Greetings again readers, family and friends. Today we review “Welcome Aboard”. The episode first aired on January 25th, 1974. It took almost five seasons before the show underwent any major changes to the cast. There was no new recurring neighbor, friend or relative to the Bradys until this episode. Plenty were mentioned, passed through the house or appeared for a single episode. However, Cousin Oliver’s arrival changed all that. We all have our thoughts the character and I encourage you to share them in the comments section. Let’s begin reviewing “Welcome Aboard”!
As I have stated in previous blogs, I do not hate Cousin Oliver. Many fans bemoan his joining the show as its “Jump The Shark” moment or what ruined the show. I do not share these sentiments. The show was never a major hit when it first ran and its renewal was always in question. Aside from this episode, the character’s future appearances were limited to the likes of the other Brady kids. His arrival was not an attempt to revamp the series as “The Adventures of Cousin Oliver”, but just a failed attempt to generate some new life in to the series. Based on some other season five plot lines, the series needed all the help it could get.
Oliver was played by Robbie Rist. He was seen fairly regularly on TV in the 1970s. I recall seeing him on What’s Happening! and CHiPs. However, he appeared on several other popular shows. The 1990s saw him voicing Michelangelo in the feature film “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”. He would voice the character in a sequel and continue to do voice work for several cartoon shows thereafter. IMDB lists acting credits as recent as 2018 with unreleased work for 2019. As far as a recurring role, the only acting gig I saw was Big John, Little John. After reading the plot for the series, it looks like it would have been a fun show to watch as a kid. The only occasion I know of Robbie Rist appearing with his Brady Bunch cast mates was the game show The Weakest Link. If any readers know of any others, please share.
Based on the kid’s popularity in the 70s, I wonder if Mason Reese was considered for the role of Cousin Oliver?
The story opens with Mike arriving home and Carol messing with his head. She shares there is going to be a new addition to the family. Mike immediately and understandably thinks that Carol is with child. This was kind of a crappy thing for Carol to do. Suppose this idea overjoyed Mike and only minutes later she would have to crush his happiness with the news that the new addition is eight years old? It reminds me of people who give those fake winning lottery tickets as gag gifts. It’s just wrong. Bobby and Cindy overhear Mike and Carol’s conversation and also believe the news to be that Carol is pregnant.
A few seconds later, Carol clears things up in confirming the new addition is her nephew Oliver, son to Jack and Pauline. I don’t remember Carol ever mentioning a sibling by either name before. Oliver’s father has a job in South America and is taking his wife along, but not his kid.
Upstairs, Bobby and Cindy share the news that a seventh sibling is on the way. Alice is in the girls’ room when Cindy shares the news and gets in on the misunderstanding. Greg and Peter are overjoyed at the news. Greg likes the idea so much that he rocks his guitar like a baby. Down in the kitchen, Alice and the family are extra accommodating and kind to Carol. Finally, Carol gets wind of the family’s false impression and clears things up. Alice goes to cancel the order to the diaper service. Good grief, Carol does not have as much as a baby bump showing and Alice all ready called a diaper service? Do any readers know of a diaper service still in operation?
With Oliver’s arrival only seconds away, Carol lectures the kids about the adjustment the boy will go through upon living with them. Bobby looks forward to having a younger person to push around. Seconds later, Oliver arrives to much fanfare by the other kids. He is pulled in different directions as Bobby and Cindy are anxious to spend time with him. Peter then shares the exciting news that on Saturday, the entire family is touring a movie studio. In a cute line, Oliver says if he knew living with the Bradys was going to be so much fun, he’d have come to live with them years ago.
The hoopla and excitement soon give way to bad vibes as a series of mishaps follows. The first mishap in the girls’ room must have been cut in syndication as I have no recollection of it. Jan is working on a painting of Cindy. Friends, I enjoy art and try to appreciate most any effort, but whatever Jan is working on would never hang on my wall. Why does she need Cindy to model for that travesty? Oliver tries to help Jan by retrieving more brushes and knocks the easel over, “ruining” the painting.
Next, Greg is making a sandwich Dagwood would envy. When the ketchup stubbornly refuses to exit the bottle, Oliver helps out with some whacks on it. This sends ketchup splattering all over Greg’s shirt. Next, as Oliver and Bobby play tug of war with a trash bag, Bobby goes barreling backward and breaks two flower pots. Of all the mishap scenes, this one is the weakest. The pulling effort Bobby was putting forth was nowhere near enough to send him falling backwards that far. A ripped bag that spilled Astro-turf clippings all over the yard would have been much more realistic and just as annoying to Bobby. Another bad mojo moment comes as Oliver goes to say goodnight to Mike and Carol. As he walks away, he unravels an afghan Carol has been knitting. Finally, Oliver’s snoring prompts the youngest Brady boys to attempt to roll him over in his sleep. In trying to do so, they fall from the bunk beds and break a lamp.
The next day, the kids hold a confab in the family room to discuss how their newly arrived cousin is a jinx. The previous mishaps are mentioned along with Marcia dropping some dishes. Greg and Marcia are dismissive of the jinx talk, but the four younger siblings are not. Jan even asks why he could not stay with another relative. As this conversation takes place, we see Oliver sitting outside the family room window hearing all that has been said. This scene has always made me feel sad for Oliver. Most any eight year old hearing this from his older cousins would be quite hurt. The look on Oliver’s face shows this. It was a well done scene for the new cast member.
The next scene has Oliver exercising his miseries in the dog house. As the audience we know that dog house existed to cover a burned spot in the yard. However, why the Bradys still have a dog house after all this time without a dog is unknown. Carol has a heart to heart with Oliver and there is another talk with Mike. Mike assures the lad he is no jinx. Mike then addresses the four youngest kids about their making their newly arrived cousin feel so awful. In a very funny line, Cindy says if they’d known he was out there, they would have closed the window. Way to miss the point of Mike’s talk Cindy! I would categorize this as a clueless Cindy moment.
