It's the most notorious moment in the history of The Brady Bunch.
It's the scene where the 17-year-old actor playing Greg is actually
stoned.
Now you can watch
the scene online.
Former child star Barry Williams remembers this moment in his biography
I was a teenaged Greg.
(Chapter 17 - "One toke over the line.")
He'd been given a day off, when some friends of his older brother visited.
"I was introduced to a thin,
hand-rolled, yellow joint. 'Listen, man' said one of the buds, 'toke slow
-- this is some
real heavy shit.'"
"'Cooool,' I thought... Several drags later, the stuff had kicked in
hard."
Which is when the Brady Bunch's assistant director called him back to the
studio "to shoot the driveway scene"...
The makeup man helpfully handed him a bottle of visine - and then Barry
strutted onto the set,
"thinking to myself that my now-heightened sense of consciousness and
intensity might give me a chance to completely recreate my role..."
Williams high-fived
the
crew, "feeling very cool."
When they'd gathered on the set, Williams "saw it as
crying out for innovation and improvisation." His biography's confession
includes detailed memories of the minutes that followed.
-
"In my mind, I made up a history for the bike; why it needed air, what
happened to the tire, where I had
been riding it at the time. When rehearsal began, I proceeded to get
involved with the
spokes of the wheel, forming a relationship with each individual spoke,
and then trying to come
up with a more aerodynamic design for them."
- "Instead of merely crossing over to the car and standing there as
expected,
I invented a new saunter..."
- "Instead of just standing and listening to [Mr. and Mrs. Brady]
while they were talking, I opened the
car door and stood on its threshold to reach boat height and worked on
loosening the straps."
-
"I experimented with my speaking patterns and inflections, giving each
individual word
undue weight and significance:
YOU didn't SAY anything ABOUT getting a boat, Dad
You DIDn"T say ANYTHING about GETTING a boat, Dad.
YOU didn't SAY ANYTHING ABOUT getting a BOAT, DAD!
-
"In subsequent rehearsals I changed my lines altogether, or simply made up
new ones as we went along."
But when the filming actually started, Williams suddenly became paranoid.
"I was now
second- and third-guessing my
every move, my every word, my every action." And then - the cameras
rolled.
(Brady calliope music)
Williams waves, trips over the bike pump.
Mrs. Brady opens the
sliding
door.
Greg: Hi dad!
Mr. Brady: Hi!
Greg: (pause) Uh (laughs) you didn't say anything about getting a
boat!
Mr. Brady: ...I thought with a little work, we could fix it
up!
Greg: Far out!!
To this day you can still see Greg sleepily waving 'hi" to his dad in the
clip - and
then tripping over the bike pump. "I pretended not to notice my
stumble...I
continued on like nothing happened and hoped
somebody else would mess up."
How does Williams sum up the experience?
"Getting stoned instead left me...feeling as phony as the turf in the
Brady's backyard.
"Maybe I should've just smoked that."
Ironically, the name of this episode is "Law
and Disorder." Bobby is appointed the school's safety monitor,
but misses obvious reckless behavior... Which is ironic, since it
real life, the actor who played Bobby
later became a
Grateful Dead-head
*
*
*
See also:
Greg singing
You've got to be in love (to sing a love song)
from the Brady Bunch episode "Johnny Bravo"
Jamie Foxx's
incredible
version of the Brady Bunch theme (including impersonations of
Babyface
Luther Vandross, and Prince)
The Brady Bunch variety hour: Disco Greg and the family perform
Attitude Dancing
and The Hustle.
Plus showtunes!
One from a Chorus
Line and Corner of
the Sky from Pippin
Peter Gabriel's 2002 music video,
The Barry Williams
Show
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