Temple Tuesday: The Brady Bunch Connection

If you were a kid growing up in the 70s, Friday nights were for watching “The Brady Bunch.” One of my favorite (albeit silly and cringeworthy) episodes was “The Snooperstar,” which originally aired on February 22, 1974, during the show’s fifth and final season. Pain-in-the-butt nosey Cindy Brady (Susan Olsen) is annoying all her family members by listening in on their conversations.



Older sisters Marcia (Maureen McCormick) and Jan (Eve Plumb) catch Cindy reading Marcia’s diary:



The sisters decide it’s time to teach snooping Cindy a lesson!



Marcia arrives at the perfect solution. “This is going to drive Cindy absolutely ape!” Marcia tells Jan. “You know how she loves watching those old Shirley Temple movies on TV?” “Do I ever!” exclaims Jan. “She thinks Shirley Temple is the greatest!” “Well, wait til Cindy reads this!” Marcia’s voiceover is heard as Cindy reads the fake diary entry: “I talked to that talent scout again. The studio people loved the photo of Cindy I submitted. Wouldn’t it be fabulous if they picked Cindy to be the new Shirley Temple they’re looking for in that movie?”



Cindy is beside herself. “The new Shirley Temple?” She strolls over to the mirror and envisions her newfound stardom. “Cindy Brady, the new Shirley Temple!” The girls watch, giggling with glee at how Cindy has taken to the bait. Retreating to the bathroom with no toilet, Marcia tells Jan, “If you think she’s hooked now, wait till she reads the next entry!”



Cindy comes back the next day and reads the phony entry: “Cindy’s chances of starring in that movie are great. One of these days the talent scout is going to come over to the house to observe Cindy anonymously. I sure hope Cindy can sing and dance like Shirley Temple.” Shirley is overcome; she grabs cousin Oliver (that’s a whole other story there!) and gushes. “Oliver, the talent scout’s coming over here to see me anonymously! I have to buy a Shirley Temple record album. I have to start being Shirley Temple right away!”



Where does Cindy get the money for the album? From Alice (Ann B. Davis), the minimum wage hired help who lives in the closet located off the kitchen.



Cindy brings her new album home and shows it off to Oliver. “Look closely. Do you see any resemblance?” “Well, you’re both girls,” he replies. “Yeah, but I bet if I curled my hair the same way, I’d bet we’d look a lot more alike. I’ve got to learn these songs!”



The album used was an actual 2-record set called “Remember Shirley,” released by 20th Century.





The label matches!



When Alice enters the room, Cindy hides the record. Notice a little sticker on the back of the album with red lettering?



The album used was a promotional copy. That’s one way to save money!



When Alice tells Cindy that her father has a very important client coming over to the house, the little girl thinks that means the talent scout. Marcia and Jan realize their sister might try something funny, so they confess their joke to her. Cindy doesn’t believe them.



Getting ready for her big audition, Cindy starts rolling her blonde locks into curls, exclaiming, “Get ready, Shirley!”



As night time sets upon 4222 Clinton Way…



Mike Brady’s snooty client, Penelope Fletcher (played by none other than Natalie Schaefer, aka “Lovey” from “Gilligan’s Island”), arrives and tells Alice to get Mike pronto. Chop chop…she’s a very busy woman.



Cindy rushes down the staircase to meet the “talent scout.”



In her “Heidi” style dirndl and Mary Jane shoes, Shirley wastes no time, launching into her painful rendition of “On The Goodship Lollipop.”



The snooty Penelope is baffled at first.



But not quite as baffled as Carol (Florence Henderson) and Mike (Robert Reed), her parents. Mike can kiss this job goodbye!



Just like a Shirley Temple movie, the cold woman thaws and joins in the song and dance with Cindy.



Penelope explains the situation to Carol and Mike. “This child seems to be under the impression that I’m a talent scout looking for a new Shirley Temple. Oh, the cherished memory she just brought back. Shirley Temple, that adorable, little golden hair type. How I adored her. What a marvelous time of life I just relived. Oh, I’m sorry to get so carried away. I have a plane to catch. Good bye, dear little curly top, thank you, thank you for a wonderful evening!” 



Penelope dances out of the Brady household, clutching Mike’s architectural plans while singing another refrain from “Lollipop,” getting the lyrics wrong in the process.



Cindy gets scolded afterwards. “Young lady, there better be a good explanation for this!” her mother tells her. “That’s what I was just thinking,” replies an embarrassed Cindy.



Like most Brady episodes, the show finished with a mini lesson. “Yeah, I learned my lesson,” Cindy tells her sisters and parents. “I’m not gonna snoop anymore.” Marcia has learned her lesson, too. “We’re finished with tricks like that, too.”



Once the girls leave the family room, Carol says to Mike, “I hope you learned your lesson, too. Mike.” “What’s that?” asks a confused Mike Brady. “Next time you have to deal with Penelope Fletcher, just do your Shirley Temple imitation.” And just when you thought the episode couldn’t get any worse, Florence Henderson and Robert Reed launch into their own version of the Temple tune.



From the Cult Film Freaks website, we learn that besides the season two episode, “The Tattle-Tale,” this one is the second of two episodes which Susan Olsen disliked. This episode was originally planned for the first season, when Susan was a more appropriate age of eight for playing Shirley Temple, yet it wasn't made until Season 5. At the age of twelve, Susan felt very uncomfortable playing a five-year-old Shirley Temple. “I was too old for it,” Olsen recalled. “It had been an idea for me to do when I was 8 or 9 but at 12 I looked and felt like a dork singing Goodship Lollipop.” Her interviewer asked if she was already a Shirley Temple fan? “I loved Shirley Temple when I was really little... like five. I felt very stupid playing a 12 year old who wants to be like her. I truly adore her now as a woman who grew up as a true example of how great a former child star can be. This is why you never hear of her. She had a wonderful attitude and far more of an adult career than most people know. I read her memoir and she is just so very classy and smart and forgiving of any misdeed ever done to her, a woman of true grace and dignity. She very willingly put family first and then went on to become a diplomat and Cancer survivor. She ROCKS! I'm definitely a fan of hers NOW.”

Today, this episode has very little relevance to kids who typically only know Shirley Temple as a soft drink. Thanks to Disney squelching all the Shirley Temple movies (along with the other classic 20th Century-Fox catalog that they acquired back in 2019), most kids have not had an introduction to her childhood movies. Disney’s adversity to home media has not helped, either.

I discovered another Shirley Temple / Brady Bunch connection on the outsider.com website:

Eve Plumb, who played Jan Brady on “The Brady Bunch” discovered that she was wearing a dress previously worn by Shirley Temple. During a recent interview, Plumb talked about working on the classic TV show, “Gunsmoke,” and discovering that her costume was previously worn by a Hollywood icon “‘Gunsmoke,’ now I don’t remember. I was really young. But I do remember because I loved getting dressed up. And going to western costume, and getting fitted for costumes,” said Plumb. “One of them, I think it was the fell down the well one. They had to have a few dresses for me because I had to be dirty in one scene and clean in the other. And I swear there was a tag sewn in there that said ‘Shirley Temple.’ These days we take a picture of everything. I would have loved to have a picture of that.”

Indeed Eve was on the January 27, 1969 “Goldtown” episode of “Gunsmoke,” which would have made her ten years old at the time of filming. Hard to tell what costume of Shirley’s she might have worn, but it could have been something from “Susannah of the Mounties,” made when Shirley was eleven.

Back to the “The Snooperstar,” here’s a clip of Cindy doing her best Shirley Temple imitation:

 

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