The kids’ efforts to make Oliver feel included produce a monster of a mishap. Marcia sits outside working on a ceramics project while the boys play basketball nearby. Even without Oliver around to create a mishap, this seems like a bad idea. I don’t think the boys are so apt at handling the ball that there is no chance of it bouncing over that way. At first Oliver declines the boys’ invitation to join them in a game, but then relents at their urging. Inside, Mike is showing Carol a model he constructed of a building he designed. As he turns to walk away with it, Carol asks to see it. Had Carol not done this, Mike’s creation would not have fallen victim to the pending mishap. Predictably, Oliver throws the ball over Greg, sending it crashing into Marcia’s ceramic vase and into the kitchen where Mike trips on it and destroys his model. Maybe if Mike had not been carrying it through the house at eye level, he could have kept a better footing and not crashed into the kitchen island.
On a side note, just before an Oliverarian mishap occurs, there was that distinctive “Whaaaoooaaaah, wahooahan” sound played. It always gives me a chuckle and was very fitting for each scene.
As the family leaves for the aforementioned movie studio tour, Oliver says he is not going. With this, Carol, Alice and Greg state they aren’t going either if Oliver isn’t. In a funny line, Bobby says he is going regardless. This was a nice reminder of his refusal to share the found loot and desiring the prospector’s treasure from previous episodes. Oliver says he will go with the family, but they are doing so at their own risk. I found this funny too.
Oliver is finally convinced he is not a jinx as his presence allows the family to appear in a movie being produced at the studio. His coming through the gate saw that the family made up the group that included the studio’s one millionth visitor. The studio employee that shared this good news was played by John Nolan. He had several acting roles through the years with multiple appearances on Dragnet and Adam 12. Per IMDB he appeared on Quincy M.E. ninety times, portraying the bartender. I’ve never watched Quincy M.E. but I could not help but wonder if John Nolan got a screen credit each time he served a drink to a character or if he had some important nameless role as the bartender. John Nolan died in 2000.
The film the family will appear in is a take off of the silent movies of old. Dressed in early 20th century attire they walk down the street and encounter a traffic accident between two bakery trucks.
As they act out their part, the film’s director delivers instruction off stage. I noticed there was a boom mike in operation, but was not sure why if this was supposed to be a silent movie. Maybe sound was being used in some capacity. The man playing the director was Judd Laurance. He continues to act today with a feature film as recent as 2016. Per Linked In, he is a part of Gum Tree Films.
The two drivers of the bakery trucks argue with one another and then start throwing their wares in the face of one another. A policeman arrives on the scene and is hit with a pie. This escalates into an all out pie fight between the three men and the Brady clan that revives memories of The Three Stooges. Oliver is made to feel welcome to the family by being pelted with pies.
The three actors in the film being produced were played by Dick Winslow, Ralph Montgomery and Snag Werris. Dick Winslow previously appeared in “The Teeter-Totter Caper”. This was Snag Werris’ third appearance on The Brady Bunch. Ralph Montgomery had a long career in Hollywood, but it would seem he spent his first five years in the industry as doing work without credit. His IMDB roles from 1943-1948 are all listed as uncredited. He would later appear on Ozzie and Harriet, Bonanza and have some more uncredited appearances. His final role was on the TV show Salvage 1 in 1979. He died in 1980.
The epilogue has Oliver writing his parents and chatting with Alice. He talks of how Bobby has shucked some chores off onto him. He doesn’t mind as he is paying him back via a lizard in his bed.
Thank you for reviewing “Welcome Aboard” with me! I would classify it as a fun episode and a good way to introduce Oliver. As stated before, the new character’s arrival did not dominate the show thereafter. If any readers ever watched Family Matters, you likely recall how it was an intelligent show about the Winslow family before Steve Urkel showed up and it became “The Urkel Show” thereafter. Thankfully, that did not happen with Oliver. Your thoughts on the episode are most welcome!
Next week, I will taking some time off to spend with my family. A trip to the Brady destination of King’s Island is a good possibility! Therefore, we will not be reviewing “Two Petes In A Pod” until a week from Friday. However, starting on Sunday there will be some other blogs posted through the week for you to peruse. Sunday’s posting will be sharing a big announcement!
Here's The Story: Every Episode of The Brady Bunch Reviewed 
Unless it was part of a period piece being filmed, I prefer to think that the movie scene was only set up to be filmed for whoever became the studio’s one millionth visitor. For goodness’ sake, it contained pies that would inevitably be thrown around by everyone, including the prize winner and their companions; no doubt the pies were thrown in as part of the prize package.
What ruined it, though, was the Bradys turning the comedy into a sentimental “welcome to the family” for Oliver, and Alice going over to hug him. I hope the scene was truly silent; it plays better when it’s everybody ganging up on the little guy.
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Interesting thoughts on the movie filming existing only as a prize. My thought was it could be a “movie within a movie”. Like something that would play on the screen of a theater that is the setting for another movie scene. However, with so many existing silent films available to a movie studio, that is likely not the case.
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Universal Studios did these Visitors Involved things. I’m sure Paramount did too.
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The Oliver episodes of the Brady Bunch do have some notoriety. The Bunch was clearly running out of gas before this point, the addition of Oliver was when the fuel light went on. Thanks for pointing out that the show wasn’t a big hit during its original run. People seem to think it was huge in its day because it’s broadcast everywhere and anytime now. Uh-uh. It was just piddling along and the Partridge Family actually got bigger ratings. TV Guide had only one BB cover (April 4, 1970), but several for the PF. I don’t know how old you are, so maybe you’re too young to remember the heyday of John Denver. It was said at the time that Robbie Rist bore a resemblance to the then popular singer. It was just the hair and glasses, not the facial features. Weird that Mr. Rist has now outlived Mr. Denver (the singer was killed at age 53 and Robbie turned 54 this past April 4th). I actually didn’t like that noise that was heard before disaster struck. If you hear it, you know something bad is about to happen. It took away the element of surprise. Robert Reed DID actually put his foot down in this episode. During the pie throwing scene, he’s not there. It was too slapstick for his tastes.
