Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Sundays, I will be reviewing the made-for-television movies that used to be a primetime mainstay. Today’s film is 1972’s The Weekend Nun! It can be viewed on YouTube!
By day, Marjorie Walker (Joanna Pettet) is a probation officer who, some might say, cares just a little too much.
By night and on the weekends, she’s Sister Mary Damian, a nun who has taken the three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.
Mother Bonaventure (Ann Sothern) isn’t sure that she’s happy about Sister Damian working as a probation officer. And the tough and cynical Detective Chuck Jardine (Vic Morrow) certainly isn’t happy when he discovers that the reason why Marjorie has never invited him into her home for a drink is because she lives at a convent. But Marjorie is determined to make a difference, especially in the life of a troubled teen runaway named Audree (Kay Lenz).
Now, this may sound like the premise of a socially relevant sitcom and, indeed, The Weekend Nun is one of those titles that might lead some to expect wacky hijinks and an intrusive laugh track. However, The Weekend Nun is not only loosely based on a true story but the film also takes itself very seriously. From the minute that Sister Damian agrees to take part in a program that would allow her to work a real job during the day while returning to the convent at night, she’s exposed to the harsh realities of the world. She goes from being sheltered to dealing with distraught parents, drug addicts, teen prostitutes, and violent criminals. Because Captain Richardson (James Gregory) doesn’t want anyone to feel uncomfortable, he hides the fact that she’s a nun. Of course, this leads to be people like Chuck Jardine wondering why Marjorie is so shocked when she witnesses the thing that he has to deal with a day-to-day basis.
And, indeed, the film’s biggest flaw is that Marjorie is often portrayed as being ridiculously naïve. The film acts as if spending time in a convent is somehow the equivalent of spending a decade hiding out in a bomb shelter or something. (Speaking as a Catholic school survivor, nuns are usually some of the least naïve people around.) Marjorie is portrayed as being such a wide-eyed innocent that it’s hard not to wonder why she was hired to work as a probation officer in the first place. Of course, Marjorie quickly gets an education on just how dangerous and unforgiving life on the streets can be and she soon has to make a choice between being a nun or being a probation officer. Will she give her life to God or will she potentially give it to Vic Morrow?
Joanna Pettet overplays Marjorie’s innocence but that’s more the fault of the script than anything else. James Gregory, Vic Morrow, and Ann Sothern are all believable as the authority figures in Marjorie’s life and Kay Lenz has a few good scenes as the teenage runaway who Marjorie tries to save. Beverly Garland has a small but brief role as Lenz’s horrifically unconcerned mother. It’s a well-acted film, regardless of any other flaws.
The Weekend Nun is not perfect but it’s still preferable to The Flying Nun. It’s a sincerely heartfelt film, one that’s earnest in a way that can seem a bit quaint but which is still likable when watched today. For better or worse, there’s not a hint of snark to be found.
Today’s music video of the day is both wholesome and rebellious. It’s wholesome because it’s a Jessica Simpson video. It’s rebellious because it’s Jessica finally calling the shots over her own life.
Take that, Nick Lachey!
Seriously, this feels like a nice revenge video. It came out two years after Jessica and Nick divorced and it finds Jessica back on the ranch and waiting for a better lover and, even more importantly, doing it all on her own terms. This is the type of video that Jessica’s management never would have allowed to happen in the days before she married Nick. As such, this is not just a video about inviting over your lover. This is a video growing up, maturing, and embracing what makes you happy.
The 2013 film, This Is Our Time, opens with a college graduation and a voice-over from Ethan (Shawn Culin-Young), who explains that everyone goes through four stages when they go to college. The first stage is being excited about getting away from home and being on you own. The second and third stages are about settling down, choosing your major, and maybe meeting the person with whom you want to spend the rest of your life. The fourth stage is all about looking forward to graduation and finally getting to enter the real world.
