lucas, George Lucas’s first wife. It’s big and swollen as this nose. I can never show my face in skill again. It’s

Laci (01:36:57):

Pretty bad. It’s disgusting.

Matt (01:37:00):

She

Laci (01:37:00):

Looks like a fucking avatar.

Matt (01:37:03):

And Jan is just so happy smiling in the background.

Laci (01:37:07):

What a wonderful dream.

Matt (01:37:10):

James Avery, Uncle Phil is in this movie as one of the neighbors from Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

Laci (01:37:16):

Oh yeah.

Matt (01:37:17):

And the other neighbors are having a meeting. We got to do something about these Bradys. What if they don’t sell their house? They’re so freaking weird. Those Bradys, they spend their weekends doing potato sack races and I once went into their house. There’s only one bathroom for nine people and I didn’t see a toilet. They don’t have a toilet thing. This goes basically back all the way to the beginning, people pointing out in reviews and stuff that they don’t have a toilet.

Laci (01:37:42):

Okay, but did they

Matt (01:37:42):

Show

Laci (01:37:44):

Other sitcom toilets?

Matt (01:37:45):

No, they didn’t. But it was just notable that they are so. Well, they have a lot of scenes that take place in the bathroom because it’s with the kids always having fights with each other and that there’s just so many of these kids. But in the Brady Bunch variety hour, the very first episode they make a joke about it. And our old house didn’t have a toilet. Greg, don’t say toilet.

Laci (01:38:08):

Don’t say house.

Matt (01:38:10):

Doug comes over to pick Marsha up. Wait.

Laci (01:38:13):

Oh, okay. But her nose is fine. I guess it’s just the angle. Sorry.

Matt (01:38:17):

Yeah. We’re looking at a screenshot of Marsha on her date with Doug when they go to Make Out Creek. But he comes over to pick Marsha up and he’s not upset about her nose, her big swollen nose. It’s not your nose I’m interested in. They go up to Make Out Point and he reaches over and he’s like, “Doug, your hand is on my shoulder. That’s third base and I don’t go that far.” And then he kisses her with his tongue. She’s like, “Your tongue is in my mouth.” He’s like, “Yeah, baby, that’s French kissing, but I though you were from Nebraska.”

Laci (01:38:47):

I am.

Matt (01:38:48):

“And I just don’t do things like that, but I hope this doesn’t sour the rest of our date.”

Laci (01:38:52):

And then smash cut to her being thrown out of the car and him speeding off,

Matt (01:38:55):

Leaving

Laci (01:38:55):

Her for dad.

Matt (01:38:56):

But she immediately gets picked up by a limousine. Can you tell me how to get to Westdale High School?

Laci (01:39:03):

That Marsha.

Matt (01:39:04):

So Doug goes to the school dance and it’s all happening at the school dance. It’s kind of the big action set piece of the movie. Greg is on stage attempting to play his Beanstalk song, but he gets played off stage by the cool grunge band. And then Jan debuts her fresh new look, which is just a giant black afro. Which

Laci (01:39:23):

Is not appropriate even in the ’90s.

Matt (01:39:26):

It’s the new Jan Brady. Am I a hit? Do you like it? Am I

Laci (01:39:30):

A hit? It’s a hit.

Matt (01:39:33):

And it makes the band stop playing and she’s like, “Wow, I really did make a splash.” But as soon as s says that – You’re

Laci (01:39:39):

Doing good, Jan.

Matt (01:39:40):

Thank you. Marsha comes on stage she’s like, “Attention everybody. We have a special guest, Mr. Davy Jones, and it’s the real Davy Jones. They got him for this movie, if you could believe it. From the locker. How old do you think Davy Jones is right here?

Laci (01:39:51):

Right here? Fuck. Late 50s.

Matt (01:39:55):

He is 50 years old on the dot.

Laci (01:39:58):

Yeah. He looks too young in a way. Not enough time has passed since his prime. Maybe because now 20 years into your music career, you’re still just doing your music career with a lot of people.

