Lessons in Family: What “The Brady Bunch” and “Modern Family” Teach Us About Blended Families

In the realm of television, families have been portrayed in myriad ways, and among the most notable are the blended families depicted in “The Brady Bunch” and “Modern Family.” These iconic shows, aired decades apart, offer insights into the evolving nature of family dynamics and the challenges and joys of blending families. In the latest episode of Zen Pop Parenting, hosts Todd and Cathy delve into what these shows reveal about the complexities of blended families.

Setting the Scene

“The Brady Bunch,” a late 60s and early 70s sitcom, showcases a quintessential blended family from an earlier era. Created by Sherwood Schwartz and featuring iconic theme music, it tells the story of a widow and a widower coming together, along with their three children each, to form a large family unit. On the other hand, “Modern Family,” a mockumentary-style series running from 2009 to 2020, offers a more modern take, exploring step-parenting, second marriages, adoption, and same-sex parenting in a large, extended family setting.

The hosts reflect on the differences and similarities between the two shows, noting that what was considered groundbreaking for “The Brady Bunch” in its time now feels quaint compared to the more complex and diverse narratives in “Modern Family.” They discuss the role of theme songs, differences in tone, and how each show deals with challenges associated with blended families.

Family Dynamics and Social Commentary

Both shows offer viewers a window into the dynamics of blended families, but they do so in markedly different ways. “The Brady Bunch” often tackled minor issues in an idealized family setting. Its charm lies in its simplicity and focus on the small-scale dramas of everyday family life. Conversely, “Modern Family” does not shy away from addressing more complex topics such as identity, cultural differences, and changing societal norms.

The podcast highlights a memorable debate over whether Marcia from “The Brady Bunch” was portrayed as the “golden child” while Jan was overshadowed. Similarly, Todd and Cathy delve into how “Modern Family” mirrors real-life situations many families face today, including cultural blending and parenting challenges.

Blending Families with Humor

Humor is a crucial element in navigating the trials of family life, as demonstrated by both series. Todd and Cathy emphasize that while the families on these shows solve their problems in thirty-minute increments, real-world blended families can take years to find their rhythm. They note that relationships don’t click overnight and that shared experiences and forgiveness are vital components of blending families effectively.

Parental Guidance: When Lessons Evolve

A core takeaway from analyzing these shows is that there’s no single right way to form a family. Instead, both series teach audiences that love, support, and understanding are the foundations of a happy family life. “The Brady Bunch” provides timeless lessons in fairness and partnership, while “Modern Family” offers guidance on navigating more contemporary family dynamics.

The podcast episode serves as a reminder that flexibility, adaptability, and patience are key when blending families. Just as humor helps defuse tension, acknowledging different family needs and roles encourages growth and harmony within the family unit.

Reflecting on Cultural Impact

“The Brady Bunch” and “Modern Family” each hold a distinct place in television history. While “The Brady Bunch” laid the groundwork for portraying blended families on screen, “Modern Family” expanded the narrative to include a broader array of societal and familial issues. Todd and Cathy engage their audience with discussions about the longevity of these classics and their ongoing cultural relevance.

Ultimately, this episode of Zen Pop Parenting invites listeners to consider the rich tapestry of family life as depicted on television—how it’s evolved, how it continues to reflect societal shifts, and how it resonates with viewers across generations. Whether through nostalgic reruns or contemporary narratives, these shows encourage viewers to celebrate the myriad ways families come together.

[00:00:00]

Here’s the story. A lovely lady who bringing up three very lovely girls. All of them like their mother, the youngest one, and Girls

Brady

episode. I think we got it. Should

Todd: we play the whole thing? No. Okay. Hold on. This is my favorite part. Oh, no, it’s not. Um, welcome back to another episode of Zen Pop Parenting. This is our sixth episode, I think.

Cathy: Uh, close. Yeah, [00:01:00] I think fifth, sixth. I don’t know. We’re we’re rolling now.

Todd: Hold on. Here comes the course.

Todd: Yeah, the modern family one is much shorter.

Cathy: Well, that’s kind of the difference between having a show in the seventies and eighties or having a show in like modern times because we are not anymore big into theme songs.