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Thanks for commenting Jim. I also found it interesting that Mr. Rist has had the most post Brady Bunch acting work (per IMDB) of all the kids.
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While this certainly isn’t a great episode of the series, I do enjoy good slapstick, especially a pie fight, so this is fun for me to watch, at least the last part. As I think I mentioned after an earlier post, this was actually the 2nd Oliver episode filmed, as “Two Petes in a Pod” was filmed before “Welcome Aboard”. I found this out from THE BRADY BUNCH BOOK, and someday I’ll pull that book out of my collection and make notes on my BB rerun guide about this show’s production order. I think the remaining episodes were filmed in order of their airdates. When local stations showed reruns in the past, probably before satellite disribution of reruns, a lot of stations would show episodes in production rather than airdate order. It wasn’t until Nick-at-Nite & TV Land (in their good classic days) made note of original airing order that people noticed this too much.
I also don’t recall seeing Jan’s painting ruined in the distant past (pre-MeTV), as I may not have seen this one until the show was in syndication. I do remember seeing Bobby fall over the flower pots, but that is for some reason cut from the version of this episode rerun on MeTV now, so it must sound strange to MeTV viewers for Bobby to mention the mishap in the later scene with all his siblings, as Oliver’s listening under the window. I wonder if Eve Plumb painted that painting herself, as I’ve read that she’s a good artist and left good artwork on the stage from her days in the on-set classroom. She may have also painted the painting that Jan brings to her school play audition in “Try, Try Again”.
Not only was it dumb for the boys to be playing basketball while the girls were working on pottery, but one of the kids really screwed up by leaving the screen door open so the basketball could roll into the kitchen for Mike to trip on it. Mike or Carol should’ve gotten on the kids for that screwup. I figure now that we can say Mike missed the studio tour because he had to spend all day Saturday rebuilding his model. Robert Reed may have argued that he already had his “pie” in the face for the series with the wedding cake back in the pilot so he could avoid this scene, just as Bill Murray opted out of the slime river scene in “Ghostbusters 2” because he’d already been slimed in “Ghostbusters”.
I thought the pie fight was choreographed well, with the main actors bringing in the Bradys when the Keystone cop hit Alice. This was the worst hit of the whole fight, I thought, but from a distance I’m sure it can be difficult. I’m thinking Alice was trying to eat a piece of pie falling off her face with her funny facial motion post-hit, but nothing fell there. Then Alice nailed both Greg & Peter, and they got Bobby both in the face & head for laughing about it. Then they all brought the girls into the fun, but not same age boy to girl, as one may expect. Instead Bobby hit Jan, Greg hit Cindy, and Peter hit Marcia (Wasn’t hitting her nose with the football enough for him?). Then the girls squealed & laughed and were ready to join in. Then Carol was hit nicely with some stray pies until she could stumble over to the pies and “welcome” Oliver to the family with a pie rubbed into his hair, as the other Bradys joined in a hail of pies for Oliver. Cindy flunked Pie Throwing 101, as the only pie she threw hit the pavement instead of Oliver. Dumb Cindy! 😉 Then the director got his before cutting the scene. According to Lloyd Schwartz, Judd Laurance was the show’s dialogue coach at the end of the series, so apparently he launched his acting career from here.
A quick note on the tag scene: Does anyone suppose Oliver borrowed Cindy’s pet lizard (from “Cindy Brady, Lady”) to put in Bobby’s bed? Alice’s fear of lizards was previously established in that episode.
I was a big fan of BIG JOHN LITTLE JOHN starting around January 1977 on NBC Saturday mornings, and I was able to see each of the show’s 13 episodes at least once, as every episode was run at least 3 times, most of them 4 times, until September. I thought Robbie Rist was good here (I guess he had contact lenses for this series.), and I became a fan of Herb Edelman during this show. Joyce Bulifant recently wrote a book called MY FOUR HOLLYWOOD HUSBANDS where she revealed that she had husband #3, Bill Asher (ex-husband of Elizabeth Montgomery), get to know her by driving her to the set, and he later married her around November 1976. I bought this series on DVD as soon as it was available and watched each episode, but I found out that (mostly) what was hilarious to me when I was 11 wasn’t as funny to me in my late 40s. It was still nice to see it again, and in pristine shape, compared to the bad kinescopes of this show that I’d seen before.
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Thanks Jon for that information on “Big John, Little John”. I rewound the episode to see if Oliver left the screen door open, but it was that way when he came out.
I don’t blame Robert Reed for opting out of the pie fight. I imagine a lot of actors, even those less demanding than Reed, would have found a scene like that degrading and refused such.
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The pie fight was obviously a cross inspiration of the ones from The Three Stooges’ In The Sweet Pie and Pie, the 1935 Keystone Kops sound short Keystone Hotel and The Little Rascals’ Shivering Shakespeare. They stole from the best-each other!!
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“Shivering Shakespeare” was one of the funniest Our Gang shorts ever and the great pie fight was one of the reasons.
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Maybe the kids DID close the screen door, but the basketball got through anyway since there’s no screen! 🙂
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As far as recurring characters went, Sam the butcher was. Mr. Phillips, Mike’s boss, was seen in a few episodes and mentioned in others. Oliver’s parents didn’t take him because they were exploring a jungle and no schools were around (maybe they also didn’t want Oliver to catch jungle fever). I also thought Bobby was areal jerk in this episode. He thought he could kick Oliver around and when they decided not to go to the studio, he said he still wanted to go. Then he made Oliver do his chores. I hope Oliver got him good with the lizard.
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Good catch on Mr. Phillips. Sam had been around since season one so I considered him a recurring character from the outset.
