The Big Bet - S3-E18
Revealing mistake: When Bobby closes the sliding door behind him, the curtains swing outward and through where glass should be, revealing it to be an empty frame. (00:01:15)
The Brady Bunch (1969)
1 mistake in The Big Bet
Starring: Robert Reed, Florence Henderson, Maureen McCormick, Ann B. Davis
Jan Brady: Well, all day long at school I hear how great Marcia is at this or how wonderful Marcia did that! Marcia, Marcia, Marcia.
Trivia: Barry Williams has a Band-Aid on his lip in this episode because he was in a car accident a few days before filming and needed stitches in his lip. (00:05:00)
Question: In season 2, there were 5 episodes made without one of the kids appearing in the episode. (Marcia, Jan, Cindy, Peter, and Bobby were each absent one episode). What was the reason behind this?
Answer: According to Lloyd Schwartz, in the book he wrote with his dad, Paramount studios made the decision to remove one child from each episode to save money. Sherwood Schwartz eventually told the studio that this was a mistake because "viewers have their favorites." The practice was eventually stopped.
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Answer: Much trivia has been written about "The Brady Bunch, " including the various interrelationships and dynamics among the members of the cast. For example, much has been written about why Robert Reed's Mike Brady did not appear in a couple of episodes, including the series finale, due to rancorous creative and artistic differences with series creator, Sherwood Schwartz. However, in contrast, I have never run across any reasons given why a particular child did not appear in specific episodes - only that the episodes were missed. This suggests the causes were likely unexceptional, such as illness, injuries, vacations, or real-life family obligations.
Michael Albert
Although those options ARE possible reasons, it just seems a bit ironic that this happened all in Season 2 ONLY and within a short amount of nearly consecutive episodes. Never happened during the other 5 years of the show at all.