Todd: No, well, and I, I wonder if it’s an advertising thing, like if we’re gonna take a minute up on a theme song, we could be selling advertising space for that.

Cathy: True. And I also think it’s attention span.

Todd: Yeah.

Cathy: I mean, if you watch, like we were watching something a couple of weeks ago, like the Pelican Brief or something random. Yep. And the opening to that movie takes forever and the girls are like, move it along. But anyway, you know what we’re doing today. Todd, what’s the title?

Cathy: This is Zen Pop Parenting as we know where Gen X pop culture meets real life reflection. Mm-hmm. And today we are gonna focus on what. The Brady Bunch and Modern Family. Tell us about blended [00:02:00] families. Boom. Okay. Um, or families

Todd: in

Cathy: general? A

Todd: little bit.

Cathy: The families in general. The reason I wanna talk about blended families specifically is because I just know a lot of people are, um, experiencing that where they’re on a second marriage or a third marriage and they have kids and maybe their new partner has kids and then you’re trying to bring people together.

Cathy: And, um, that is kind of was my thought. But I also am fine with discussing just families, but Pretty bunch and Modern Family, our famous blended families. Mm-hmm. Do you know what I mean? They are So really, whatever you’re gonna talk about in terms of them, that’s always gonna be a piece of their experience.

Todd: Yep. Um, okay. So should we set the scene? Let’s set the scene. Um, I just realized I deleted my, um. My set the scene thing, but that’s all right. I can do it a different way. You just have to be, um,

Cathy: when you say you deleted your set the scene thing, does that mean you’ve deleted [00:03:00] all of our

Todd: openings? Yeah. I deleted from Jingle Palette, but I have the audio file, so,

um, I

Todd: I can do it sweetie.

Are you sure?

Todd: I

can do it? Okay.

Cathy: Who’s going first with set the scene? Uh, you are. Okay. So Brady Bunch came out, uh, September 26th. That’s Skyler’s birthday, 1969. Mm-hmm. Uh, a, b, c, we know it was created by Sherwood Short, uh, Schwartz. There was 117 episodes, uh, five Seasons. Mm-hmm. Ended in 1974. Strange, you may think because I was born in 1972, so how do I know every Brady Bunch episode?

Cathy: It’s because it went into syndication and was played all throughout the eighties. After school. Yep. Okay. So anywhere between like 3:00 [00:04:00] PM and 6:00 PM kids from all over the United States had the Brady Bunch. And it is a big part of what, it’s what we grew up with. I don’t even have to say a big part. I was, we grew up,

Todd: I was so excited when, um, I came home, ate a bowl of cereal, watched the Brady Bunch, sweetie.

Cathy: That’s remember

Todd: when? Oh, sorry. Yeah. Forget about that. Um, can I say a few things? Yes. So, Brady Bunch get how many seasons at RAMP for? I said 5 0 5 seasons. Uh, 1969 to 1974 as we know. Uh, it is, um, Robert Reed. Mike Brady, correct. Florence Henderson. Yeah. Carol and B Davis played Who sweetie? Uh, she, Alice, Maureen McCormick.

Cathy: Uh, are you going, are we gonna go through everybody real quick in the show? Quick, quick. Just, okay. So why are we starting with Maureen McCormick? Shouldn’t we be starting with Barry?

Todd: That’s kind of sexist.

Cathy: Well, it, they we’re going in order of their age.

Todd: No, we’re just, we’re just going in order of, okay.

Cathy: Marsha

Todd: Eve Plum, uh, Jan, Susan Olson. Uh, Cindy Barry [00:05:00] Williams. Okay. There we go. Greg, Christopher Knight Peter, and my favorite Mike Lookin land and

Cathy: it’s not looking land,

Todd: it’s lookin land. Um, so that’s Bobby. Yes. So that’s Bobby. Um, and then one other thing. This might be in the trivia thing, but I. Do you know, it never cracked the top 30 in shows while it was on.

Cathy: Yeah, well, like I said, it was not a hit show. Crazy. It was only on five seasons and it was not, I mean, I’m sure there’s people who watched it, but it, for our generation, it was all about relatability. Mm-hmm. Being kids. And it was all about placement. Yeah. I mean, we are all coming home from school, turning on the tv, so it just, the access to it was constant.

