My name is Tammy and I’m a dork. Welcome to my world! This is the fifth installment of the Brady Bunch episode reviews. I am reviewing each and every Brady episode in my own special Brady way. This is my review of episode #5 which originally aired on October 24, 1969. It is entitled “Katchoo”. How cute. It’s basically about Jan sneezing. Are you excited?
The episode begins with all of the Brady children, sans Jan, happily coming down the stairs on their way to school. Alice and Carol are at the door greeting them with their bag lunch. How perfect and Brady like. They discover there’s one lunch left and realize Jan didn’t come down. Jan finally walks down the stairs with her feet sideways. She looks like a duck. Eve Plumb does a good job of fake sneezing. Carol decides Jan should stay home from school. Even though Jan doesn’t have a fever, Carol thinks she has the flu. Smort.
Carol is in the kitchen making tuna salad, Mike’s favorite. Alice is frosting a cake. The cake goes from being less frosted from one scene to the next. Oops.
Alice and Carol try to play doctor and figure out what’s making Jan sneeze. They have her sniff a bunch of stuff. She sniffs different weeds, flowers, flour, their ass (just kidding), and other things. They think maybe she’s allergic to one of her new brothers or her dad. Oh no!
Mike comes home at lunch and goes upstairs to see Jan. Mike walks into her room and says “Hi Princess”. Jan says “Hi Daddy”. She sounds funny when she says it – kind of like a baby just learning to talk. Jan immediately starts sneezing which makes Carol and Alice (who are hidden outside in the hall) think Jan is allergic to her dad. Poopy! They finally realize that Tiger the dog is the culprit.
Cut to the boys playing football in the fake backyard while Carol and Mike sit at the kitchen table and drink copious amounts of coffee. Why did Alice pour Mike a cup of coffee and then immediately clear it away?
TRIVIA – Mike and the boys got Tiger before they had Bobby.
Mike Brady: Jan’s allergic to Tiger….and I’m afraid, boys, that they cannot live together in the same house.
Peter Brady: Aw Dad.
Greg Brady: That’s terrible.
Bobby Brady: Where’s Jan gonna live?
The boys say a tearful goodbye to Tiger in their room. Tiger ignores all of them while he chews on a big bone.
Tiger gets washed a bunch. Cindy and Marcia give him a bath in their bathroom (where we never got to see the toilet). Then the boys give him a bath. Alice also gives him one later on. Mike sneaks out of bed in the night to give Tiger another bath. He’s one clean doggy.
They show Mike and Carol in their evening wear. Carol looks like a pink Victoria’s Secret model super pinup. Mike looks like boring Mike.
Everyone comes down the stairs the next morning and comments on how squeaky clean Tiger smells. Jan is the last to arrive and, of course, starts sneezing. Mike decides right then and there to take Tiger over to Grandma’s. In running Tiger’s new flea powder out to Mike before he leaves, Jan starts sneezing once again. It’s not Tiger she’s allergic to! It’s the flea powder! Why didn’t anyone think of that before?! Why are they so stupid?!
FYI, I sneezed a lot while writing this blog. Seriously. Check back in a few weeks when I review the episode where the kids fight over the clubhouse that magically appears in the backyard. It’ll be Brady-licious.