The Brady Bunch Episode #24

Hello! Thanks for joining me for The Brady Bunch Episode #24 where I review the show in my own special way. This show was called The Grass Is Always Greener and originally aired on March 13, 1970. It’s about when Mike and Carol switch roles for the weekend. Mike helps the girls in the kitchen and Carol helps the boys play baseball. They end up realizing how hard their partner’s job really is.

The Brady Bunch Episode #24 opens with the boys walking in from the backyard from baseball practice. They look exhausted. Mike walks in and sits at the kitchen table and tells Carol how pooped he is. Carol says her outing with the girls for Marcia’s nature study badge is exhausting. Mike says it sounds like fun. She says it’s hard work. They bicker about who has it harder.

Argument

Cut to Mike and Carol getting ready for bed. Carol looks like a glamorous movie star while Mike is all dorkily buttoned up in his pajamas. Carol is still bitching about all the work she’s had to do this month to help Marcia get her water fun badge, foot travelers badge, gypsy badge, whore badge, Daniel Boone badge, and at the same time keep two other girls occupied. Next up is Marcia’s cooking badge. Poor Carol. How does she do it all with the whole no job and housekeeper thing?

The argument continues into the next morning. Alice suggests that Mike and Carol switch jobs next Saturday. If they’re both so sure that taking care of the opposite sex is so much easier, then it should be a breeze, right?

Mike talks to the boys about Carol taking over baseball practice next Saturday. “But she’s a girl!” Greg says. Mike explains the reasoning behind it and the boys are fine. They assume Mom will suck. They are correct.

Carol tells the girls that Dad is going to help Marcia with her cooking badge. “Alice won’t even let Dad in the kitchen!” Marcia gets it and agrees to let Dad screw it all up. She’s got her mom’s back.

Cut to the evening when Carol fakes a headache. (Not for sexual reasons.) Mike says he has a few things to work on in his office. Carol pretends to go to bed but secretly she is studying baseball because she’s clueless. Mike is learning how to cook by reading books. Both have three books they’re reading for their new Saturday job.

Baseball

It’s Saturday morning and Carol prances out back with her big head. She asks if she can play first base but heads to third. I hate when women are clueless about sports. She falls down pretty much immediately and the boys laugh at her. She then tries to show them a proper batting stance. Bobby is smiling the whole time. I wonder if they were supposed to smile. It looks like he was trying to hold it in. Carol fails miserably at teaching the boys baseball. Big surprise.

Cooking

Mike comes back from the market with way too many groceries. Marcia didn’t specify what kind, so he bought every type of potato and bean the store had. Smart. The kitchen disaster is starting to happen. He tells Marcia that she has no organizational skills and how she should go to the refrigerator only once. “That’s the trouble with women.” Dick. He goes to the fridge and attempts to get everything at once. He ends up spilling everything and slipping on the eggs. I guess Robert Reed had a problem with Sherwood Schwartz because he thought it was stupid to slip on an egg. Be quiet and collect your paycheck, Bob.

Mike cleans up the mess on the floor while leaving the refrigerator door open the entire time. That’s a waste of energy. (That’s the problem with men.) He next destroys the kitchen when he turns the mixer on full blast. Then he pulled down all the bowls from the top shelf. The kitchen is a disaster but he tells Alice “With the proper sense of male organization” it will only take 15 minutes. Dick.

He’s mopping the floor and Alice starts singing. He says, “I work better a cappella. I guess he doesn’t understand what that word means. I think he meant he works better in silence. He slips again and ends up with his head in the bowl of suds. I’m sure he had something to say to old Sherwood about that scene.

Sore Mike & Carol

Cut to Mike and Carol trying to get dressed for dinner. They both confess how hard the jobs were. Mike said “Well, like the saying goes, grass is always greener in someone else’s backyard.” But what if it’s fake grass?

Grandma and Grandpa hobble down the stairs to dinner. They have trouble moving and lifting things. They eat dinner and everyone thinks Marcia did a great job with preparing the meal. Alice helps Carol up from her chair and her napkin is still tucked into her waist. Then it magically disappears. It takes Mike and Carol forever to get up the stairs. Alice is clearing the table and each time she walks in she says, “Night, Mr. & Mrs. Brady”. That’s funny. It’s kind of sad she can’t call them Mike and Carol.

The tag is of Mike and Carol drinking coffee at the kitchen table talking about their plans for next Saturday. Carol has to help Marica with her sewing badge while Mike has to play football with the boys. They start talking about how easy each other’s job is when Alice reminds me them they’re stupid. The end.