Todd: Do you wanna set the scene for Modern Family?

Cathy: So Modern Family, uh, premiered September 23rd, 2009, A, B, C. Also, um, Christopher Lloyd and Steven Levitan are the people who created the show. 11 Seasons. Yeah. Way beyond the Brady’s 250 episodes. It ended in during, uh, COVID 2020. Um, [00:06:00] and different than the Brady, the Brady’s was more of a sitcom.

Cathy: The, uh, modern Family was the mockumentary style that was kind of made famous with the Office and Parks and Rec. It was more about them telling their story rather than us just, uh, yes, we watched their story, but they also had, you know, time to explain to us what was going on in their heads. Right, which was different than Brady Bunch.

Cathy: But, um, it also won a ton of awards, 22 Emmys. And I mean, we all know this is a defining series of the, you know, 2000 tens and beyond.

Todd: True. I’m trying to think of what, I have a few shows that were big back at the Brady Bunch years. Uh, all in the Family Mash, Mary Tyler Moore. Mm-hmm. Sanford and Son. Uh, what else do I have?

Todd: We watched them all didn’t you? Um, I did not watch Carol Burnett. Oh, I did. I did not watch Sanford and Son. I did, I did not watch Mary Tyler Moore. I did. I watched Mash. Okay. And then I watched all in the family. B bj. Yep. Or Trapper. It’s a good question. Um, I’m gonna [00:07:00] say Trapper. Oh, that’s, that’s not what I thought you’d say.

Todd: I thought Trapper was better. Okay. And then you, did you watch Trapper John

Cathy: md?

Todd: I. I did not, was that a CBS show? I’m trying to think. Sure. It

Cathy: was, um, my friend, uh, Jess, her, um, one of her roommates in college used to watch Trapper John a lot, really though she would fall asleep to the theme song.

Todd: Yeah. Um, what else do I have?

Todd: Um, anything else you have on set the scene?

Cathy: Yeah, just a few things. Like as far as like the differences and the takeaways, because we are gonna be talking about the, again, blended families and what these shows taught us, but just to differentiate the two, you know, there’s obvious things that you guys probably are thinking of, but again, Brady Bunch is.

Cathy: Sixties and seventies. Modern family is the two thousands, you know, um, the Tone Brady Bunch is more wholesome. Mm-hmm. You know, the whole thing was about an idealized family life. A very typical nuclear family structure. Even though it was blended, it was still this perfect, three boys, three girls, um, [00:08:00] where modern family is more satirical, emotionally complex.

Cathy: Um, the Brady Bunch, two widowed parents. Okay. So that’s one thing. They didn’t talk about divorce, and it says two widowed parents that I wrote down. Oh my gosh. You are right. Mrs. Brady was divorced.

Todd: She was, but they never talked about it because I don’t know, that’s not cool in 1969, I feel like we should

Cathy: debate this.

Cathy: Sure. Because I, um, so we know Mr. Brady lost his wife. Yeah. They talked about that o you know, openly in the wedding episode. Right. But Mrs. Brady, how do we know she didn’t lose her par, her partner, I

Todd: don’t remember exactly where I was in the research, but it was something to the effect of that Sherwood Schwartz, um, wanted to not have her be a widow.

Todd: Okay. And instead be a divorce. And then they were gonna kind of build the divorce into the storyline and then decided that it wasn’t a good idea. So they just ignored it.

Cathy: But how is that possible? Because then that means that these three girls have a completely different father [00:09:00] and they never see him.

Todd: That’s a great point.

Cathy: I, I debate you on this

Todd: and I, I mean, I don’t think the show will reveal anything. I don’t think they talked about it.

Cathy: I think it’s, but it was his original intention is what you’re saying. Sherwood Schwartz, like he wanted her to be a divorcee. I’ll see if I can find it while you’re talking of where I saw that.

Todd: So anyways,

Cathy: so again, two widowed parents, or possibly one divorced parent, but one widowed, um, modern family is more about step parenting, second marriage adoption, same sex parenting. It had more issues, you know, going on. Things that, you know, that we were watching in their family. Challenges in the Brady Bunch.

