Show Notes Episode 8-1: The Brady Bunch "The Big Bet"

*Welcome back to BOTNS! We have a lot planned for this new season, and we thank you for supporting us.  With many people listening to podcasts less then ever due to current circumstances, we are even more grateful for our listeners.

*The Brady Bunch premiered in 1969 and lasted 5 seasons and 117 total episodes before ending its original run in 1974.  Of course it has lived on in reruns and spinoffs ever since!

*Leave it to Beaver ran 6 seasons and a whopping 234 episodes on ABC.

*"The Big Bet" first aired at 8:00 on ABC on Friday, January 28, 1972, followed by The Partridge Family, Room 222, The Odd Couple, and Love, American Style. NBC had Sanford and Son and Chronolog, while CBS' lineup was O'Hara United States Treasury, She Waits (a Patty Duke TV movie), and The Don Rickles Show.

*The Brady Bunch came to Nick at Nite in 1998 and lasted till 2002 in that initial run.

*The house used for the show's exteriors was built in 1959 and is located by the Los Angeles River. This is the house purchased by HGTV for a reported $3.5 million.

*Elroy Schwartz, credited writer of this episode, is credited on IMDB with writing 12 episode of Gilligan's Island and 9 episodes of Bunch. A later episode he scripted, Greg Gets Grounded, covers vaguely similar ground to this one with its exact words emphasis Greg uses to get around extra punishment for breaking punishment (as we mention on the show).

*As we mention, the series never got Paul Williams, but it did get this guy.

Close enough?

*This guy was not one of the kids with colorful on-point nicknames in Mike's dad's crew growing up:

*The book we mention on the podcast is Kimberly Potts' The Way We All Became the Brady Bunch highly recommended. As I said, she does a particularly good job at analyzing the complicated relationship Robert Reed had with the series. Click here for more info!

*Sam Franklin, AKA Sam the Butcher as played by Allan Melvin, was only in 8 episodes (though mentioned in many more)!

*The trampoline episode with Carol's overprotective fretting is season 2's "What Goes Up..."

*Hope Juber was in 4 episodes of Bunch as 3 different characters, credited each time as Hope Sherwood. She later was in The Bradys as another character and wrote scripts for several later brady projects as well as two episodes of The Munsters Today.

Episode 8-1: The Brady Bunch: The Big Bet

It only took eight seasons, but we finally talk about our second-favorite 8-member family--9 if you count Alice, which we do--the Brady Bunch! Bobby and Greg make a bet, and the unexpected winner becomes a tyrant! Plus one of our hosts wrestles with his complicated feelings about the show.

Check out this episode!

This Week on Battle of the Network Shows...

 

Inside the Guide: Was TV Guide just tired of All in the Family?

 It certainly seems that the author of this blurb for a rerun in a 1980 edition is weary of the whole All in the Family raison d'etre:

Top Ten #86

 1) Cloris Leachman and Julia Louis Dreyfus: As we wait for the Emmys tonight, let's celebrate the two women who share the record for most acting wins--8.

That's these two, in case it wasn't clear.

2) Ed Asner: Asner holds the record for most Emmy wins by a male star, with 7 (5 for Lou Grant, two for miniseries roles). We can't confirm the rumor that Cloris Leachman still acts "only because I have to hold off that SOB Asner."

3) Joanna Cameron: Happy birthday to the one, true Isis, the lovely and talented Joanna Cameron. I think one of the worst things about the rise of the terrorist group in the mid 2010s was the possibility it would make it even more difficult to find The Secrets of Isis.

4) Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell: The short-lived flop variety show premiered 45 years ago tonight, and I sure wish full episodes were available. Not a lot of footage out there, but Mason Reese was on that first show, so here's a clip with him:

5) Good Times: Seth MacFarlane is involved with a reboot that's coming, but don't worry, folks, they can't take away our memories.

6) The Cosby Show: The sitcom premiered today in 1984.

(Steps back in silence and calls for the next entry in the list)

7) National Pepperoni Pizza Day: Or as it's known in my household, every day.

8) Anne Meara: The late actress was born this day in 1929.

9) Anthony Denison: Happy birthday to the former Ray Luca from the great (well, for one season, anyway) Crime Story.

10) Head of the Class: Warner Archive announced it is releasing the second season of the sitcom on DVD in late October. Of course we discussed a first season episode on the podcast. What a Country remains unavailable on home video.

Happy birthday. Paul Williams!

 Believe it or not, Paul Williams, the golden boy of 1970s pop culture, turns 80 today! We saluted Mr. Williams a few seasons ago when we discussed his turn as Alison Troy in The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries episode "Meet Dracula."

Mr. Williams has written many memorable moments and given many memorable performances, but is this still his finest TV moment?

This Day in TV History: Make way for THE EQUALIZER!

 35 years ago today, CBS unleashed The Equalizer on the nation! Edward Woodward is the titular figure in this action drama, with Robert Lansing in support:

The series lasted 4 seasons and 88 episodes, mostly on Wednesday nights at 10:00, though it also aired Thursdays.  Never a huge hit, it faced off against Hotel and St. Elsewhere its first two seasons, then got Dynasty against it on ABC.  Its final season, it was moved to 9:00, where it squared off against sitcoms--The Wonder Years and Hooperman on ABC and Night Court and Baby Boom (remember that one?) on NBC.

The series has not had a high profile in reruns this millennium--or ever, that I can recall--but it is available on NBC.com (it's a Universal production ). Anyone interested in us tackling this one on the podcast someday?