The whole premise of the show was three blond girls and three brown haired boys. It defied reason and was the stupidest mistake in television. Eight is Enough had one kid and seven adult-looking children. There was no reason why they couldn’t take Susan’s hair down and give them teenage scripts appropriate to all of them. Kids in the 70s watched shows for adults and didn’t need a Cousin Oliver to be appealing. Kids didn’t need a Cousin Oliver on MASH, Cheers, and Laverne and Shirley to love those shows.
@@rodjerdankist1125 no, it's been said about him for 20 years. On every mention of him he was called a John Denver miniature. Still not original though
Jeffrey Dotson According to Susan Olsen (aka Cindy Brady) the original plan was for Carol Brady to get pregnant with twins, a boy and a girl. Paramount didn't like the idea because the family was too large as it is. I think the show might have fared better with that, but they needed to give the "kids" age appropriate stories. The fact that the Shirley Temple episode (which Susan rightly despises) ended up being the third last episode of the series speaks for itself.
+Jeffrey Dotson This is where the term "Cousin Oliver'd" came from... So whenever you hear that term used to describe a cancellation of a TV show, remember this is where it cam from...
Not a fair comparison. Butters was with South Park since the very first epsiode, and was properly introduced in early season 2. Oliver was so bad that he has a syndrome and curse named named after him. Oliver is so bad, I cant stand anything about the kid. He looks cringe, that dumb music that plays during his mishaps is equally corny and cringe
That poor kid who played Oliver eventually grew up into a bitter guy named Robbie Rist who hated his role and the time he spent on this show. And there's nothing he hates more than talking about it or being questioned about it.
Totally untrue! Like Rist himself said " I was on the freaking Brady Bunch, how cool is that"! And he's right, he's one up on all of us!! Sorry to burst your doom and gloom, B.S. thought process!!📺🇺🇸
Cousin Oliver didn't ruin anything. The show's executive producer Sherwood Schwartz refused to change and adapt the show for an older audience. Greg and Marcia were both 17-18 year old goody two shoes. The writers were stuck writing corny shows. It worked when they were 13-14. But not at that age.
Even if they could make it for older audiences they couldn't. By the time the show got to this point in its run it was pretty much being marketed to children. The Brady kids even had a Saturday morning cartoon and a band. It had a stigma.
I wrecked the show, believe me, I don't have that kind of power! Straight from the mouth of Robbie Rist himself!! He didn't ruin the show, and he didn't hate being on it! He loved his time on the show, and he gets the last laugh! He was on The Brady Bunch, and we weren't!!
When Robbie Rist was on The Show, he started a tradition of bringing a New Character on a Show that was about to be cancelled. Luke on Growing Pains, Jeremy on Eight Is Enough, Pam on The Cosby Show, and the biggest irony is that Leonardo DiCaprio and Ralph Macchio were in Oscar Winning Movies.
When Ralph Macchino debuted on Eight is Enough, he was registering for high school, and when the counselor asked him his age, he replied, 47. That would make him in his fifties when he was in The Karate Kid, and about 91 today.
Cousin Oliver didn't kill the show, it was basically deader than yesterday's dinner when he came on the show. What killed the show was the fact that the scriptwriters refused to keep up with the kids age appropriate wise and the fact that the show with few exceptions (i.e. Greg smoking) basically all but avoided "third rail" issues. People forget that this show was actually not that popular when it was on and was considered outdated by many even then.
Interesting comment James. I used to be really kind of perplexed, even as a child, that even when the kids got into high school , the gallons of milk they were still consuming?? Seriously guys? Introduce juice or soda, even tap water.. or even a ''lesson learned'' episode of one of them experimenting with alcohol.. Final episode I've always thought should have been Alice and Sam get married.
Mike Rubinate I think if the show had gone to a sixth season, Alice and Sam would have gotten married. They did between the final episode of the fifth season and the Brady Girls Get Married. The final episode did have some closure with Greg graduating from high school, but it was written with everyone not knowing that it was going to be the last episode. If I had to ask Barry Williams one question it would be what role would Greg have played had TBB gone one more year? Would he have been a special guest star throughout the season or would they find a way to include college in that season?
He reminds me of a little John Denver. Perhaps if he said “Far Out” and sang Rocky Mountain High on the show his presence may have been more successful.
I never disliked Robbie Rist. But he was given nothing to do on the show, other than him being a jinx, which was stupid. The writers were clearly running out of ideas. It was especially evident in "The Snooperstar" with Cindy behaving like a brat, despite being clearly too old for that. Susan Olson was completely justified in disliking that episode most of all.
Or how about the episode where Peter JUST HAPPENS to run into his exact look-alike in school, and this lookalike is able to fool his own parents into thinking it's Peter.
Any truth to the rumor that Cousin Oliver of the Brady Bunch was played by Cousin Itt from the Addams Family after he had his long blonde hair trimmed?
Oliver was cute. Let's face it, Bobby & Cindy were good for their day, but by the 5th season, puberty was in the mix and they were no longer the adorable kids anymore. Nothing wrong with that, but Oliver brought back the cute sideshow.
I never understood the reason for introducing Oliver: you have a show with 9 characters, making so the story possibilities were extensive..sometimes 10 if you included Sam, but his character at least made sense. Plus, it threw the entire family dynamic off. Oliver could have been a one episode appearance.
They introduced Oliver (over Sherwood Schwartz' objection BTW) because Paramount felt they needed to have at least one young child for the "cute" factor. By the time he was introduced Mike Lookinland (Bobby) was 13 years old and Susan Olsen (Cindy) was 12 years old, the same age as Maureen McCormick (Marcia) was when they shot the original pilot so they needed something else.
@@anglobostonian Its a stunt they try on many family sitcoms( Different Strokes, Family Ties, Growing Pains, Etc).It never works, but they still do it.
In The UK there's a Actor like Robbie Rist named Jude Riordan who plays Sam, Nick Tilsley's Long Lost Son on Coronation Street a long running Soap Opera. He won the UK Equivalent of a Emmy Award. I told UK Fans how Sam is like Cousin Oliver.
Let's face it----the reason the Brady Bunch is a cultural icon FIFTY years later is because it AVOIDED third rail, "realistic" issues. It's the idealized escapism that we love. Otherwise, the Brady Bunch would have just gone the way of Eight Is Enough or The Brady's.
Obviously It’s a formula that still works. Just look at the Disney Chanel. Its all photoallgenic kids spewing cute one liners. The minute they’re voices change the show is canceled.
+LAMF1968 Well, historically, the addition of a small child to a show in which the other kids have all essentially grown up has been the death knell for the show. The Brady Bunch was already plummeting in the ratings at this point. Other examples include the addition of Dody (Dawn Lyn) to My Three Sons after the three boys had become older, and of course, Olivia (Raven Symone) to The Cosby Show. The addition of little kid characters generally has not been enough to maintain the relevance of TV shows in decline.
When puberty is mentioned here, one season 3 episode's plot is about this (in the case of Peter, who would witness it for real by the end of season 4) and it already hit Greg at the start of season 2.
The show should have evolved correctly, not by adding an awful character with no real depth. As the kids got older, more adult plots should have happened. Like Greg going to college, Bobby and Cindy having their own dating escapades, and maybe Peter getting Marcia pregnant. What? They are step siblings, so there’s no real reason why they couldn’t hook up.
