Customer Reviews

Bradypalooza: The Unauthorized Guide to TV's Favorite Family

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Thoroughly enjoyed this book. I was raised on the Bradys, like so many of us were, and this book brought back a lot of memories. The bloopers are a riot. I always loved the episode where Peter got the job at the school newspaper and struggles for days to come up with a story. Only after reading this book did I remember that Marcia was named editor of that very newspaper the prior season but never offered him any advice! Where's the love? And, as the author asks, how come nobody at the Brady wedding complains when Mike and Carol walk around together before the service? They're NOT SUPPOSED to see each other! And keeping up with the Brady doctors is impossible. Jan has a male doctor when she's allergic to Tiger, but when they all get the measles Carol says the girls have always had a female doctor. Good catch. And when Carol goes to work at Modern Woman Magazine, why is the editor a MAN? Good question! And why, why, why are the kids fighting over their lines in the Pilgrim episode, when it's a freakin' SILENT MOVIE? I like reading screw-ups like that.

Not sure what B. Groves means in his summary. In "The Dropout," one team wears white uniforms, the other wears red. And Greg wears green! The author is spot on. And in The Tattletale they do say that Alice can't drive. So her showing up at Mike and Carol's honeymoon suite in the middle of the night is a little peculiar. I don't know of many taxis that take you past state lines, so how the heck did she get there? Good point. Also, I love those factoids. They're not blunders, so they probably deserve their own category. But yeah, when Carol and Mike refer to "Doug" and "Mr. Cramer" in the broken vase episode, I never knew that Douglas Cramer was the boss of the show! How the author made the connection is beyond me.

One of the other things I liked was the information on the guest stars, who they were then and where they are today. I like the fact that Bobby and Peter's "Martians" were actually the kids stand-ins. Too funny. And all the casting of everyone's real life children - Florence Henderson's daughters, Robert Reed's kids, and Sherwood Schwartz's daughter, who had a recurring role as one of Greg's girlfriends. That's favoritism for you.

Can't wait to see which show he does next!

This book has so much going for it. If you are looking for the definiative book on the Brady bunch, this one is it. It covers not just the TV show, but the spin offs and movies. It is well worth the read. [...]

I've read several books on the Brady Bunch, but none had me laughing like this one. The author has done his homework and has told me stuff I never knew about this show. It's a very sarcastic examination of a true piece of pop culture. He identifies the plot holes that we all should have been scratching our heads at and really tackles the common myth that they were the perfect family. This is a MUST for any Brady fan.

As an avid Brady fan, I rushed to get this book as soon as it was available. It was just what I wanted - a guide to syndication cuts made in the show as well as blunders and inconsistencies made throughout the series. To my disappointment, the book itself is full of blunders. I actually contacted the author to help advise him - free of charge - and give him the benefit of my experience in order to make a second edition of the book more accurate. He turned me down flat. I guess he's happy enough with the way the book is.

The main reason I bought the book was for information on syndication cuts. Unfortunately, the author does not provide this for all episodes. And where he does, it did not always coincide with my own observations making me wonder how accurate it is.

But the bigger problem is that most of his cited "blunders" aren't blunders. They're either factoids ("Carol mentions a couple known as the Bernsteins. This is an inside joke."), some are editorial comments ("Isn't this episode a lot like `The Undergraduate'?") and some are just points of interest ("This is another episode in which the phrase `I never thought of it that way' is used").

And where *actual* blunders are cited, more often than not they can be explained fairly easily. For example, in "The Dropout", he complains that the baseball players at the ballgame are wearing red and white uniforms while Greg's uniform is supposed to be green and white - claiming this is an error due to stock footage. He has obviously forgotten there are TWO teams in a baseball game. He also seems to be overly concerned with things like how many model airplanes he thinks Peter has (when I was Peter's age I had 3 or 4 model airplanes and couple of model ships -- I guess that would be considered a blunder in the author's eyes) and how Alice gets around (I guess the author's never heard of a taxi).

The high level of inaccuracy really left me cold and rather frustrated. My recommendation: for hard-core Brady fans only.