This Is Our Time follows the story of five friends as they discover what comes after the fourth stage. For two of them, it’s making a living as corporate workers and being pressured to behave unethically. For two others, it’s marriage and a new life working as missionaries in India, ministering to the needs of leprosy sufferers and their children. For Ethan, it means giving up his dream of being a writer and working as a waiter at his father’s bar. But, as Ethan warns us in his narration, one of the five is not going to be alive in a year. The movie follows the friends as they deal with death and try to learn how to live.
Some of the acting is a bit stiff and the attempt to capture the feel of corporate America feels rather comical. (Erik Estrada glowers his way through the role of a dishonest executive.) But, at the same time, the film does end with a message from the founder of Embrace a Village, which actually does provide support for people dealing with Leprosy and the guy is so sincere that it kind of makes you feel guilty for all the snarky thoughts that you had while watching the movie. Whatever else you might want to say about the film, the intentions are good and there’s something to be said for that.
Add to that, Eric Roberts is in the film. Roberts plays Ethan’s father and he brings a lot of genuine emotion to the role. The scene where he breaks down behind the bar in response to having gotten some bad news is well-done. Roberts is kind of famous for accepting almost any role that’s offered to him and he’s said that he hasn’t actually watched the majority of the films in which he’s appeared. Who knows if Roberts actually watched this film but, regardless, his performance was definitely the highlight.
Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:
Eh. This has been a strong season, with the exception of all the nonsense about the charter schools. Unfortunately, this week’s episode was all about trying to keep Abbott from turning into a charter school and it was a rare heavy-handed misfire for what it is usually one of the smartest shows on television. Ava still made me laugh, though.
Accused (Tuesday Night, FOX)
This week’s episode of Accused was a misfire. It tried to deal with both gun control and misinformation and, in both cases, it just came across as being histrionic. It was like the Reefer Madness of 21st Century anthology shows.
The Bachelor (Monday and Tuesday, ABC)
The thing with this season is that it’s impossible to get excited about Zach and it’s difficult to take anyone seriously when they say that they were falling in love with Zach. Monday featured the hometown visits and a “shocking” departure. (Don’t worry, Charity avoided marrying Zach and she gets to be the new bachelorette). Tuesday featured the Women Tell All, which started out as interesting with lots of petty drama but then all the action stopped so Greer could go through a televised struggle session about her old social media posts. Jesse Palmer announced that the Bachelor franchise will no longer shy away from addressing the actions of its contestants and I rolled my eyes so dramatically that I’m surprised I’m still able to see straight. It’s one thing to address actions. It’s another thing to spend half an hour patting yourself on the back for doing it, especially when it was obvious that both Jesse and Greer were just reciting what they had been told to say.
The Brady Bunch Hour (YouTube)
I finished the series this week. Yay! Seriously, it was kind of fun to experience something as strange as The Brady Bunch Hour but I think if it had lasted longer than nine episodes, I wouldn’t have made it. That final hour nearly broke me.
Farmer Wants A Wife (Wednesday Night, FOX)
After suffering through The Bachelor, this show provided a nice and simple relief. Life on the farm isn’t easy but at least all the farmers are interesting and everyone gets to wear cute country outfits!
Jail (Tuesday Afternoon, Reelz)
This was a Cops-style show that aired in early 2010s. As the title suggests, a camera crew filmed the events in a county jail. Sometimes, they were in Fort Worth. Sometimes, they were in Las Vegas. Whenever they went to Las Vegas, there was one annoying intake officer who always ended up getting attacked by an inmate. Were the inmates attacking because they were violent criminals or because they were on camera? My personal theory is that the intake officer, with his sandy hair and his glasses and his air of unearned authority, was kind of a jerk who just brought out the worst in people.
Anyway, I watched two episodes on Tuesday. A lot of drunks were brought in for the night. Most of the guards were not particularly bright, which made it a bit awkward whenever they tried to get philosophical about why people commit crimes. “I guess until they get tired of us arresting them, we’re going to keep getting called out there.” Okay, whatever you say, dude.
Night Court (Tuesday Night, NBC)
You know, I still like Melissa Rauch but I have to say that, as of this latest episode, I think Abbi is now officially the most annoying character on television. Her fiancé, Rand, came to New York to help her train for a marathon. Rand himself was a pretty annoying character but Abi was a hundred times worse for putting up with him and forcing him on her co-workers.
