Shark Bytes

How can you hate on Cousin Oliver - he set the precedent for every American white boy having a chili bowl haircut by the age of eleven and provided future inspiration Toni Tenille's coiffure.

Menage a trois, anyone? (okay......??) may have hit on something. There are those who believe that the arrival of Cousin Oliver didn't make The Brady Bunch JTS because it had already jumped, which may be true, however I believe it took the show down to a whole new level of sharkdom. The show had, IMO, definitely jumped a bit prior to the Oliver era, but it was still watchable. To me, anyway. Once Ollie came, though, it was 'Hello, shark!'

I believe that a show can jump the shark for more than one reason and at more than one time. If it continues to get worse and worse because of various changes, then it's possible, IMO, to have jumped more than once. In this case, Oliver DID make a show that was dwindling in terms of quality even worse, so it jumped a second time when he joined.

A similar, yet different, phenomenon happened to The Andy Griffith Show. It wasn't the fact that the show went to color that literally made the show JTS, although many, including myself, have voted that it DID JTS when it went to color episodes. No, in my mind, the fact that it went to color almost directly coincided with the time the quality of the show JTS. A combination of Barney leaving and new, lame, characters arriving happened at around the time it went to color, so to me that was the overall, defining point in time when it jumped.

Ah, but this page is about The Brady Bunch and that annoying, shark-jumping dweeb, Cousin Oliver.

Peace.

The Brady Bunch has everything to do with nostalgia. It's just like mac n' cheese or rummaging around thrift stores that play oldies on their radios: comforting and FUN! The multicultural adoption episode was about as serious as the show ever got, whereas the Gimme A Break girls dealt with many serious subjects and were realistically average looking. Both shows were quite good, but timing is everything, and I was right in their targeted age group when the Bradys were big on TV. Generation gap does have a lot to do with one show being preferred over the other.

The Brady Bunch has everything to do with nostalgia. It's just like mac n' cheese or rummaging around thrift stores that play oldies on their radios: comforting and FUN! The multicultural adoption episode was about as serious as the show ever got, whereas the Gimme A Break girls dealt with many serious subjects and were realistically average looking. Both shows were quite good, but timing is everything, and I was right in their targeted age group when the Bradys were big on TV. Generation gap does have a lot to do with one show being preferred over the other.

One reason for the lack of comments about your question, Smartboy, is possibly that there is a different demographic for the two shows. I grew up with the Bradys, but by the time Gimme a Break was on the air, I had grown out of that show's general target audience and, honestly, had no interest in watching it. I understand that there were people my age that still enjoyed that type of pre-teen/early teen humor, but a lot of us had moved on to more mature shows (no disrespect intended).

I still have an interest in the Brady Bunch solely from a nostalgia impulse, just as I have interest in other shows from my youth...but I never developed an interest in later shows such as Gimme a Break and so I have no familiar point of comparison between the two.

Again, no disrespect intended... I just suspect there's not a lot of audience tie-in between the two shows.

It seems that fans cannot get enough of the Cousin Oliver discussion! However, one thing that no one has really touched on so far is the parrelells that I drew between Cousin Oliver from this show and Joey from "Gimme a Break!" My guess would be that this is mainly because, to most viewers, "Gimme a Break!" is out of sight, out of mind. This is probably because of how seldom the syndicated episodes get shown anywhere and because of how long it has been since any of the episodes have been released on DVD. However, there is talk of season three being released one of these days. Incedentially, this is the season in which Joey was introduced and the season in which Katie's bubble gets bursted regarding the cute guy from the protest. I would love to read what other fans think about the similarities between Cindy learning that she is not being considered to be the new Shirley Temple and Katie learning that the boy that she was hot for was taking Samantha to a movie the next day!

Jan was too damn annoying to watch. I don't know why she wasn't smothered.

