The Partridge Family Episode #8

Please enjoy my review of The Partridge Family Episode #8. This episode originally aired on November 13, 1970 and is called “But the Memory Lingers On”. It’s about the Partridge Family smelling. Awesome.

The Partridge Family Episode #8 opens with the song I Think I Love You which hit number one on the charts two days after this show originally aired. The Partridges have a rare day off and are having a lovely picnic. Tracy is picking flowers, Danny and Chris are running, and the rest of the clan are pretending to listen to music on the stereo they have on the table. There’s no electricity nearby and it wasn’t battery operated. Nice prop.

Pepe Le Peu

While the Partridges are picnicking, the family dog Simone (who looks a lot like the Brady Bunch’s dog, Tiger) finds a playmate in Pepe Le Peu. Simone chases the skunk around and then it ends up getting on the bus. Oh no! If you look closely, the poor skunk didn’t voluntarily get on the bus. It was pulled up by wires. Animal cruelty! The Partridges all board the bus. Laurie picks up Simone, who I’m sure weighs more than her, and is the last to board the bus.

Laurie is the first to notice the skunk as they’re driving away from the park. Shirley slams on the brakes and the skunk literally gets kicked off the bus. More animal cruelty!

Shirley asks if everyone is okay. Tracy asks what the funny smell is and Danny says “Don’t look at me”. Funny. My ex-husband actually likes the smell of skunk. I don’t mind it.

Robbers!

The Partridges decide to rent a crappy hotel room just so they can take a bath and smell nicer for when they arrive at their elegant snobby hotel. When they arrive at the crappy hotel, Shirley does the most awesome parking job with the bus. Not. She then decides to call the crapbag hotel from a phone outside instead of going inside the lobby. She thought that would be better because of the smell. How considerate of Shirley!

When the hotel clerk looks outside, he’s terrified to see a group of robbers! The Partridges had put handkerchiefs over their noses to help avoid the smell of the skunky bus but end up looking like hoodlums. Oh no! The gay hotel clerk calls the cops who arrive in seconds to harass the poor Partridge kids. Shirley gets her mama bear on and protects her children by saying they did nothing wrong. The cops ask why they were wearing “holdup masks”. Funny. The crapbag hotel didn’t even let them rent a room. Lame.

The Partridges arrive at the snooty high class hotel still smelling like skunk. They walk through the lobby while all the rich snobs give them dirty looks. Shirley is trying to explain to the hotel clerk that they’ve had a very unfortunate accident. When he becomes confused, Danny yells out “We don’t smell very good!” There’s a message from Reuben stating that he booked a benefit concert at a children’s hospital that night.

They walk into their hotel suite and Shirley immediately tells the kids which bathrooms to use. How did she know where the bathrooms were? Had they stayed at this hotel before?

The Ultimate Bath

They all take a shower and are sitting in the front room in towels when Reuben arrives. (FYI, David Cassidy looks pretty yummy in only a towel.) Reuben walks in and smells the skunk. The Partridges are devastated because they scrubbed so hard they almost scrubbed their skin off and they STILL smell. Reuben remembers there’s something in tomato juice that kills the smell, so he orders 40 large cans of tomato juice from room service. That would make a lot of bloody mary’s. Yum.

The family get their bodies clean but then realize they have nothing to wear since their clothes are contaminated with the skunk smell. Reuben and Danny troll around the hotel looking for clothes. This is comical for many reasons, but especially because Danny is wearing Reuben’s suit. They round up enough clothes for the whole family. Shirley looks absolutely gorgeous in the prostitute outfit. Chris looks adorable in the bellhop uniform. Laurie is cute in her marching band uniform.

The family gets in a cab while Reuben plans to drive the smelly bus with the equipment. The family has been clean for a few minutes and are about to leave for the gig when a cute boy puts Simone in the cab. Oops. The boy saw Simone on the bus and said he looked lonely. You shouldn’t leave animals locked up in cars, peoples. Yay to the boy for rescuing him. He had a bad cold so he wasn’t aware that Simone smelled like skunk. So, the family is once again polluted.

The Benefit Concert

The Partridges end up performing the benefit concert in a sterile operating room while the kids look on behind glass from above. That reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where Kramer drops a Junior Mint inside someone that was being operated on.

The Partridges perform “A Brand New Me”. I like the individual scenes of the family while the sax and brass line is happening. (Where are the sax, trumpet, and trombone players? Is Reuben playing from off in the corner?) Danny looks happy and adorable with his big mouth open singing. Tracy looks all stupid. Does she not know to hit the tambourine on the beat? She’s just kind of whacking it here and there. Shirley is beautiful as always. There’s a really cute profile shot of Chris. A lot of drum action is happening while they show him but he’s just kind of sitting there. Oops. But he looks just adorable.

The show ends with the family on the elevator heading up to their hotel suite. They hold the door for Reuben who comes running up. He’s been in the bus and now smells. Everyone vacates the elevator and Reuben leaves us with some crack about being abandoned. The end.

Thanks for reading my review of The Partridge Family Episode #8. See you soon!