For me personally, I’ve always enjoyed the absurdity that was “The Brady Bunch”. Where else could you find a show that had Joe Namath, Desi Arnaz Jr. AND Davy Jones just “happen” to drop in to wrap up the plot?!? The Davy Jones episode is still my all time favorite, just because I’m a bit of a Monkees nut, which is a whole other discussion about absurd tv shows!! Anyway, I guess the point which I have been dancing around, is that it was as everyone says, a show that made you laugh. Well….except for the last season where it was stretching it a bit!! I mean Cousin Oliver? Come on!!

What’s interesting to me is that I agree with just about everything Reed said – except when he refers to “The Brady Bunch,” the show he is so intimately familiar with and the whole purpose of the essay.

“The Brady Bunch” was certainly a progressive show (dealing with divorce, a modern, unconventional family) and had many dramatic moments, but make NO mistake – this show was made for fun. It was silly, consistently unchallenging and the majority of problems the show dealt with were paper-thin. It didn’t contain real problems, and the problems it did contain came with simple, sugary solutions. This was pure entertainment. Not dinner, but dessert.

But did it open this way, or did it shift in midstream? I suggest it VERY much established this universe right up front. For example, the pilot episode included Mike and Carol’s marriage climaxing with a slapstick sequence involving the family dog chasing a cat (tipping over tables and presents, causing people formally dressed to scream and gasp hysterically while running wildly), resulting in wedding cake literally in the face. And let’s not forget… Mike and Carol had all of their kids, their family dog – AND THEIR MAID – join them on their honeymoon.

In other words, from episode ONE, “The Brady Bunch” was a show that did NOT exist in the real world. It was close, and it had many elements of the real world. It wasn’t THAT far out, but it immediately established – this is sooooort of like the real world….. if the real world had no real problems. It was a world where parents take their kids and their maid on their honeymoon. It was a show that some people would laugh at, some people would awww with, and others would just sigh and wish that the real world could be so simple and sweet.

But I suspect Reed knew this. After all, referring to the cake in the face during the pilot episode, Reed was quoted as saying, in effect “When I read that, I knew we were back on Gilligan’s Island.” Meaning: I realized this is not a show that exists in the real world. This is a show where people build cars from bamboo.

I suspect that Reed, having contempt for the show for so long, had finally had enough. “The Brady Bunch” was not the type of show Reed wanted to be associated with. And yet, there he was. “The Brady Bunch” was not praised by critics or respected by fans of legitimate, intelligent theater. It was popcorn. It was fluff. It was very, very simple.

And I will say this, “The Brady Bunch” knew what it was, knew who it was for, and gave them exactly that. In fact, this show, for an incredible amount of people, has truly stood the test of time. And there’s a reason why the show was loved by so many, and continues to be, decade after decade. And after all of these years, I can add one observation to the mix that Reed missed (probably only because he didn’t have the benefit of decades of hindsight, as I do).

You can’t argue with success.

As Eric rightly said – at the end of all of it, if it makes you laugh, it works.

“No Country For Old Men” sure was grim, but it knew a good joke when it saw one. (Maybe “joke” could have used some quotes back there.) Worlds colliding are far more jarring than genres colliding. It was obnoxious when cheesy 90s sitcoms brought in characters from other sitcoms, and not because the shows were particularly different: you were being asked to step outside the world of one show and to introduce parts of another.

Those who are still interested can read the full analysis in my upcoming book: “Sherlock Holmes Meets Pauly Shore as The Wolfman”.

When you think about it, television shows are afforded more freedom with this than a play or film because, due to their immense total running length, they have two types of consistency: intra-episode and inter-episode, the first of which matters much less than the latter.

A television show can present a novel menagerie of seemingly contradictory styles, and provided they are well mixed (of course each episode must to a degree stand on its own) and maintain essentially the same mix (or availability thereof) on every show throughout the series, there is no conflict.

Scrubs, for example, is a fairly realistic hospital-based comedy with fully acted and produced dream/fantasy sequences that border on the absurd. The fact that I could write that sentence and have it apply to basically every episode demonstrates its inter-episode consistency. A first-time watcher may be slightly thrown off by watching it initially, but the show quickly establishes itself, and by the end, one could watch any other episode and not be confused at the sequences.

The Simpsons is a little more complicated in its style(s), and though a similar topic sentence could be written about it, I’m definitely not going to try here. It gets even more freedom due to its animated nature, but there is still an established level of realism that we all accept. Kang and Kodos don’t appear as actual characters except on the Treehouse of Horror episodes, for example–episodes that demonstrate, by their very existence, the limits/universe of all the rest.

I too have a lot more respect for Reed now after reading this. I expect that, in the same circumstances, I would feel the same way, but I would probably be like… mmm… money… and not write the letter.

KLINGER, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?

YOU’RE NOT STERILE! GET OUT!

I’m not Klinger, I’m Zoltan’s alter-ego Adam West! Here’s that O-negative you asked for, Sir. Sign this form. It’s my section-8.

Done! (POW!)

Eric, you are right about the “knowing the rules before you break them” line. I’m beginning to wonder if anyone even understands how to make a story work anymore. If done right, every scene, set, prop, plot, character, and nuance should work to move the story along to its (hopefully) foreshadowed conclusion. Last week, I watched Jean Renoir’s “The Rules of the Game” and Roberto Rossellini’s “Open City”. Man, these films have layer upon layer upon layer of nuance and drama. Each scene has rich, textured backgrounds, long shots that show characters acting the “theme” of the film (not just the lines), and dense cinematic story-building subtleties that splash across the screen so often that you need a second viewing to catch them all. Granted, Renoir (son of famous French artist Auguste Renoir) and Rossellini (father of Isabella), were formidable geniuses, but come on Hollywood! Make a movie and make it have a point for Pete’s sake! For every Paul Thomas Anderson, we get a hundred Fred Savages, Marlon Wayans’, and Uwe Bolls! I’m not expecting Lean, Kubrick, and Hitchcock (sounds like a great law firm) every time I go to the theater, but I’d like something that doesn’t insult my intelligence every time either.
I really miss the smart PG movies Tinseltown used to make–ones that I could thoroughly enjoy and not feel like I had to deprogram myself afterwards. “Missing”, “Absence of Malice”, “Shadowlands”, “The Mission”, “Finding Neverland”, and “Chariots of Fire” to name a few. These movies reeked GRAVITAS. And story never suffered.
Well, that was fun. I’m off my box now. Someone else can have it