10 little mistakes you never noticed in 'The Brady Bunch'
If there's one thing the Brady kids taught us, it's that little goofs are inevitable in life. Sometimes, you break your mom's favorite vase while playing basketball indoors. Or, perhaps you want draw up some football plays on the chalk board in the kitchen and you accidentally erase your housekeeper's forgotten family cake recipe. Hey, it happens in a house full of six kids.
So the creators of The Brady Bunch should not feel too bad about making minor continuity errors and revealing blunders. Such things happen to every show.
Still, they can be pretty fun and fascinating to catch. Here are ten blink-and-you'll-miss-them goofs from The Brady Bunch.
What's in a name?
"What Goes Up…"
It can be tough to keep actors' and characters' names straight in the heat of the moment. In "What Goes Up…," when Peter hops up on the trampoline, Florence Henderson cheers, "Go get 'em, Chris!" A bit later, Greg lets an "Eve" slip intead of "Jan." This also happens in "Amateur Night," when the kids practice for a talent show, as Marcia says, "C'mon, Chris!"
Turf's up!
"Quarterback Sneak"
Are we supposed to believe that's grass in the Brady backyard? It's clearly Astroturf. In fact, when the boys are playing football in "Quarterback Sneak," a tile of artificial turf comes loose. Greg rips up a panel of it when he plants his foot. Speaking of the fake lawn, a stage light reportedly fell early in production and burned a patch of the Astroturf. The crew covered it up with the doghouse.
Home security is a real pane in the glass.
"The Big Bet"
This is a little goof you can spot in a few episodes, but this example comes from "The Big Bet." When Bobby comes in through the sliding glass door, the curtain breezes through the frame — there is no glass in the sliding glass door! In another episode, Sam the Butcher puts his hand through the non-existant pane.
Going through changes.
"Goodbye, Alice, Hello"
Little clothing continuity errors pop up through the series. In the intro of "Goodbye, Alice, Hello," Greg and Peter come home from school, tossing books around like a football. When Greg first enters the backyard, he is wearing what looks like black Beatles boots. However, in the next shot, when they head inside, he has on white Adidas sneakers.
Maybe it's like a mood ring?
"The Not-So-Ugly Duckling"
Jan has a rather significant clothing snafu in "The Not-So-Ugly Duckling." At the beginning, when Jan explains to her parents that her crush Clark only has eyes for Marcia, she is wearing a floral patterned shirt with a red rope of yarn in her hair. She then heads upstairs to confront Marcia, her hair tie is now green — and her shirt is completely different. Mike and Carol, on the other hand, have on the same thing when they come upstairs.
Blame it on the brain freeze.
"The Winner"
Clothing is not the only thing being swapped in the middle of storylines. In "The Winner," Mike and Carol take Bobby to a televised ice-cream-eating contest. When they leave for the TV station, they drive the blue convertible. However, when they return, they're in the brown station wagon.
A convertible kitchen
"Confessions, Confessions"
Speaking of convertibles, the ceiling comes off the kitchen, as well. In this classic episode with the broken vase, when the reassembled vase springs a leak at dinner, Alice jokes, "Anyone got three coins for the fountain?" It is a low-angled shot. Look over their heads and you can see the rigging of the studio, above the walls of the kitchen.
A house of cards
"54-40 and Fight"
The kids build a house of cards, which Tiger then knocks over. That must have been a tough prop to assemble, right? Well, clearly they used some adhesive, as when the come a-tumblin' down, a few cards stubbornly remain magically glued together. Hey, which kid cheated? Bobby. It was probably Bobby.
Was Spider-Man to blame?
"The Hero"
Peter rescues a little girl from a collapsing shelving unit at the toy store. When the case falls over, you can clearly see a thin, white rope yanking the red shelves from the wall.
A chip off the ol' block
"You Can't Win 'Em All"
Mike is an architect, so his house should be immaculate, no? In a couple cases, you can see that tiles are missing from the end of the raised brick entryway to the Brady home. Perhaps the boys chipped them off playing sports in the house again?