Night Flight (Night Flight Plus)
On Friday, I watched an episode about the 1984 Oscars. A lot of good songs were nominated that year.
This was a public access show from the 80s. Night Flight Plus has episodes of it and several other old public access shows. I watched one episode on Saturday morning. Gibby Haynes stopped by the set and talked about how he used to be an accountant.
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Saturdays, I will be reviewing California Dreams, which ran on NBC from 1992 to 1996. The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!
This week, California Dreams is Saved By The Bell!
Episode 4.9 “Operation Tony”
(Dir by Don Barnhart, originally aired on November 18th, 1995)
Tony needs to have shoulder surgery and he’s so worried about dying that he not only practices laying very still but he also requires Sam to practice mourning. The night before the operation, he has a dream where he sees his own funeral and, upon waking up, he tries to sneak out of the hospital and …. wait a minute. This seems familiar. The exact same thing happened to Zack Morris on Saved By The Bell!
Yes, this episode is pretty much a remake of Operation Zach. The California Dreams version works a bit better than the SBTB version because Tony is a more sympathetic figure than Zach Morris and, unlike Zach, Tony didn’t have the power to stop time whenever he felt like it so Tony has no way to magically put off the operation. Plus, this episode has a B-plot where Lorena volunteers as a candy striper in an attempt to catch the attention of a handsome doctor. Unfortunately, the doctor explains that he doesn’t date people with whom he works. (I would hope that he also doesn’t date teenagers.) It was a predictable storyline but I still always like episodes that focus, even if just partially, on Lorena because Lorena is who I was always relate to whenever I watch this show.
Anyway, this was a good episode, even it was a familiar one. Let’s move on.
Episode 4.10 “Community Service”
(Dir by Don Barnhart, originally aired on November 25th, 1995)
In this episode, the members of the California Dreams do community service!
Now, I know that I always complain whenever this happens on City Guys but that’s because City Guys usually features Ms. Noble ordering her students to do stuff during their free time. On California Dreams, everyone actually volunteered of their own free will. It is true that Tiffani guilted them into volunteering but still, there’s a big difference between Tiffani looking sad and Ms. Noble telling all of her students what they’re going to give up their weekend just because she says so.
Sam volunteers for the blood drive. Jake volunteers for Meals on Wheels and eats all the food himself. (In 1995, this was played for laughs. You can only imagine how it would be portrayed today.) Mark helps to clean the beach and ends up smelling like a toxic waste dump. Lorena gives some things to the Goodwill. And Tiffani and Sly end up working at the Teen Help Line. Tiffani tries to sincerely help people while Sly orders pizza and hits on all the female counselors.
Uh-oh! The school is cutting its budget and the Teen Line is going to be closed down! Sly comes up with an idea! Maybe the Dreams can play a benefit concert. I mean, it worked on Saved By The Bell …. TWICE! Sly organizes the concert and basks in everyone’s attention, even though Tiffani is upset that Sly is doing the right thing for the wrong reason. (Calm down, Tiffani.) Fortunately, during the concert, a teen calls in and says he wants to run away from home. Because Sly is the only person in the office, he’s forced to help the caller and he discovers that joy of doing the right thing for the right reasons! Yay! Of course, I imagine this lesson will be forgotten by the next episode. We’ll find out next week!
As a general rule, the best episodes of California Dreams are the ones in which Sly is let loose to be his sleazy but ultimately good-hearted self. Though the story was familiar, Michael Cade did a good job playing the two sides of Sly. Plus, the Dreams performed that “To the End” song, which has a really rocking guitar solo.
Next week, Tiffani tries to heal the bay! Hopefully, she’ll have better luck at it than Mark did during this episode.