Matt (01:40:12):

That’s why I wanted to point that out because yeah, Jonathan Davis is in his late 50s, marching around the stage, scatting boom papa. Billy Joe Armstrong is in his late 50s. Yeah. But this guy’s like a legacy, like a washed up legacy act at this point. Sings is look what you’ve done to me. Oh, I was going to say this about the monkeys is while the Brady Bunch is going on, the most important musical acts in the history of the Western hemisphere are happening at the same time. We can’t acknowledge any of that stuff. So we’ll have to choose something like The Monkeys or Davy Jones that’s acceptable to mainstream America as not offensive at all. Just the

Laci (01:40:55):

Most innocent banal pop that was here and then left. It left when it was supposed to.

Matt (01:41:02):

Which is kind of what the Brady Bunch is, is the idea of counterculture is – Flows

Laci (01:41:07):

Through

Matt (01:41:08):

You. The Brady Bunch would be the culture, the monoculture, when all the real important stuff was happening in response to it or just. But the grunge band eventually joins in and starts playing this really cool ’90s rock version of Girl and this dance she’s doing, which is just –

Laci (01:41:25):

Marsha, just so hard. What this choreography. It’s the most simple.

Matt (01:41:30):

And everyone eventually just joins in and starts doing it.

Laci (01:41:32):

All she did was add a thumb to something that already existed.

Matt (01:41:35):

But you can see this as kind of like a ’90s shoegaze dance.

Laci (01:41:39):

What’s a shoegaze

Matt (01:41:40):

Dance? There was this movement of music in Britain where it’s very technically proficient guitar, also very kind of druggy and moody. And they call it that because all the people on stage just look down at their shoes while they play. They don’t acknowledge the audience. And now Doug sees how big of a hit Marsha is and she’s dancing with Charlie, the guy that she should have gone on the date with. Then he comes up to Marsha and he’s like, “Hey Marsha, I’m sorry about how the nigh went.” She’s like, “Forget it, Doug. Even though I have a swollen nose, I can smell a rat.”

Laci (01:42:13):

Got him. Boom.

Matt (01:42:15):

And he walks away and he’s like slut.

Laci (01:42:17):

“I heard what you said about Marsha. I’m Charlie. Marsha, you delicate thing. Why don’t you go get our coats? I don’t want you to have to see this.

Matt (01:42:27):

I need a word with Doug and she steps away and then.

Laci (01:42:31):

She’s very impressed that Charlie would have her walk away from this, but he’s going to handle business and he’s not able to perform. Doesn’t he faint?

Matt (01:42:41):

Yeah. Doug immediately starts choking him. He’s like, “I’m going to lose consciousness.” And then Noreen’s like, “Hey, Doug,” and punches the shit out of him and knocks him down. And then this is a very funny delivery by that actress. He goes down and she’s like, “Is he dead?

Laci (01:42:58):

Is he dead? Is

Matt (01:42:59):

He

Laci (01:42:59):

Dead?”

Matt (01:43:00):

And then Marsha comes back and she thinks Charlie did it and Charlie takes the damn credit for it.

Laci (01:43:04):

Well, because Charlie thinks Maureen’s got his back. “Thanks, man. I really am going to get the girl because lesbians don’t exist in this world yet. Even in the 90s, lesbians are kind of an odd thing or not an out thing. I don’t know. They’re not just walking around like a lesbian.

Matt (01:43:19):

Well, but the camera lingers with her and then Doug’s girlfriend or situationship girl comes up and she sees Noreen crying and offers her a tissue. Out of her bra

Laci (01:43:28):

Because

Matt (01:43:29):

She

Laci (01:43:29):

Stuffs her bra.

Matt (01:43:30):

Oh, okay. That’s funny.

Laci (01:43:33):

That is funny.

Matt (01:43:33):

So just this kind of moment that’s like that moment doesn’t need to be in the movie, but it adds to this ridiculous movie feeling like it’s a real world that you need to get invested in. Well, good

Laci (01:43:44):

Things happen to good people if you’re good to the Bradys.