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Cousin Oliver spends the rest of the series being a sidekick to Bobby and Cindy. With this being the only Oliver-centric episode, I think it plays better than the remaining five shows. Like having Cousin Emma substituting for Alice, the Bradys have to get use to someone new in their home, which is interesting to watch. I never disliked his character either, but he didn’t help or hurt a show that was already coming to a close.
The series of unfortunate events with the basketball throw was used in commercials for the syndicated reruns that our old local station would play. Normally on the show, when someone would break something on or off camera, it was scored with a laugh track. One exception was “Confessions, Confessions”; when Peter broke the vase you heard an audience gasping. Watching this again, I noticed how Mike could have really conked his head on the stove! Considering Oliver’s plight, with him resting his head on the fence afterwards, was this a funny scene? Did I laugh watching all this? Well, I… uh.. onto the next point!
Having Oliver welcomed to the family with pie throws may have been cathartic for some of the kids, in light of the mishaps he caused by trying too hard to fit in. I agree with Robert Reed that the scene felt tacked on, but hey, we got some slapstick out of it. And there was Lloyd Schwartz again, clapping the film slate.
Again, no ill-feelings about Oliver’s inclusion from this Brady Bunch fan. Now, if you want to talk about Ricky Stevens on The Partridge Family, I’ll be happy to listen!
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Thanks Ernie. I’ve never watched The Partridge Family so I can’t speak to the cast change. I also know that Eight is Enough was determined to be not enough after all and Ralph Macchio was added to the cast. I never watched that show either, so again I can’t speak to it.
Yes, Oliver’s rearing his head on the fence was a great scene!
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Oh God, Ricky. Tone deaf sheepdog child and everyone grins at him like an idiot while he “sings.”
Cousin Oliver was a walk in the park and a day at the beach compared to that caterwauling.
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I thought Oliver & Ricky had bad 70s hairdos too. Joey Lawrence was stuck w/ the same until he was about 18 years old and could get his own haircuts.
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I’ll confess, I did get a laugh from the basketball scene in this episode. I noticed that they played that clarinet musical cue after the basketball fiasco.
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I think that Bobby & Cindy (Mike Lookinland & Susan Olsen respectively) had grown out of being their “cute ” factor. So the producers tried working in Oliver to bring it back in. I guess it didn’t work .
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Other shows have tried and it never seems to work. The only half successful attempt I know of is Family Ties. Andy seemed to be generally accepted by viewers of the show. Of course having him close with Alex P. Keaton’s character probably helped viewers cotton well to him.
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I’m basing this only on my memory of what “people” were saying at the time, but I always thought the Andy move was panned by most as cheap, unnecessary, and somewhat implausible that they’d have yet another kid. And then he went from a newborn to walking/talking in like one season! Come on…
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I remember the age jump as well. It just seemed the show still continued strong a while longer despite the newly cast child.
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This situation of tv show kids aging so fast happens frequently in soap operas and is called Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome, or SORAS for short. It’s so named because kids all of a sudden go from infants to schoolkids or worse. With sitcoms it seemed that infants were boring and writers couldn’t wait for the kids to grow up & talk smarter than their parents. There have been other kids who did the same on GROWING PAINS & FAMILY MATTERS and I’m sure a few other sitcoms.
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Re: Andy on Family Ties – yes, I think that it was a great idea for the writers to create that “chemistry” between Alex and Andy, with Alex doing everything he could to make Andy a “clone” of himself. It made for some cute scenes and kept Andy from becoming the typical annoying little kid.
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I also had no problem with Cousin Oliver.
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Thanks for commenting!
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Yes. Why do so many hate Oliver? He’s so innocent.
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None of the Bradys mentioned that Oliver was also the name of Dr Whitehead’s big artifact thing from the Hawaii episodes. I guess the writers or producers really liked that name.
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Maybe they were too traumatized by the event to discuss such. I thought the same as you about the producers liking that name.
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I always figured that the film was just a prize, the type of fun activity often done on movie studio tours, rather than an actual movie being made.
The scene with Jan’s painting was shown during the early years of syndication, but had been cut from syndication prints by the time the series was on TBS in the eighties. That’s true of many deleted syndication scenes on BB.
Like you, I don’t despise Oliver. I simply know that he appeared as part of the show’s last gasp. Most little kids are added when the original kids are outgrowing their cuteness, but Oliver was more precocious than traditional cute. At the time I felt that Jan’s loveliness this season was my compensation for Oliver’s presence.
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DIFF’RENT STROKES had what was more likely typical of what a family could do on a studio tour. When the family went out to Hollywood, one of the last scenes ended up in a bakery, which (of course) resulted in a piefight, though only Sam, Maggie & Willis were hit with pies on camera. I asked someone who’d been on the tour before if Universal Studios actually did something like that, since he’d been on the tour before, and he said it was very similar, including speeding up the tape afterward.
I went to Disney World back in 1990 and on my day at Disney/MGM Studios saw something called Superstar Television, where various people were picked before the show to act in the programming for the day, including a Today Show newsreader from July 18, 1955 (the day after Disneyland opened), a butler from a Three Stooges film (who was hit with a sort of whipped cream pie), an older woman playing Ethel along side Lucy wrapping chocolates, and a kid doing the opening rideup on BONANZA. It was fun to see, and it may have been fun to play a part in it.
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There are several of these studio tour videos up on YouTube.
You mention that the Diff’rent Strokes episode had close-ups; naturally,
the “real” studio tour pie fights don’t bother with any close-ups.
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Thanks for sharing those thoughts. Jan definitely developed her own brand of beauty in season 5. Maureen McCormick was/is a gorgeous lady but Eve Plumb offered up a different and equally pleasing look in season 5.
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I remember Jan’s painting but the scene I did not see was the ketchup splatter scene until 10 years ago on YouTube.
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So much music to my ears!