Once upon a time, Casey Rhodes (Beau Mirchoff) was a football star. He was a quarterback. Everyone expected great things from him. He was going to be the next Tom Brady. But then a knee injury took him out of the game and a subsequent drug addiction took him out of mainstream society. Now, Casey makes his living pulling off robberies. He may be a criminal but he’s not a bad-hearted one. He may carry a gun but he tries not to shoot anyone who doesn’t shoot at him first. Working with him are a former baseball player named Mike (Trevor Getzky) and Nikki (Keeya King), who is the smartest member of the crew.
Despite Casey’s attempts to do his job with as little violence as possible, a gunfight does break out during one robbery in Los Angeles. When Detectives James Knight (Bruce Willis) and his partner, Eric Fitzgerald (Lochlyn Munro), interrupt the robbery, Fitzgerald ends up getting shot multiple times as Casey and his crew make their escape. With Fitzgerald in the hospital, Knight decides to follow the crew to New York and take out both them and their boss, a former Internal Affairs officer named Winna (Michael Eklund). It turns out that there’s a history between Knight and Winna. Knight wants his revenge on Winna but, at the same time, Winna knows some dark secrets from Knight’s past.
Though it works as a stand-alone film, 2022’s Detective Knight: Rogue is actually the first part of a trilogy that follows the adventures of Detective Knight. (Detective Knight: Redemption was released at the end of 2022 while Detective Knight: Independence came out last month.) The Detective Knight films were among the last of the movies in which Bruce Willis appeared before announcing his retirement. It can be strange to watch Willis’s final films, knowing what we know about what he was going through at the time that he made them. Though he’s definitely the star of the film, Willis is used sparingly in Detective Knight: Rogue and there’s little of the cocky attitude that we tend to associate with Willis’s best roles. Instead, he’s a grim avenger, determined to get justice for both his partner and himself. Willis is convincing in the role, even if the film is edited in such a way that the viewer gets the feeling that a stand-in may have been used for some of the long-shots involving Detective Knight. That said, Willis still looks convincing carrying a badge and a gun and it’s nice to see a Willis film where he’s again playing a hero instead of a villain.
As the football player-turned-thief, Beau Mirchoff gets more screentime than Willis but, fortunately, Casey is an interesting character and Mirchoff gives a strong performance as a criminal who would rather be a family man and who is desperately looking for a way to make up for the mistakes of his past. Towards the end of the film, he does a flawless job delivering a surprisingly well-written monologue about how he went from being a football star to being a common thief. Mirchoff’s strong performance adds a good deal of ambiguity to the film. The criminals aren’t necessarily that bad at heart and, as we learn, the good guys haven’t always been angels in the past. Detective Knight: Rogue becomes more than just another low-budget thriller. It becomes a meditation of regret and redemption.
Detective Knight: Rogue took me by surprise. As directed by Edward Drake (who was also responsible for another effective late Bruce Willis starrer, Gasoline Alley), it’s an intelligent thriller and it’s one that pays tribute to Bruce Willis as an action icon. It’s proof that a good story can sometimes be found where you least expect it.
As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in a few weekly live tweets on twitter. I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of #MondayActionMovie! Every week, we get together. We watch a movie. We tweet our way through it.
Tonight, for #ScarySocial, ArtAttackNYC will be hosting 2011’s Absentia!
If you want to join us on Saturday night, just hop onto twitter, start the film at 9 pm et, and use the #ScarySocial hashtag! The film is available on Prime. I’ll be there co-hosting and I imagine some other members of the TSL Crew will be there as well. It’s a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy.
I’m actually a bit surprised to discover that I haven’t already shared this music video of the day.
We can drive it home with one headlight….
Some songs just get stuck in your head and I think this is definitely one of them. This is also a song that always used to play in the background at one of my favorite used bookstores. I associate One Headlight with searching through old books and learning about history.
The lead singer of The Wallflowers is, of course, Jakob Dylan. Jakob is know for being Bob Dylan’s son and certainly, this song has a Bob Dylanesque feel to it. That said, Jakob made it his own. The music video certainly makes good use of Jakob’s perfect bone structure.
Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a new feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing The Brady Bunch Hour, which ran on ABC from 1976 to 1977. All nine episodes can be found on YouTube!