Matt (01:43:48):

Okay. Yes. You’re right. She

Laci (01:43:49):

Left some of her Marsha magic on Noreen.

Matt (01:43:53):

Maureen

Laci (01:43:53):

Or Noreen?

Matt (01:43:54):

Noreen. So Charlie walks Marsha to her door and he’s like, “Marsha, may I have a kiss?” She’s like, “Yes, Charlie.” And she kisses him. Marsha – Can

Laci (01:44:02):

You imagine what a shit French kiss was like? Oh.

Matt (01:44:05):

No,

Laci (01:44:06):

Like real pokey. Just get it in there. A

Matt (01:44:08):

Pokey? I’d rather a pokey than there. Just get it in there. I’d rather a pokey than a mushy myself.

Laci (01:44:13):

If something just enters you stiff, just penetrates your lips.

Matt (01:44:18):

Let’s try it. Come over here.

Laci (01:44:20):

I will not.

Matt (01:44:21):

Lay one on me.

Laci (01:44:23):

I have an ulcer.

Matt (01:44:25):

You always have an ulcer. I

Laci (01:44:26):

Know. And

Matt (01:44:27):

I

Laci (01:44:27):

Still get down dirty sexual style despite

Matt (01:44:30):

It. But I want a kiss. I’ll

Laci (01:44:32):

Come kiss you in a minute.

Matt (01:44:33):

What if that was my thing is lazy, I want a kiss.

Laci (01:44:36):

It’s kiss o’clock.

Matt (01:44:39):

Marsha, I think I felt your tongue in my mouth. It’s called a French kiss, Charlie. Marsha, I got to go. Something suddenly came up. His dick. His dick came up. But

Laci (01:44:47):

She knows. There’s something in her that she’s like, “I made his dick come up.” She’s like, “Hmm.”

Matt (01:44:54):

Kill.

Laci (01:44:55):

Kill, kill, skill, skill.

Matt (01:44:58):

Mike has successfully sold his design to a Japanese businessman. And of course, it’s the ’90s, so we see the Japanese businessman and then hear a gong go off in the sound effects. So Mike is then at home, he’s like, “Honey, I sold a thing.” And she’s like, “Oh yeah.” She’s about to S his D right there in the living room. But then the kids come out and they’re like, “Mom, dad, we have to tell you something. We know about the $20,000 we’re going to lose our house.” Kids, not to worry. We’re getting the money afterway. And to celebrate, we’re going to Sears. So they go to Sears, this delightful little

Laci (01:45:29):

Sequence. Take all, take a walk outside. Now the son of a son’s calling my name. I hear it now. I just can’t stay inside. I got to get out. Give me some of this race. Everybody’s smiling. I love that song.

Matt (01:45:46):

Playing on the soundtrack as they go down the escalator. Here’s what Gary Cole said in the oral history. “During the Sears scene in the movie, Shelly and I found this rather phallic-looking electronic device. It wasn’t any kind of sexual device, just some kind of ’90s hardware, but it had a specific shape to it. Shelly picked it up and said, I think we can focus on this in the background. So he did. I don’t know that anyone ever saw it.

Laci (01:46:07):

Which scene though, I guess?

Matt (01:46:08):

I have the screenshot up. You can see it. Shelly Long’s holding it. Yeah. Oh.

Laci (01:46:13):

Just a wand.

Matt (01:46:14):

Yeah. I had to look very carefully for it, but that, there it is.

Laci (01:46:17):

What the fuck’s in Marsha’s hand? Oh, what? Or is that Jan leaning over and it looks like Marsha’s holding a wig?

Matt (01:46:25):

Yeah, that’s Jan leaning

Laci (01:46:25):

Over. Okay. That is bizarre.

