Headscratchers / The Brady Bunch

• In regards to The '90s movies, they have something in common with The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle: the main characters are stuck in their ways, despite the changes in time. Now, the Rocky and Bullwinkle movie actually had an explanation for that: given that their series was canceled in 1964, their little cartoon world was literally frozen in time - with the exception of satiring corporate development and pollution, Frostbite Falls and its citizens were pretty much stuck in the mid-60s, so when Rocky and Bullwinkle were brought into the real world, they were out of place because they hadn't experienced the rest of The '60s, The '70s, The '80s, or The '90s (that and cartoon characters just don't age). Now, The Brady Bunch is more or less grounded in reality (not Reality TV, but their universe takes place in a real live action world), but how is it that the Brady clan are not only stuck in their 70s ways in The '90s, but none of them aged at all during that 20-year span?
  • The 90s movies weren't canon with the TV series. They were just spoof movies poking fun of the Sickeningly Sweet nature of the series.
  • The most plausible explanation is that the Bradys time traveled without being aware of it, as well as Rule of Funny.
  • Maybe it's a case of Comic-Book Time with the Disco Dan elements Played for Laughs.
• In The Brady Girls Get Married, why was Carol insisting Jan wait to get married until Marcia was? You'd think that sort of thing wouldn't matter anymore in the early 80s, and Jan was a grown woman. And Carol was never that old-fashioned in the TV series.
  • For the sake of Jan staying a Butt-Monkey.
• In the episode where Cindy was being bullied, why was there no effort to get school officials involved? Kids have to follow school rules while going to and from school so usually part of dealing with bullying is a trip to talk to the principal. That never made sense to me.
  • To those of us who grew up in the 80s or earlier, that made perfect sense. Bullies were your problem until you dealt with them or one of you moved. Getting parents or school officials involved would just make it worse. Though, occasionally, a gym teacher might hand each of you a pair of boxing gloves and tell you to sort it out now.
  • Can confirm. In addition, boys were encouraged to defend themselves against their bullies, while girls(like me)were told to “ignore them and they’ll stop.”(Spoiler alert: they don’t.)
• “Today I Am A Freshman”: If Marcia is indeed a freshman, she would be starting ninth grade. But she’s coming from Fillmore Junior High, and junior high comprises grades 7-9. If Fillmore ended with eighth grade, it would technically be a middle school, which was uncommon in that time period. What school system would ever consider a tenth-grader to be a “freshman”?
  • It depends on the school system. Some junior high schools only include grades 6, 7, and 8, with Grade 9 being the beginning of high school.
• This one is in regard to the Christmas reunion movie. Why in the world would the parents place Cindy, a college student, at the children's table with her far younger nieces and nephews, and Bobby at the adult table when he's in the same age range as Cindy?
  • Likely to emphasize the Parental Favoritism they had for Cindy in the first season, and to imply that they still see her as their little girl after several years later - while Bobby was never particularly favorited by Mike and Carol, since it was seen as funnier for them to show extra affection to Cindy since she's a Bratty Half-Pint and The Stool Pigeon yet her behavior was excused on account of her youth.
  • It's implied in The Brady Girls Get Married that Bobby is at least one year older than Cindy as she was the last one to leave the house. And in family gatherings it's not entirely uncommon to put a teenager/young adult at the kid's table to watch over and help the children so they don't need to disturb their parents at the adult table.
  • That's the point. Cindy is in college but is still considered "the baby of the Bunch" because she's younger than the rest even if only by one year (compared to Bobby). She's resentful that everyone else was invited to Christmas but she was told to attend, with no consideration as to her own possible plans for Winter Break. Her parents, her siblings, and Alice all assume without question that she's too young to be at the "adult" table though by any objective measure she is an adult.
• The the Bradys' bathroom visibly excludes a toilet. Yet in "The Teeter-Totter Caper", Alice says she sits in for the teeter-totter record contestants - Bobby and Cindy - when they "have to do whatever it is they have to do", which Cindy clarifies as them going to the bathroom. In a vacation episode, Alice also says, while admiring the clearness of the sky, that "all that blue stuff at home is covered by all that brown stuff"... How do they even go to the bathroom if they don't have a toilet?
  • Some houses actually do have bathrooms without toilets, with the toilets in a separate room. It's possible the Bradys' live in one of those houses.
  • In the episode "My Brother's Keeper," after Peter has divided the bedroom with tape, Bobby reminds him that the bathroom is on HIS side of the room; then he charges in there and we hear a toilet flush.
• Why does the first season intro treat Girlish Pigtails like they're a feat unique to Cindy, when Marcia is clearly wearing them too and isn't "the youngest one"?
  • The intro doesn't mention her pigtails, it mentions her curls. Marcia's pigtails were straight.
• Why did the girls change their last names along with Carol when Carol and Mike got married? Was it less common for girls in blended families to retain their original last names in those days? Were girls expected to always have the same last name as their mother? Yes, it still happens sometimes today when a mother's new husband adopts the mother's daughter, but girls retaining their original last name seems much more common now.
  • Whatever happened to their birth father, he clearly wasn't in their lives. Therefore he probably deemed it appropriate to legally adopt them.