The Brady Bunch Episode #8

Welcome to the wonderful world of Brady! Here is my review of The Brady Bunch Episode #8. Yes, it is awesome. This episode is called “A Camping We Will Go” and the original air date was November 14, 1969. Can you guess what it’s about? You guys are so smart. Yes, the Brady’s go camping. This is the first camping trip with all family members and Alice. The boys don’t want the stupid girls to go and the girls don’t want to go because of the icky things. They all go on the trip and, of course, have the time of their life.

The show opens with Carol getting their dusty camping equipment out of the garage. Mike is planning his annual camping trip for the boys but this time he’s bring the girls along as well. They’re going to show the kids that togetherness isn’t just a word. Lame.

Brady Dialogue

The boys are all pissed off that the girls are going to go on the trip:

GREG: Ah, dad. Why can’t you understand? Girls on a camping trip is just too far out.
BOBBY: They’ll ruin our fun.
GREG: They might even get lost.
PETER: Hey, maybe we should bring ’em along.

Hahaha! Good one, Peter! The girls don’t want to go on the trip either. Cindy is afraid of wild animalth. Mike and Carol tell the kids they have to go or else they’ll kill them. Just kidding. I made that up. I should have been a writer for the Brady Bunch. It would have been way better.

The kids march out to the station wagon to get going on the trip. Why is Alice wearing Cousin Emma’s uniform? How come they don’t lock up when they leave for their camping trip? Mike closes the curtains and the fake sliding glass door, but there was no way they could have locked it from that side. I guess things were much safer back in 1969.

Ah, Pith

The family finally gets in the car and they’re ready to leave when Cindy whispers into Carol’s ear, “Mommy, I really have to take a pith”. Everyone in the car then decides they need to go to the bathroom as well. All except Mike head back into the house to go wee wee. He sits in the car and fumes….”That damn Sherwood Schwartz!!!”

The Brady’s finally get going and of course sing songs as they’re driving to the camp site. “I like big butts and I cannot lie. You other brothers can’t deny….” This was well before any seatbelt laws as Cindy is sitting on Carol’s lap in the front seat.

The next scene shows their camp site with the boys and girls tents set up. Carol is sweeping the ground with a branch. Where’s Alice? Doesn’t she do all the housework?

Brady Fishing

The boys didn’t want the girls to go fishing, but of course they had to go. Togetherness. Greg and Jan come back first. Greg is all pissed off because Jan had a hold on the huge fish he caught but Jan let go because it felt fishy. Smart. Peter and Marcia come back next. Peter is pissed off at Marcia because she broke his line. She walked into it by mistake and it felt like a cobweb. Bobby comes back and tells Alice and Carol that Mike caught something really big. It turns out to be Cindy. Hahahaha! That is so funny! Not. Cindy fell in the water and scared all the fish away. Thupid turd. She said she didn’t thwim on purpose. She thwam on accident.

Carol and Marcia bring out a big basket of food. Carol says she and the girls packed it in the car. Huh? That doesn’t make sense to me. Is there some kind of grocery store in the car?

Cut to Mike and Carol in front of the propane fueled fake fire. This was filmed on a sound stage and not on location. They’re trying to be romantic but the little rats are calling from their tents.

Nighttime

Carol and the girls are all in their pajamas. The inside of the tent is mysteriously larger than the outside. They get scared when they hear the hoot of an owl. Carol screams for Mike who comes running over. After calming down the females, Mike returns to the boys’ tent where they all talk about how stupid the girls are.

Once asleep, Alice punctures her air mattress with all the crap in her hair. She says she thinks it’s a rattle snake which make all the girls scream. Mike is woken up and runs over to save them. When he’s pulling his sleeping bag off, his pants almost come off with it. Yay! Mike runs to the girls’ tent and starts feeling around inside Alice’s sleeping bag. He says “Oh, I’m sorry” but it doesn’t seem scripted. I wonder what he grabbed inside that sleeping bag. Tee hee.

Brady Dialogue

Mike returns to the male tent and the boys start bitching more about the girls:

MIKE: Don’t you remember it was the girls who brought all that food.
GREG: That’s right fellas.
PETER: It was pretty good too.
BOBBY: Well, I guess women are okay for some things.

What a little sexist pig you are, Bobby.

At 23:09 in my DVD, Robert Reed looks the most gorgeous I have ever seen him. I remember this shot from when I was a kid and thinking way back then how handsome he was. Anyway, the girls scare the boys with a fake bear silhouette which logistically didn’t make sense to me. The boys run out of their tent, the girls scream, and the boys run into the girls’ tent to beat the crap out of them. Susan Olsen said in the commentary how she really wanted to be in that scene because it looked like so much fun but wasn’t allowed because the producers thought she might get hurt. The scene ends with Mike getting pulled into the tent and they all roll around and work on their togetherness.

The tag is of Carol and Mike sitting on their bed as they’ve just come home from their camping trip. Greg comes in and tells his parents that they’ve just had a kid meeting downstairs and how they’d like to go everywhere together from now on. Mike and Carol fall back on the bed laughing hysterically. The end.