Matt (01:46:28):

And then Michael McKean gets the Brady’s mail by mistake, finds out about the tax bill thing, that your house is going to get auctioned at noon tomorrow. And for some reason, he decides to go over to Mike Brady and he’s like, “Hey, Mike, I found out your house is going to be sold at auction tomorrow.”

Laci (01:46:41):

Well, also he fucks up the sale so he doesn’t get the $20,000

Matt (01:46:44):

Anymore. Well, how that happens is he goes over to say, “Ha ha ha, I’m rubbing it in. I’m going to buy your house at auction tomorrow.” And he’s like, “Not so fast, mister. I sold a design.” He’s like, “Oh, shoot.”

Laci (01:46:55):

Even around each other, even around Brady’s, people are less smart, less worldly.

Matt (01:47:01):

You’re right. Yeah. There’s just some dust in the air. There’s some pheromones.

Laci (01:47:07):

Well, and they underestimate them. “I’m just going to tell you what I’m going to do to you, you fucking moron.

Matt (01:47:13):

“Who’d you sell that design to, by the way? And he tells him in the next scene, McKean is at this Japanese businessman’s company, his dojo, and he’s like,” Oh, Mike Brady, he’s a drunk. “Glug, glug, glug. And by the way, the last thing he designed, it was this house that collapsed on Christmas day, in fact, trapping all these people. He’s describing the events of a very Brady Christmas.

Laci (01:47:32):

Oh, what? Oh. Oh yeah. I just

Matt (01:47:36):

Went through roller coasters. Why? Back at home, the Bradys are square dancing to celebrate their newfound fortune, but then Mike gets a phone call, “Oh, the sale is falling apart.” And he’s like, “Well, oh man, unless a miracle happens by two o’clock tomorrow, the county’s going to sell our house.” So they have a family meeting and they decide, “Kids, we’re going to have to move, but no matter where we go, we’re still the Bradys.” Yeah, we are.

Laci (01:47:59):

That’s right.

Matt (01:48:00):

Family, Brady’s. And

Laci (01:48:02):

They go through all the trouble of packing up their entire fucking house just to move back into it. Oh, suck me sideways. And you know Alice had to do all that by herself. It’s not like they’re packing anything.

Matt (01:48:12):

Well, we see a U-Haul moving in. She’s probably pulling into the driveway. She’s probably driving the damn U-Haul.

Laci (01:48:18):

No wonder she’s got her nipple tassels on later on. She needed a break. I

Matt (01:48:21):

Did not see the nipple tassels in the movie before the closing credits.

Laci (01:48:26):

I promise. Do you want to go to that scene? It’s all the kids are sleeping on the floor. Jan’s coming there. Oh, okay. Nipple tassels. Nipple tassels. Ah,

Matt (01:48:37):

There we go. Okay. They’re

Laci (01:48:39):

Swinging. Fucking asshole piece of shit.

Matt (01:48:41):

That’s literally blink and you miss it.

Laci (01:48:43):

Oh, not me, baby. I’m catching a tassel every time. Tassel Tuesday.

Matt (01:48:49):

All their stuff gets packed up. The kids are sleeping in their sleeping bags in the living room, and Marsha’s like, “Hey, I have an idea. Let’s do the search for the stars thing, and we can raise $20,000.” I’m like, “Great idea, Marsha. You’re so smart. Great. Wow. Do the best.” And Jan’s like, “But that was my idea.” And they chastise her for being selfish. Come on, Jan.

Laci (01:49:07):

I would’ve killed myself long ago.

Matt (01:49:09):

This is your nightmare. You

Laci (01:49:10):

Can’t even fit in in the sweetest family. Every family needs a punching bag. Who do you think you’d roll over to? Probably Cindy, because

Matt (01:49:19):

Women

Laci (01:49:19):

Suck. It’s

Matt (01:49:20):

Got to go. Or Bobby.

Laci (01:49:21):

That would be my other guess, but I think the patriarchy’s going to win.