This week, The Brady Bunch Hour comes to a close and with it, I gain my freedom from having to watch any more pitch perfect but incredibly boring performances from Florence Henderson.
Episode 1.9
(Directed by Jack Regas, originally aired on May 25th, 1977)
Two things happened on May 25th, 1977.
First of all, a film called Star Wars opened in theaters across the country.
Secondly, on ABC, The Brady Bunch Hour aired for the final time.
The final episode begins in the same way as all of the previous episodes. The Kroftettes do a kickline before driving into the pool and the audience applauds while the announcer reads off the names of the Bradys and announces that tonight’s special guest stars include Paul Williams, Rip Taylor, Lynn Anderson (who was a country-western singer), and Ann B. Davis.
Dressed in blue, The Bradys come out and perform a song called I’ve Got Love, which was written for a Broadway musical called Purlie. Purlie was a show about a black preacher living in the South during the Jim Crow era so you have to wonder how exactly the song relates to anything having to do with The Brady Bunch. As led by Florence Henderson, the Bunch turns the song into an “up with people”-style anthem. The Kroftettes meanwhile swim around with a punch of plastic hearts.
The song ends and, as the rest of their family struggles to catch their breath, Carol welcomes everyone to the show.
“I love love!” Carol announces.
The banter starts and the joke this time is that Carol enjoyed the song so much that she just won’t stop singing even while the rest of the family is trying to talk. This gets annoying pretty quickly because we’ve all had a relative like Carol, that person who can carry a tune and who goes out of their way to make sure that no one ever forgets it. Reportedly, one of the main reasons that Florence Henderson agreed to do The Brady Bunch Hour was because she wanted to transform herself into a Barbra Streisand-style singer and the producers agreed to allow her to do a solo in every episode. Henderson did not have a bad voice but she still had a tendency to oversell every song that she sang, performing in an over-rehearsed manner that revealed little real personality. During the last few episodes, a desperation creeped into Henderson’s performances, as if she felt that she alone could save the show by singing the Heck out of every song that she got.
After a minimum amount of banter (in which not a word is said about this being the final episode of the series), we cut to Carol and the kids performing a song called We’ve Got Us in front of a cardboard city skyline. For some reason, everyone’s dressed for golf.
At one point, the Brady daughters carry Carol across the stage while Carol sings. The audience applauds but Cindy looks like she’s struggling not to lose her grip on Carol’s ankles.
Peter and Bobby then carry Greg out on their shoulders while Greg sings. At one point, they nearly drop Greg and Greg’s reaction (his singing voice goes up several octaves) would seem to indicate that this was not at all planned.
After the rest of the Bunch marches off stage, Peter sneaks back and discovers that Mr. Merrill (played, of course, by Rip Taylor) is sleeping on a park bench. Mr. Merrill gets upset when Peter tries to move a trashcan because that is apparently where Mr. Merill keeps all of his stuff. Peter finds a slinky in the trashcan and Mr. Merrill announces, “Haven’t you ever seen Palm Springs?” Peter also finds a bottle of liquor in the the trashcan. Mr. Merrill explains that it’s “Beethoven’s fifth.” Peter and Jackie proceed to perform Me and My Shadow and it’s just as painful as it sounds.
The show goes to commercial. When it comes back, Fake Jan announces that the next guest is “my favorite female recording star, Lynn Anderson.” Fake Jan spends so much time praising Lynn that Greg comes out and tells Fake Jan that giving Lynn too much of a big build-up will make Lynn nervous. “Ladies and gentleman,” Fake Jan says, “a singer who’s not too bad, Lynn Anderson!” (To give credit where credit is due, I laughed.) Lynn Anderson comes out and sings a song called Right Time Of The Night and Fake Jan was right. She’s not too bad.
As Lynn finishes up the song, Fake Jan announces that Lynn is the best. “You just can’t say stuff like that on TV,” Greg says, sounding a bit like a jerk, if we’re going to be honest. Fake Jan demands that Greg tell her one person who sings as well as Lynn Anderson, who looks as good as Lynn Anderson, who has more hit records than Lynn Anderson, and who has beautiful blonde hair like Lynn Anderson.