I would suggest that the arrival of Cousin Oliver and the ratings slump are completely inter-twined. Cousin Oliver was brought in because of the ratings slump in an effort to re-vitalize the show, which is the essential definiation of jumping the shark.

The "Oliver problem" is that the producers brought a stranger into the midst of a group of kids that had already bonded over the course of several seasons. Audiences knew them and were comfortable with them. Now, here comes a new kid that nobody knows (at least from the perspective of the audience), and no "growing pains" are expected? That's an unrealistic expectation. A new character being introduced is going to require some time for viewers to accept (with only a very few exceptions). The show was already down in the ratings, and then the producers create a situation on the show that is naturally going to create some viewer dislike... not a great way to bring those ratings up.

I think Cousin Oliver was an ill-conceived attempt to boost the ratings which actually caused the opposite effect.

And, as a fan, I really just can't stomach him.

Once again we return to the issue of Cousin Oliver. I think that the last poster made a very good point about how the show died not because of him but because it was already passed its prime and because of competition with shows like "Sandford and Son". However, one thing that no one has ever really commented about is my observations about the parrelells in situations between the addition of Cousin Oliver in this show and the addition of Joey in "Gimme a Break!" The Joey situation is one case in which the show lasted quite some time after the addition of a cute little new kid in town. However, the thing that I would most like to read about is peoples' ideas about the similarities in situations between Cindy's bubble being bursted at the end of "The Snooperstar" and Katie's bubble being bursted at the end of "Samantha's Protest". The thing that amazes me most about this is that in both cases a girl's bubble was bursted very shortly after the new kid in town arrived! However, one thing that is a matter of opinion rather than fact is that I think that both girls truely got what they deserved for acting the way that the did throughout the episode!

2 Shows Produced by Sherwood Schwartz:
GILLIGANS ISLAND: 3 Single Guys on Island with 2 hot babes and sex never happens? Yeah, right.

BRADY BUNCH: Teenage boys living with hot teen step-sisters who aren't really related to them and they don't take advantage of it? Please! If I were Greg & had a sister like Marcia, I'd never leave the house.

URBAN LEGEND: Cousin Oliver killed ratings of Brady Bunch.

FACT: Brady Bunch already getting clobbered in ratings by Sanford & Son. Cousin Oliver was just a alst ditch effort to breath new life into a show past its prime.

I think the show really lost it though when Marcia got the role of Juliet in the school play, became a snot and the entire family including Tiger and Fluffy came into her room to beat the living crap out of her!

Give the boys an Emmy award for being able to act during the Hawaian vacation
segment. God, the thought of Jan and Marcia running around in those little bikinis in their prime tanned teenhood .... I would have had to be standing behind a strategically placed surfboard the entre trip like they do with pregnancy hiding characters.Those boys were teens then, too. They must have had themselves taped down like a runway model. How did they remember their lines???? Marcia: Greg, did you remember to pack our snorkeling gear? Greg: All I can think about is packing you, sis!

Just saw the entire collection on DVD for just $99. Hmmm...I think I will. These are the kinds of episodes that can be watched repeatedly and enjoyably. The prank ones are among the best: Myron the mouse, the U.F.O., the boys vs. the girls at scaring each other in the night. Oliver caused the jump but that was near the end of the series anyway. Oh, and I loved Mamma Mia, Smartboy. I'm an ABBA fan and the story was great, too!

I believe that it was on this stie a while back that someone posted the reality of the fact that Christine Baranski made an appearance on the episode known as "The Sumpber Caper". I have since researched this topic and found out that this is absolutely correct! The thing that I associate most with this actress is being Senetor Spinkle in "Marci X". This was my all time favorite movie! In the process of doing my research, I also learned that they were making a movie out of "Mamma Mia!" and that Christine is going to be in it. This is my favorite Broadway Show ever! I love the music of ABBA! In any event, I would be very interested in reading what anyone else thinks of Christine, "Mamma Mia!" or Marci X". Until next time!