Matt (01:49:27):

Jan decides to run away, and she’s walking the streets in her giant afro and hitchhikes onto an 18-wheeler. Meanwhile, her family is out there looking for her, and Carol gets on the CB radio. I don’t know if the CB radio was part of the show. It has to be. It has to. It’s

Laci (01:49:42):

Too weird for it to not be.

Matt (01:49:44):

I need a 20 on a little girl, blonde blue-eyed. Little girl. Answers to the name of Jan. Tell her mother hen and Father Goose, love her very much. And over in the truck that Jan has gotten in, it’s Andy Davis, the original Alice.

Laci (01:49:56):

Looking good.

Matt (01:49:57):

Looking damn good. Gives her a pep talk about how I have a little voice in my head too, and it’s because I was a middle child. Dun,

Laci (01:50:05):

Dun, dun.

Matt (01:50:07):

Same thing happened on the show. Alice had this little connection with Jan.

Matt (01:50:11):

So she drives Jan home, but no one’s home. They’re all out looking for her. So the original Alice gets on the radio with Carol. Christmas Carol, this is Schultze. I just dropped off your little girl. So they all reunite at the house, and Jan’s like, “I realized you’re all a part of me and I’m a part of you.” Mike goes very funny, he’s like, “Jan, I couldn’t have said it better myself, but I’m going to try.” You see? And just gives a big long speech. So the contest. They do the contest in their groovy costumes. Right before they go on stage, we got Holly, this girl who Peter has a crush on, who in turn has a crush on him, and she gives him a kiss and his voice fucking drops. He’s like, “Well, thank you, Holly.” Because the

Laci (01:50:52):

Whole movie, he’s been battling puberty and has a very squeaky, crazy voice.

Matt (01:50:56):

It’s truly like, “We got nothing for Peter. Weirdly, we got nothing for Bobby either. Middle kid’s

Laci (01:51:00):

Just starting to think. Wait, the only thing Bobby is kind of a more precocious smarty pants, but that really shows in the second movie more than this one. He doesn’t do much of anything.

Matt (01:51:12):

He’s a hall mom.

Laci (01:51:13):

He’s very well to do. He’s Tracy Glick. Flick. Flick, yes. Everybody’s got to have something. But yeah, his funniest scene is the office supplies teacher.

Matt (01:51:33):

His voice drops because now he’s a man who’s like,” Thank you, Holly. I think you’re Ginger and Maryanne combined. “Because she earlier called him Gilligan, you see? But not to

Laci (01:51:41):

His face. Not to

Matt (01:51:42):

His face. Somebody knows. So the Brady kids go on stage and they do go,” Keep on, keep on, keep on moving.

Laci (01:51:49):

“Keep on, keep on, keep on grooving.

Matt (01:51:52):

And what’s great is only a handful of people in the crowd are won over by it. It’s really

Laci (01:51:56):

Just people they know.

Matt (01:51:58):

Right.

Laci (01:51:58):

Yeah.

Matt (01:51:58):

Well, I think there’s some extras that we see way in the back who are dancing around. Yeah. But almost every. You are watching this thinking like,” I know how this goes. Okay. Yeah, everybody’s going to get into it reluctantly. Hey, these kids are kind of groovy. Oh, you do

Laci (01:52:10):

Not think that. No, Brady magic has to happen.

Matt (01:52:13):

Right. Yes. But you get to see Doug’s abused girlfriend goes and sits next to Noreen, and some sparks are happening between those two. And the guy comes on stage and he’s like, “And the winner of $20,000 is the Brady kids.” But then we look over to the judges and it’s –

Laci (01:52:35):

Davey Jones.

Matt (01:52:36):

Nikki Dolans and one other member of the Monkeys.

Laci (01:52:39):

Okay.

Matt (01:52:39):

Okay. Yeah. Okay. The

Laci (01:52:40):

Two that get along.

Matt (01:52:42):

And they give them an enormous cardboard check of $20,000. It’s

Laci (01:52:46):

Really, in the world of cardboard checks, it’s kind of small.