“Paul Williams,” Greg says. “Great musician, but he’s a troublemaker …. remember when he came by the house?”
“Oh yeah,” Fake Jan says, “that was trouble.”
It’s flashback time!
We cut to the Brady Compound, where Alice is attempting to break up with Rip Taylor’s Jackie Merrill. Carol interrupts their fight to tell Alice to go clean another part of the house. Alice agrees to go on a date with Jackie, mostly to get him to go away. After Merrill leaves, Carol announces that Paul Williams is coming over. Marcia enters the living room, dressed in overalls because Paul Williams is into simple things, “like how people feel inside.”
Carol says…. I am not making this up …. Carol says, “Oh. Well, maybe you should swallow him, then.”
*snicker*
Greg enters the living room and starts leaving copies of his songs all over the living room. Marcia makes fun of his lyrics. Greg tells her, “Watch your mouth.”
*snicker*
Anyway, Marcia runs off crying. Mike enters the living room, looking confused. Carol explains that Paul Williams is only coming over to discuss what he’s going to do on the show. He doesn’t want to see Greg’s music or hang out with Marcia. A disgruntled Greg collects all of his lyrics. Finally, after Greg leaves the living room, Paul Williams rings the doorbell.
Paul tells Mike that he’s a “big fan of yours.” The audience laughs because Paul Williams is short. However, it turns out that Paul Williams is an even bigger fan of Carol’s. As Paul flirts shamelessly with Carol, Mike leaves to get the kids. Mike and the kids re-enter the living room just in time to hear Paul announce that he’s in love with Carol. The show cuts to commercial.
When the show returns, Mike is standing on stage, by himself. He’s wearing another one of his turtlenecks. “Welcome back to the second half of my family’s favorite show,” Mike tells us. Mike makes fun of Paul for being short and then shows us what happened at the Brady compound.
What happened?, you may ask. Well, Mike tells Paul that he doesn’t appreciate Paul loving his wife. Bobby asks if Mike is going to punch out Paul but Carol says that Mike doesn’t punch people out. “Good,” Paul says, “anyone over 5’5 punching me is assault with a deadly weapon.” (Because Paul Williams is short, get it?) Cindy asks Paul why he’s in love with Carol, as if even she can’t believe it. Paul says that Carol is “one foxy lady.” Mike promptly sends the children out of the living room and then starts yelling at Paul (or, at the very least, his voice goes up an octave or two as he expresses his annoyance).
Paul apologizes and then says that he has a compulsive personality “because I’m short,” and that occasionally, he does something compulsive like declare his love for Carol Brady. Paul then suggest that he and Carol could get married on the show. After Carol turns him down, Paul explains that he only came on the show so he could meet Carol. He then Carol a broach that once belonged to his grandmother. “She was a very foxy lady too,” Paul says, “Short but foxy.” Paul leaves.
“What a sweet man,” Carol says, looking at the brooch.
“He’s a loon!” Mike declares.
Before Mike can say anything else insensitive about the man who just opened up his mental health on national television, Fake Jan comes running in with Lynn Anderson. Lynn mentions that Paul Williams is in love with her and then holds up a brooch that Paul gave her. “It was his grandmother’s!”
We cut to the pool, where Peter has decided to outsmart Greg by getting in the pool himself. Greg swears that he wasn’t planning on pushing Peter in the pool this week. Peter climbs out of the pool and announces that Paul Williams is the next musical guest. “He’s so short,” Peter says, “he needs a ladder to get into a good mood.” Paul comes out and shoves both Greg and Peter in the pool.
Paul then sings The Hell Of It, a song that he wrote for Brian DePalma’s Phantom of Paradise. While he sings, thunder rumbles on the soundtrack, the Kroftettes perform in the pool, and the lights in the studio flash on and off. It’s actually surprisingly good for The Brady Bunch Hour but you have to wonder how the show’s target audience felt about a song that was sung from the point of view of someone who had just sold his soul to the Devil.