Mike: “I thought you were on the Pill”. (I like to think he and Carol practiced birth control, as they didn’t add any kids biologically to the family, and as an allusion to the Sexual Revolution and Women’s Liberation trickling down to mainstream tv)
I remember a late 1980s BabySitters’ Club book mentioning a diaper service as part of a prank. And a quick Google search reveals that the closest diaper services are in Los Osos, CA.
Robbie Rist was so fun to hear from in those retrospectives talking about BB
“Way to miss the point of Mike’s talk Cindy! I would categorize this as a clueless Cindy moment.” Maybe she inherited the slight bitchiness of Marcia (“Jan, if boys don’t find you attractive, don’t blame me”)
Alice’s dress reminded me of this black dress worn by Peggy Olson https://www.pinterest.com/pin/53269208069291888/
Loved Carol’s pantsuit with the fur trim
I almost honestly thought the Brady Women (sans Cindy) put on maxi skirts LOL
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In an earlier season Marcia does wear a maxi dress in the epilogue. Thanks for sharing those thoughts!
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I think Oliver is hilarious, it’s the scripts that are hopeless by this point in the series. But nobody wanted to see the kids have realistic teenage problems, and the writers wouldn’t know how to write them anyway.
Too bad we never actually see Oliver covered with pies. “My Three Sons” had a much better pie fight sequence that made more sense instead of being tacked-on.
Robbie Rist also played in the final episodes of “Mary Tyler Moore” as Ted and Georgette’s adopted son.
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Thanks for commenting! Robbie Rist looks to have had the most success as an actor of all the kids. The other kids have the nostalgia quotient to contribute to their success. Robbie Rist just had actual acting gigs.
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Guess it’s not too surprising that Rist had the most successful non-Brady career, since the Brady kids were pretty much stereotyped for life after the BB was over. Rist did not have that “problem”
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I would count myself as being among those who do not believe that Oliver showing up is the moment that made the BB “Jump the Shark”. When Oliver actually showed up in 1974, none of us who watched the show went around saying “Oh no, a new character, that’s the end of the Brady Bunch!!”. There was no concept of Jumping the Shark and none of us knew the show was on its last legs.
We didn’t normally have the consciousness of shows being cancelled. When a show was cancelled, we were usually just surprised when it stopped airing. When the season ended, none of us discussed whether the show would be back in the fall, we assumed that it would be.
Not sure that I ever saw this episode when it first aired… I didn’t remember the trip to the movie studio or the pie fight until I saw it many years later in reruns.
Some random thoughts:
1) Oliver’s father’s going to South America and he takes his wife but they leave their kid…yeah, that’s normal…leaving him with relatives he’s never met before.
2) What did Carol’s sister do, call her the day before she and her husband left the country to see if Carol and Mike would take care of Oliver? And couldn’t his parents have brought Oliver over to the Brady’s?
3) Carol mentions Oliver coming to live with us “for a while” but has no idea how long? I guess it depended on whether adding a new cast member could extend the life of the show.
4) Marcia asks Oliver if he wants wants to learn about CERAMICS ??? Is she on drugs, what boy that age gives a hoot about ceramics?
5) The boys are playing basketball, and the teams are Greg and Oliver vs Bobby and Peter… and they decide to have Oliver guard Peter while Greg guards Bobby? Not only is it stupid to have the girls work on ceramics right next to the driveway while the boys are playing basketball, but Greg has a lot to learn about matchups!
6) Basketballs, for some reason, seem to defy the laws of physics if they’re thrown or rolled on the ground in the Brady universe. In “Confessions, Confessions”, Peter takes a simple shot at a wastebasket, and the ball seems to pick up speed and momentum as it bounces down the (carpeted) hallway before bouncing at the top of the stairs down to one of the stairs before crashing into Mom’s favorite vase. By the time the ball got to the stairs, it looked like it had been shot out of a cannon. Here, in “Welcome Aboard”, a ball rolls along the grass, all the way across the lawn, without slowing down, before finding itself under Mike, who of course, trips on it (I have to think Robert Reed thought that was a ridiculous scene).
7) At the movie studio, Carol says to the guy at the gate “we’re all together” instead of telling them how many are in the party… she just waves her hand pointing back toward the line and says “we’re all together”? The guy at the gate doesn’t ask “how many in your party?”
8) I thought the pie fight scene was just stupid. Pie fights have been done to death; pie fights have been around since the silent era, and everyone thinks that just because they have a pie fight it’ll be funny. You have to know how to do that stuff. I wasn’t impressed with the Bradys trying to do it.
9) The epilogue was kind of dumb…why would Oliver think Bobby would be afraid of a lizard??
There are a couple of Oliver episodes that I can still watch, but this wasn’t one of them.
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Oh God, Ricky. Tone deaf sheepdog child and everyone grins at him like an idiot while he “sings.”
Cousin Oliver was a walk in the park and a day at the beach compared to that caterwauling.
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And re: leaving Oliver behind with family he’s never met before while his folks split… Hazel did this in the last season in 1965 when the Baxters (the actors had been let go from the show in real life) moved to the Middle East and Harold moved in with his Uncle Steve’s family. which we had never heard of until that moment. At least Hazel was still with him!
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Great observations Tweety! I didn’t notice Carol’s ambiguous head count for the tour. Great point about the basketball in this episode and “Confessions, Confessions”!
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Finally got to see this episode again.
It’s not as horrible as I remember. I will be honest in saying I’m not a fan of the character Oliver. I think he is shoehorned in and is a bad attempt to try and add a younger kid to the now 5 year older Brady Kids. But it seems so unnatural, forced and I’m not a big fan of Robbie Rist as a ‘cute kid’ type actor. Didn’t work for me. But he’s not to blame for this. It was just a bad idea that didn’t work and he didn’t ruin the show or anything. It was already on its death bed by this point anyway.