Matt (01:52:50):

Okay, sorry. It’s not enormous. It’s okay. Michael McKean has heard that they’ve won the money. He’s like, “What they want?” This is

Laci (01:52:56):

A small Los Angeles.

Matt (01:52:58):

Right. So he tells his no good Nick son, “Cut their brake lines,” or whatever, and he does. So the Brady’s like, “Oh no, we need a ride home. There’s our friend, Eddie, the carjacker.”

Laci (01:53:09):

Because that needed to come back.

Matt (01:53:11):

I love that it comes back because he’s hot wiring a car and they’re like, “Eddie, can we get a ride with you?” And then these cops come over, including Poppy from Seinfeld, who keeps popping up in movies we do, often playing a cop.

Laci (01:53:23):

Yeah.

Matt (01:53:24):

You know what? He was the cop in Can’t Hardly Wait, which has a connection. Betty Thomas produced Can’t Hardly

Laci (01:53:30):

Wait. Ew. You know who’s got a cop outfit? That’s the connection. That’s what she’s like, “I know a guy.”

Matt (01:53:35):

I know. That’s why he keeps getting work.

Laci (01:53:38):

That’s the only reason. Yeah. Just walk around town in different outfits. And when that need comes up in Hollywood, they’re like, “I know a guy with a fireman’s suit.”

Matt (01:53:46):

I know Spider-Man. And

Laci (01:53:48):

A cat.

Matt (01:53:51):

So the Bradys all beg the cops, “No, come on, please.” And even Eddie, the carjacker joins in, “Please.”

Laci (01:53:57):

Because these braties are about to get him out of trouble.

Matt (01:53:59):

Yeah.

Laci (01:53:59):

The Brady magic has spread.

Matt (01:54:01):

And so when they go back to their house and give a big speech, he’s up there with them, the carjacker. And Mike gives a big speech to the neighborhood like, “We’re a good community. We’re very tight. We know all about each other. We know Mrs. Taylor.”

Laci (01:54:14):

And that’s a little fourth wall breaky, because for Mike to say anything about a naked woman and be part of the guys on that

Matt (01:54:23):

Is so

Laci (01:54:23):

Interesting.

Matt (01:54:24):

So he just listened. He’s like, “Henry know Jerry over there throws a party every Super Bowl. Wow. Mrs. Taylor plants the prettiest daffodils on the block.” And you hear somebody in the background going, “They are lovely.” And then he’s like, “And Miss whoever, we know she likes to walk naked in her house every Sunday morning at 10 o’clock.” But I think he is saying it just as a matter of fact, there’s nothing sexual in it for him. Well, and then one

Laci (01:54:47):

Of the women are like, “You know about that?

Matt (01:54:49):

Why does

Laci (01:54:49):

Everyone know about this?”

Matt (01:54:51):

Among these people in the neighborhood are a gay couple, two men who are in love with each other, or at least they live together and like each other.

Laci (01:55:00):

They can afford an LA house.

Matt (01:55:02):

So the neighbors all decide they’re not selling, they’re going to stay. And Mike’s like, “You know who would love to hear this story of this movie? Grandma.”

Laci (01:55:09):

God, that’d be my only complainer, like the cameos. I don’t need them, but whatever.

Matt (01:55:17):

I feel like you got to have all of them. I don’t know. I’m sure they tried. Oh, but

Laci (01:55:20):

They can’t have all three girls in anything.

Matt (01:55:22):

Right, right.

Laci (01:55:23):

They don’t have any of the girls.

Matt (01:55:25):

Grandma’s played by Florence Henderson. I believe Marsha is in a deleted scene.

Laci (01:55:30):

It’d be funny if Jan were.

Matt (01:55:33):

Oh, man.