We then cut to a country road, where Carol sings a country song called Born To Say Goodbye. She’s no Lynn Anderson, that’s for sure. Still, listening to the lyrics, you have to wonder if she sang this knowing that the show was about to end. Despite the fact that no one on the show has mentioned anything about this being the final episode, one would have to think that the Bunch had some sort of knowledge that things weren’t looking good for the show’s future.
We then cut to a comedy skit, in which Paul Williams tells us that the member of the Brady Bunch will be recreating the voyage of Columbus. At one point, Williams flubs his lines but keeps going. According to Wikipedia, several members of the cast and crew have said that Paul Williams was drunk while filming The Brady Bunch Hour and that is definitely the vibe that comes through. Anyway, the skit is actually about what was going on with Columbus’s family while Christopher was out exploring and it’s called The Columbus Bunch. The members of the Bunch all speak with exagerrated Italian accents. It’s annoying as Heckfire. The skit goes on forever and as I watched it, I actually found myself thinking of the terrible fantasy sequences that used to appear on Saved By The Bell. It’s painful and the fact that everyone involved seems to be trying so hard makes it even more painful.
It’s time for the final finale of The Brady Bunch Hour! This week, there’s no banter before the finale. Instead, the Bunch appears on stage, wearing white suits. Mike says “The finale this week is….” and I honestly can’t understand what it is that he says next. It sounds like he says, “The finale this week is done,” but that wouldn’t make any sense. All I know is that the members of the Bunch desperately run off stage, as they do at the start of every finale. Again, I’m not sure why anyone thought it was a good idea to show the Bunch as being totally scatter-brained and incapable of the least bit of professionalism but whatever. The show’s almost over.
As for the finale, it’s all about music.
The Krofetettes dance while Bobby, looking like Satan’s stepchild, plays a ragtime tune on the piano.
Mike and Carol sing a few bars from the hottest song of 1950, Music! Music! Music!
Marcia sings Look What They’ve Done To My Song, Ma, which was a song by Melanie, the folk singer who appeared on an earlier episode.
Carol, who is literally sitting in front of a poster that reads Easy Listening, performs 1962’s The Sweetest Sounds, a song that was previously covered by Barbra Streisand.
Greg sings a song called Music Is My Life. Greg’s voice isn’t terrible but it’s awfully generic. He might need to get a different life, especially considering that this is the final episode.
Geri Reischl, who is so talented that she deserves to be referred to by her real name (and not Fake Jan) for this performance, comes out and sings Hey Mister Melody and once again shows that she was way too musically talented for this show. She and Florence Henderson had the best voices of the cast but, unlike the overly rehearsed Henderson, Geri actually brought some spontaneity to her performances.
Rip Taylor and a miserable-looking Ann B. Davis perform The Music Goes Round and Round.
Paul Williams and Lynn Anderson perform an Old Fashioned Love Song. One can almost sense Florence Henderson fuming off-stage over Lynn getting to be the one who performed with Paul Williams.
The Brady kids come out and sing Piano Man with the all the good-natured cheer of a church youth group.
The finale ends with the entire cast doing an unenthusiastic version of I Believe In Music. Paul Williams dances with Florence Henderson while a manic Rip Taylor throws confetti all over the stage.
After a commercial break, the Bunch comes out to say goodnight.
“Remember last week when I said, ‘I guess this bring us to the end of tonight’s show?” Carol says.
Yes, we do. Carol, is there something you need to share with the audience about the show’s future?
“Well, I’m saying it again this week,” Carol says, “I guess this brings us to the end of tonight’s show.”
Mike tell Carol that she should come up with something new to close the show and Carol does a stuttering impersonation of Porky the Pig and that’s when I nearly threw a shoe at the screen. Fortunately, I was distracted by Cindy saying, “And don’t worry about Paul Williams, he’s not really crazy.” Everyone says goodnight and the show ends….
….and never returns!
So, The Brady Bunch Hour has come to an end and what have we learned from these reviews? Cocaine was very popular in the 70s.
