Six kids, two children's bedrooms connected by a bathroom.
Many critics of The Brady Bunch have through the years asked why in the world did Mike Brady, a talented architect, design a house for his newly expanded family when he knew that he needed enough bedrooms for six kids. At least four bedrooms, so that Marcia and Greg – the oldest kids, who were or were approaching their teen-aged years – would have their own rooms, but just two?
That leads to the Shakespearian-type question: "To Move or Not To Move?"
Good question, and co-habitation was getting to the kids, who were needing their own space and privacy without being interrupted by their gender-specific siblings. Mike and Carol take enough complaints and – separately considering a larger house anyway – scout out for a larger home ... one with enough bedrooms.
When they see that their folks have actually followed through with plans to sell their humble abode, Greg calls the siblings together and decide they don't really want to move. They hatch a plan to run off prospective buyers – by making "mooing" sounds (the foundation settling) and dressing up as ghosts, and actually do run off one buyer.
Well, almost.
While one possible buyer – a middle-aged woman named Mrs. Hunsaker – and a real estate agent is over at the house and has tentatively made an offer that Mike wants to accept, the Brady patriarch sees two pint-sized ghosts in bedsheets running through the living room. He immediately de-sheets them and finds – who else – Bobby and Cindy. He then gets an explanation from Greg, who says the kids just meant their comments about living in a cramped house in jest and love their home. Mrs. Hunsaker is touched and decides that this house is for a certain family of six children, a housemaid and a very happily married couple. (Oh, and those "mooing" sounds were coming from the ever-resourceful Greg, who had rigged a microphone and speakers in the house and just blew into the mike.)
Mike then realizes that he has no choice but to pull the house from the market, and the Bradys are comfortably at home – the iconic home – for the rest of their lives.
Incidentally, Greg would indeed get his own room ... but that wouldn't come until the fifth season; according to the series' unofficial bible, Marcia gets the room in the summer of 1974 when Greg moves out to go to college.
Tropes present in this episode:
- Haunted House: What the kids try to make the house when they realize they don't want to move after all. It proves effective.
- Hell Is That Noise: OK, they don't use the word "hell" ... but the younger kids jump and act frightened – and so does Alice and Carol, stereotypically – when they hear the "mooing" sounds, which Mike simply says is the house settling.
- Zany Scheme: What's revealed to be the Brady kids' effort to scare off potential buyers of their home.