Laci (01:55:34):

I know. Oh, man. And then play deleted scenes and she’s got this whole Shakespearean monologue and then it’s cut and then the actual Jan’s like, “Of

Matt (01:55:43):

Course.” I mean, Florence Henderson is kind of. I guess she does not have that much to do here, but Andy Davis, the Alice actress, has a crucial scene. Anyway, so the grandma is Florence Anderson. Oh my God, look at you guys. Marsha, you’re beautiful. And just starts showering Marsha with praise. And then in Jan’s head, she hears the evil voice, including a new one that’s like, watch my head span, hell, hell. And Jan screams out loud, no, I can’t take it anymore. And Florence Anderson yells at her, Jan, cut the crap. And then she’s like, “Thanks,

Laci (01:56:16):

Grandma.”

Matt (01:56:17):

The voices are gone, but they’ve moved over to Cindy.

Laci (01:56:20):

Bobby. Oh, Cindy.

Matt (01:56:22):

So apparently Florence Anderson was not very nice at all. Here’s the actors who plays Cindy Brady in the Brady Bunch movie said, “The wrote a cameo for Florence Anderson, and she was the biggest bitch in the world to Shelly Long. She said something that was so cutting and dismissive in front of all of us to hear. She just showed up and was out for blood.” Jesus. And the actor who played Peter said, “We completely re-shot the ending just so we could have Florence in it when she finally agreed to do a cameo. And Florence was just a nightmare. Sweet-ish to us kids, but just not a nice person.” You know that backhanded comment to Shelly, it was something derogatory along the lines of, “Well, I know how to be a real mother. It was just uncalled for.” Fuck.

Laci (01:57:04):

What the fuck? So wild. And that’s the vibe. There’s nothing warm about this scene. It is chilling to watch. Florence looks pissed to be there.

Matt (01:57:20):

That’s why I like it, because it’s because she’s the actual Brady Bunch and she’s the mean one. But

Laci (01:57:24):

She’s also insisting on looking hot as shit, and she looks up from her stockinged leg, which her leg looks really

Matt (01:57:30):

Nice.

Laci (01:57:30):

It’s like she’s supposed to be sexy. I’m no grandma, bitch, just because you’re here.

Matt (01:57:37):

It feels like a re-shot ending. Yeah. Like maybe it was supposed to. They’re all in their house celebrating with Eddie the carjacker. That’s how it should end. Or we get to see the Mrs. Dittmeier sandwich.That’s what we should have seen. That’s how the movie should have ended.

Laci (01:57:53):

Well, in the second one, Greg does draw an Eiffel Tower, so maybe that’s our little Easter egg saying, “That sandwich happened.”

Matt (01:58:02):

It happened, people.

Laci (01:58:05):

Because Carol is a little too upset about the. She’s like, “God, he really is a bad drawer. This must be him telling me he did sex acts with the neighbor.”

Matt (01:58:15):

So what other things do you think he drew? What? He drew like a.

Laci (01:58:20):

He was only drawing to show that he was going to be an architect. “I’m going to spend the summer with dad, so I’ve got to draw architect things.” I don’t think that’s the first step to being an architect. I think there’s other math and spatial awareness.

Matt (01:58:34):

But maybe he also drew a blumpkin or like a. How do

Laci (01:58:38):

You draw a blumpkin?

Matt (01:58:39):

What are some other sex acts?

Laci (01:58:42):

Blumpkin is something you do on the toilet. It’s not a sex act. Oh. Well,

Matt (01:58:45):

A

Laci (01:58:45):

Blumpkins

Matt (01:58:46):

Getting

Laci (01:58:46):

A blow job while taking a shit,

Matt (01:58:48):

Right? Oh, trust me. It’s a sex act. That’s why I said it.

Laci (01:58:52):

Right. So how would you. I guess the person would be like this

Matt (01:58:55):

And there’d

Laci (01:58:55):

Be fumes. Yeah.

Matt (01:58:57):

Yeah.

Laci (01:58:57):

That’s how you draw a blump.

Matt (01:58:58):

Fumes.

Laci (01:58:59):

How else do you need to know Turd? I wish hadn’t said Turd.

Matt (01:59:21):

Final thoughts and star ratings for the Brady Bunch movie?