This is one of those episodes that Robert Reed had issue with. As all will notice Mike did not go with the family to the movie studio for the tour. And it was never directly addressed why Mike didn’t go with them. We can assume its to fix the model that got broken by that basketball that he tripped on. But as many have already stated, the real reason is Robert Reed REFUSED to be part of a pie fight that is hooked on at the end of an episode that had no right place or reason to be in said episode besides to throw in a pie fight because they are ‘funny’ or something. I don’t know. I thought it was stupid too.
But, I also think that Robert Reed should have lightened up a bit as far as elements of the show went as he took things a little too seriously and you are paid to do a job, so do it. You don’t have to love it, but that’s show business as they say. I will say I agree with him that the pie fight at the end of this episode is awkward and weak writing either way.
The whole situation is hokey. “You win, you are the millionth customer, you get to be extras in one of our movies.” Thank goodness Oliver was there or we would have only been 999,999. Wshoo. Thank goodness for that. Of course Mike would have wound up going probably anyway if the chain of events that led him not to go didn’t happen due to Oliver’s mishaps but whatever.
So the movie is a homage to silent movies and umm these ‘extras’ sure are getting a lot of screen time. Lets watch them walk down the street. Lets watch them stand in front of two vehicles and gawk at actors throwing pies at each other. Lets let these extras now get in on this. Wow. What a movie. I can’t wait to see how this movie turns out. Sounds like its lower than a B movie with the production value and plot though. No wonder they have only had 1,000,000 visitors at this point, the studio is not known for making anything noteworthy. Just horribly written and one of those “We have no way to end this episode what do we do?” “Pie Fight?” “Ok works for me..” type of conclusions to hopefully end something with a laugh. I didn’t laugh, maybe others did though.
Other elements of the episode are weak but nothing is horrible like the bad pie fight climax.
1) Mike’s model for instance is clearly not state of the art you can see after it’s broken there was no wires or working parts in it as he was claiming it did all of these things. Nope just cardboard and plywood that easily breaks. Nothing impressive about it folks.
2) Oliver is a jinx plot line was a bit of a bad running gag that never really shows up again. They sure did break a lot of props in this though with the lamp, flower pot, ceramic vase and building model. Boy what they do to show how much of a jinx that kid is.
3) An eight year old snoring like that? They should really get that checked, could be a serious problem if he is that loud a snorer at only 8.
4) They did the running gag we all hate again here. Carol comes home with big news and doesn’t let in on what the big news actually is leading to a silly misunderstanding as she mentions that there will be another addition to the family. Do the Brady family get off on only half telling their news until they can build up excitement and after you suffered long enough waiting to hear it finally tell you the REAL news? Thank goodness they only carried on with the whole “Mom is pregnant” stuff for a few minutes before that was dropped.
5) Playing basketball while Marcia is working on a vase outside while Mike is walking around with an expensive model that he has to be careful with? Really? I don’t think I need to comment more on the problems with how badly written that all is.
6) Mowing the astroturf again?
7) Wow Jan’s painting is bad. Oliver did you a favor there.
8) Carol and Mike agree to let a kid we have never seen, the kids have never met and the audience knows nothing about all after a simple phone call from her sister? “We are going to South America, will you look after our brat of a son while we are away? It will only be for ‘awhile’.” “Umm how long is awhile?” “You know.. awhile.. oh you will thanks Carol you are the best.” *CLICK* Wow that must have been some phone call. She already agreed without discussing it with Mike or meeting the kid first or even thinking about it. Would have been more believable if the episode started with him already there as if some time had passed and they explain it that way. This way though was just too ridiculous. I love my family but I’m not just going to take on one of their kids after a quick phone call and hope for the best to watch them for an unspecified amount of time.
Oh well, sad to see the show is coming to an end here. But with this slop making up the end of the season, it’s ok to put it out of it’s misery. Wish the episodes get better from here but we got a few more stinkers ahead folks sadly. Anyway welcome to the family Oliver, for all 6 episodes of it.
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Apart from Carol’s mean-spirited implication of being pregnant, she agreed for her nephew to move in long-term without even mentioning it to Mike??
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It seemed the studio tour was in the middle of the day. I would have assumed Mike was at work or at his club or golfing. It’s not farfetched to not have Mike there. I don’t know why Reed opted out. Maybe he was never written in.
I definitely recall Carol mentioning a brother, and possibly even using the name Jack. I don’t recall Mike mentioning sibling though. Alice had two sister, Myrtle (younger) and Emily (older)
I thought it was nice they made the new addition a male on Carol’s side. Shake up the boys on one side, girls on the other thing.
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I didn’t care for this episode that much but I don’t blame Mike for not going to the tour. Who would want a pie in the face anyways.
Sometimes I think Robert Reed is the reason the show made it to five years. Gilligan’s Island lasted 3 years and as far as we know, there wasn’t a ‘Robert Reed’ in the cast. Maybe he has mellowed out a bit during the run but we will never know what would have happened season 6. I kinda think it would have been cancelled no matter what… Reed or cancellation.
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Just finished watching all of the Cousin Oliver episodes. I’ll admit I found him annoying at first but after a few episodes he grew on me a bit.
If he had been made a lead character and storylines had revolved around him constantly he might have become a bit much but as a supporting character and comedic relief I thought he was just fine. He had a GREAT one-liner in “The Hair-Brained Scheme” which I commented on in that episode’s review.
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I have to finally call BS on the long-standing legend regarding Tiger’s doghouse, i.e., that it remained to cover a burned patch of AstroTurf. First of all, how much could a 3×3 patch of AstroTurf cost, like two dollars? How small WAS the BB budget if they couldn’t buy one replacement patch of AstroTurf? Second of all, couldn’t they have put some other, more plausible piece of playground equipment (like, say, the teeter-totter) over it? My hypothesis is that they kept the doghouse around for four reasons: (1) to avoid having to address what happened to Tiger; (2) so that just in case they DID end up wanting to do an episode containing Tiger, they could and imply that he had been around the entire time but was always off-camera; (3) for “continuity”—many posters have commented on the junky Hula-Hoops and unused wagon that never remained in the backyard too—why? Because that’s part of the BB backyard, so it can’t be changed. The Brady house interiors also changed very little over the course of the show either, probably for the same reason; (4) to give characters a place to sulk (as Oliver does here), thus providing an easy “you WILL be in the doghouse if you don’t blah blah blah” joke. But it defies belief that in two and a half years the BB production company couldn’t replace one lousy patch of AstroTurf!!!