Laci (01:59:25):

I haven’t letterboxed

Matt (01:59:27):

It. Oh, my stars. I

Laci (01:59:28):

Know. I probably would give it a four just because it feels weird to give the Brady movie a five, but I can’t say what is bad about it. The only thing I don’t love are all the cameos.

Matt (01:59:41):

My friend, I couldn’t have said it better myself. I feel like I’m going to give it a four and I’m like, “But why not give it a five?” I mean, I think this is an impossibly difficult movie to pull off, and I think it feels too slight.

Laci (01:59:55):

Do I feel like people would make fun of me? Maybe, yes. There’s a part of that, even admitting To being a fan of the Bradys in real time would’ve been kind of nerdy because no one liked it.

Matt (02:00:05):

I mean, this is better than the TV show, but this is a better movie than the TV show is a TV show.

Laci (02:00:10):

Well, and to balance it out, I think I’d give the second one a three.

Matt (02:00:14):

Yeah, I would. Absolutely. That’s exactly what I would give it.

Laci (02:00:17):

Oh my God, we’re so aligned right

Matt (02:00:19):

Now. We should fuck. Let’s kiss at least. I said that I can’t give out three and a halfs, but I didn’t say I can’t give out four and a halfs. Four and a half stars to the Brady Bunch movie, three stars to a very Brady sequel. I’m

Laci (02:00:33):

Going to be brave and just go five on Letterboxd.

Matt (02:00:35):

Oh.

Laci (02:00:36):

Yeah, that’s right. Eat my dust.

Matt (02:00:39):

All right. Spooky season is appalling us.

Laci (02:00:42):

Yay.

Matt (02:00:44):

One shriek rental is about to begin. And we are going to the movie theater to rent a video, VHS tape of It Follows.

Laci (02:00:57):

It follows. Okay.

Matt (02:00:59):

The directorial debut of David Robert Mitchell, who just made a movie we liked a lot at the end of Oak Street. And so after we both enjoyed that movie, I went home and watched It Follows again for the first time in a decade and though, this is a great movie. I’d love to talk about it.

Laci (02:01:13):

Let’s talk. Let’s discuss. Let’s just

Matt (02:01:14):

Talk about it. Let’s talk about it. We never talk about anything. I think

Laci (02:01:17):

We should, or else other people are going to get STDs. This is

Matt (02:01:23):

How

Laci (02:01:23):

You prevent teen pregnancy.

Matt (02:01:26):

I don’t think that’s what the movie’s about. I

Laci (02:01:29):

Guess we’ll talk about it next week.

Matt (02:01:30):

Let’s just talk. We never talk. Let’s talk. Follow us on all the social medias. We are on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Blue Sky, Load Bearing, Laci. Blue

Laci (02:01:42):

Sky, don’t bother me. Blue

Matt (02:01:43):

Sky. Is Laci on Letterboxd Matt Stokes nine? Is me?

Laci (02:01:49):

Load Bearing Laci is me, which no longer makes sense. It definitely sounds like a sex act. I need to change my fucking handle.

Matt (02:01:55):

Yeah, but you got such a brand with Load

Laci (02:01:58):

Bearing Laci.

Matt (02:01:59):

Do I? My band is Rural Rut nine. We do the music for 1-Week Rental. Please check us out wherever you listen to music. And we have a Patreon, patreon.com/oneweekrental. Talk to you real soon, everybody.

Laci (02:02:07):

You could be scrolling behind us all video long, just like these beautiful Patreon support. Thank you to all of our supporters, truly.

Matt (02:02:17):

And you can join for $2 a month. And we would be so grateful if you did.

Laci (02:02:23):

We would do sex acts to each other.

Matt (02:02:26):

Just tell us what you want to see?

Laci (02:02:28):

No, tell us what you want us to do. We’ll report back and be like, “That was a winner.”

Matt (02:02:32):

That was a wiener, three stars.

Laci (02:02:35):

Okay, I love you. Goodbye.