Ah, Cousin Oliver. He became shorthand for the process of adding a younger character for cuteness after the original characters aged out of their youthfulness. I think everyone’s posts are very accurate—Cousin Oliver was a symptom, not a cause, of the demise of the Brady Bunch. The corny pie fight ending aside, this episode is no worse, and arguably better, that the horrendous UFO episode that preceded it, and the equally atrocious “Cindy as the new Shirley Temple” or “Peter has an exact double” episodes coming up. The truth was, TBB had run its course. We’d seen pretty much every permutation of every story imaginable. The show probably should have ended after Season Four, as aside from “Johnny Bravo” and “Marcia Gets Creamed all Season Five episodes are pretty awful.
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I think “Peter and the Wolf” and “Getting Greg’s Goat” were 2 excellent Season 5 episodes (aside from the corny 3-point lecture that ended “Peter and the Wolf”). “Mail-Order Hero” was pretty good too (and inspired a DIFF’RENT STROKES plot with Muhammad Ali years later). The overall quality did diminish though. I have no idea where the show could’ve gone in a Season 6 or later.
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I had never heard of a ten-year-old child needing bifocals, but I just perused some medical websites and they are indeed prescribed due to problems such as “accommodative esotropia”.
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Here are 10 things I disliked about this episode:
1. Cousin Oliver joins the Brady clan.
2. The kids think that Carol is pregnant when they overhear Carol saying that there will be another addition to the Brady household.
3. Cousin Oliver ruins everything when he’s staying with the Bradies. This kid was the reason The Brady Bunch got cancelled.
4. The fact that Oliver’s parents would send him to live with his aunt and uncle and not his grandparents.
5. As hilarious as it was, Mike trips over a basketball while showing Carol a building he designed from scratch. Unfortunately, the mishap destroys Mike’s three-dimensional model of a building, which probably took weeks to construct.
6. Mike doesn’t join the Bradies when they go to a movie studio.
7. Cousin Oliver’s John Denver-esque haircut and thick-framed glasses.
8. Carol teasing Mike that there will be another addition to the Brady household.
9. Oliver accidentally squirting ketchup on Greg as he’s making a Dagwood sandwich. Why would Greg want ketchup on his sandwich? People don’t put ketchup on sandwiches, unless it’s a cheeseburger! Greg should’ve picked mayonnaise for his condiment choice on his sandwich. Also, would you trust your relatives to put condiments on your sandwich by squeezing the middle of the tube?
10. Bobby and Oliver playing tug of war with a trash bag, leading Bobby to walk backwards and break two flower plots. Yes, this mishap scene was bar none the weakest!
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I remember seeing this and the previous week’s episodes when they originally aired in their Friday 8 PM time slots (as I did practically all the Brady Bunch episodes – I was 8 when the show started). After the preceding week’s episode’s original broadcast, there was a teaser trailer for this episode, showing a clip of Carol Brady telling Mike about their new member of the family and Mike’s stunned reaction. Stupidly I fell for this little publicity stunt, and excitedly awaited the next week’s episode for the big reveal of Mrs. Brady having a baby, as did many of my classmates during the course of that week. At the time it seemed like an exciting direction for the show to head in. So imagine everyone’s letdown when that baby storyline was replaced with – Cousin Oliver! That in part might explain the resentment at the time of the introduction of this character, as we viewers (at least us young gullible ones) were as set up with Carol Brady’s lame “new family member” joke as Mike Brady was, for a whole week no less. In retrospect a baby storyline might also have not really worked out had the show gone on to Season 6 but the disappointment seemed to contribute to the Cousin Oliver backlash, although not enough to keep me or other young viewers from tuning in.
Whether or not it was a ratings hit, Brady Bunch did last 5 years because it was popular with young viewers. As an 8 to 12 year old in my world it was a popular show. And it was airing in re-runs by 1973 where I lived twice a day. Partridge Family was more popular overall, but that waned off after it’s third season (Partridge Family started a year after Brady Bunch) and when it switched from Friday to Saturday nights. But that show had more appeal to older viewers, older than 8 to 12 that is. The two youngest cast members playing Chris and Tracy barely had anything to do, unlike the similarly aged Brady kids, and mostly looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders when they didn’t understand or couldn’t relate to the older cast member’s issues. There were rarely episodes revolving around them (like the running away from home episode) unlike all the Brady kids cast. Sometimes it felt more like the Danny Bonaduce show, and he usually played off the more mature cast members of the series. Brady Bunch was more relatable to younger viewers, even though Partridge Family had a cool factor, at the time, for a while (and teeny-bopper appeal for David Cassidy). Cousin Oliver was likely seen as a way to bring in even younger viewers, not just the ones growing up with the show, but it didn’t work at all (maybe if he had a sister to play off of, like the rest of the Brady kids- probably not but who knows).
Anyway, in my small world of the time the Brady Bunch stayed appealing even during weak season 5, and most viewers of a certain age would have followed the series into a 6th season, episode quality drop not withstanding. I still remember a local newspaper in Spring 1974 announcing cancelled TV shows and was devastated to see the Brady Bunch listed among the casualties.
One final, rather trivial note. When Cousin Oliver arrives at the Brady residence with Mike there’s a rather cheesy “Ta Da!!!!” musical fanfare accompanying his otherwise lackluster entrance. That really bugged me as his arrival and character were really nothing to cheer about. Like most everyone else, I felt it was the Cousin Oliver concept that was irksome, not so much the actor.
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I wonder what would’ve happened if Oliver was an “Olivia”? There would be no place for a little girl relative to sleep. I also wondered if Peter and Bobby were put out by having to share a room again.
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Major decisions should be discussed with your spouse first. But Carol agreed for her nephew to come stay with them before talking to Mike. A family discussion following would seem appropriate also. But the scene between Carol and Alice was comical; “Is this family under the impression that I am going to have a baby?”
Alice nods with uncertainty, “Aren’t you under that impression?”
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I was one of TBB and TPF’s youngest fans during their last season. Those kids were so old and I was a baby. My late father and I would sit on the rocking chhair and watch those two shows every Wednesday night.
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Sorry, but I am one of those Mini John Denver….errr I mean Cousin Oliver dislikers. The addition, the character, the storylines…everything. He wasn’t cute, he was annoying. I am roughly the same age as Robbie Rist, and as a first-run avid BB fan, I did NOT think “Yay a kid my age!” – I just thought “Why is John Denver’s son suddenly ruining the BB?”.
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I never really had a problem with Cousin Oliver. He was not to the show what a tordepo is to the hull of a ship. the show was winding down and would have been cancelled regardless of Oliver or not.
Booby and Cindy were now almost the same age as Greg and Marcia were in season one. I think they needed somone to do the “little kid” stuff and since this was the only episode to center around him and he was in the background for the remaining episodes, he was harmless.
My problem was how the went about doing it. The episode before, they pre-emepted the clsoing credits with a scene from next week’s show (something they only did once before when they were going on a show to sing because of the silver platter mishap). The viewing audience was teased when Carol told Mike about a new addition to the family making us all beleive Carol was going to have a baby.
Nope… just someone dumping a nephew on them. If I had to do that to my kid, I wouldn’t ask a releative who already had six kids to board my own. Most off, Carol TOLD Mike Oliver was comingto live with them. She didn’t even have a meeting to ask her husband if that was OK or even get the kids input.
And you would think that Oliver’s parents would at least drop him off at the Brady house and stick around for a bit to see how he adjusts. Nope, just dump the kid and disappear.
Poor Oliver. Unlike the others cast members who already knew, no one bothered to tell him until a few days before he was to report to work that the show was not picked up for another season months ago.
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Scot,
These are valid points:
1) there was no other relative to foist Oliver on, except a sister who already had SIX kids?
2) Carol doesn’t discuss it 1st w/ Mike or mention it to the kids, just *SPLAT* Oliver dump;
3) Carol’s brother hasn’t seen her in (at least) 5 years and didn’t bother to at least kiss the moptop goodbye and farewell or introduce him to the family;
4) how exciting would it have been if they did have Carol become pregnant, the only child to truly be from Carol and Mike? Instead of Oliver escapades, it would have been preggers, pratfalls and pranks! Then, the season ends with Carol giving birth to fraternal twins – a brown haired boy and a blonde girl.
So how is all this explained away? Well, the archeological dig required immediate departure for South America and they knew leaving their only child would be a long, heartbreaking ordeal. When Carol spoke to her brother on the phone, she offered to take him in, knowing Mike and the kids would understand, given the circumstances. Plus, with Greg moving off to college in a few months, it would still be six kids.
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1. You’re right, it wasn’t nice for Carol to get Mike’s hopes up about a new baby.
2. To Tweety: Good point about Oliver’s parents. They never had their son meet his cousins while they all were in America. Then they only call the day before his arrival, and don’t even say how long he’s going to be living with the Bradys. That would be even more important for Oliver to know than for his hosts. Can you imagine being 8 years old, an only child, and being told that tomorrow you’re moving in to a family with 6 kids you’ve never met before, and you don’t even know how long it will be before you see your own parents again? How scary! He probably thought that with 6 kids, at least one of them might be mean to him, and they’re all older and bigger than him, besides having the home-field advantage. And to top it all off, they don’t even need to visit and see for themselves the home their only son will be living in. They are just assuming the Bradys aren’t awful. It’s a strong credit to Oliver that he turned out so nice, with parents like that.
3. To GoGetterCferg: I think it was a good decision to send Oliver to live with the Bradys instead of his grandparents. He gets to live with other kids, which he’s never had a chance to do before as an only child. He’s likeable enough that they all get along with him, once they stop being stupid about him being a “jinx.”
4. To Vincent Bellizia: Sending Oliver to live with a sister who already had 6 kids, makes a certain kind of sense. Carol already had the infrastructure for a large family. Increasing a family from 6 to 7 kids, is not nearly as big an adjustment as increasing from 1 to 2 kids. And maybe Carol felt sorry for Oliver, since his parents weren’t very involved in a major transition in his life, and wanted him to have more stability in his life, even if only for a short time.
5. Jan’s painting of Cindy was indeed hideous, and you’re right, Cindy didn’t need to model for it, as it looked nothing like her (or, thank God, any other real human).
6. Mowing the AstroTurf: Come on, producers, we can see the seams of the AstroTurf buckling! It’s totally obvious that’s not a real lawn.
7. Good point, though, GoGetterCferg, about putting ketchup on a Dagwood sandwich! I’m glad that now we have squeeze bottles instead of glass whack-em-on-the-bottom bottles.
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Nice analysis, Bonnie. 😊
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Thanks for sharing your thoughts on The Brady Bunch! I look forward to reading more.
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If there’s one episode that brought The Brady Bunch down the hammer, it was definitely this episode! Cousin Oliver is probably the worst thing that happened to the Brady Bunch! Because Cousin Oliver joins the Bradies in the fifth and final season, he doesn’t have much time to build chemistry with the rest of the cast. He’s the reason why The Brady Bunch jumped the shark. Granted, the show was already going downhill, but adding a new kid to the show’s lineup only exacerbated things! It is also my final Brady Bunch episode review. Here are my thoughts:
And that’s the way they all became The Brady Bunch! A sitcom that defined a generation!
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