Cathy: A lot of were downplayed or ignored. You know what I mean? Like the, or the challenges were so small like the sniffles. Yep. Um, which is kind of a cultural literacy thing when we talk about Cindy got the sniffles, it means this is, she could, she should have been able to go on the boat, but we’ll discuss that later.

Cathy: Good old Mr. Phillips. Um, in modern family, it’s, the emotional complexity is really explored with a [00:10:00] lot of humor and emotion. Like I. There are so many episodes of Modern Family that I cry. Mm-hmm. At the end, you know, they bring it all together. The Social Commentary and Brady Bunch, uh, controversial topics were avoided.

Cathy: Maybe Don Drysdale was Con, was controversial. Was he controversial, Todd?

Todd: It was a good picture. I don’t know how controversial he was

Cathy: there. You know, there, I don’t know either. I’m just like trying to think of episodes like they talked about certain things, but again, they weren’t big challenges in life.

Cathy: Whereas Modern Family talks about identity, culture changing norms like they go in, you know what I mean? That’s part of the reason we love it so much.

Todd: So I don’t know for sure, but I just ask Chad GPT, although the series never explicitly states what happened to her first husband on screen, creator Sherwood Schwartz confirmed in interviews that Carol was meant to be a widow, so

Cathy: Oh, okay.

Todd: However, due to the sensitivities around divorce on TV in the late sixties, the show intentionally left her marital history vague. That doesn’t make any sense. ’cause they sure do come clean with Mike. They don’t come clean [00:11:00] with Carol.

Cathy: Yeah. I think it doesn’t make

Todd: sense.

Cathy: I think we might get some emails about this.

Cathy: ’cause I really do think she was, that they were both widowed. I thought that was a big part of it. Yeah. The fact that they were able to have another dad and another mom.

Todd: Yeah.

Cathy: Uh, last thing about the differences between these shows as far as representation, uh, Brady Bunch was heteronormative, all white.

Cathy: There wasn’t any representation. And then in modern family it’s diversity and race, culture and sexuality. So they tackle everything. So again, typical of, you know, changing times. Yeah. But also something we need to consider and think about when we’re talking about the lessons they’re teaching. There

Todd: you go.

Cathy: So, anything else for set The scene?

Todd: I don’t, you ready? Let’s you remember when’s mm-hmm.

Cathy: I.

Todd: You couldn’t wait to love me. You couldn’t wait to leave me. You can start with remember when, hun? Um, okay, so what do I have for, I don’t have much for remember when I have a lot of other stuff, believe me. [00:12:00] Um, but for some reason I’m just explaining a personal story. Okay. We did a, um, uh, I do birthday videos for each of my daughters, Uhhuh.

Todd: So when I thought of Modern Family, I thought of the cast of Modern Family. And then I remember that you and I are, you used to do this thing called Cameo, correct. And cameo. Will you explain what Cameo is? Sure.

Cathy: Cameo is this app or this opportunity. We have to reach out to people who are famous in some capacity, actors, you know, sports people, whatever, and ask them to do a video for ourselves or for someone we love.

Cathy: And so you basically give them a little bit of information and then if that person accepts your request, they create a video and send it to you. So. For, go ahead.

Todd: So the actor Reed Ewing mm-hmm. Who played Dylan, also known as dmo. We paid Reed X amount of dollars to do a birthday video for Cameron who loves Modern Family Uhhuh.

Todd: And I think we sometimes ask Cameron what show she [00:13:00] likes Better Modern Family or New Girl and she goes back and forth and forth. Yeah. So this is the cameo that he gave to us that I put in the birthday video, uh, for Cameron. So here we go.

Hey Cameron or Cam for short? Um, no relation to the Modern Family cam.

I basically just wanted to wish you a happy birthday and you love pop culture. Um, I could probably learn a thing or two from you about it and deep thinking and deep discussions. Well, everybody knows that Dylan is also a deep thinker who likes to think about life. Um, so I am going to leave you with this question, Cameron.

What is the universe? Where do we come from and where do we go? Okay. Yeah, just think about that for a while. It’s a good one.

Todd: Uh, there we go.

Cathy: Thank you for that.

Todd: Yes. So, um, she

Cathy: was pleased.

Todd: Yes. And who else have we done cameos with?

Cathy: Well, that year [00:14:00] I did two for her because she was obsessed with Modern Family.

Cathy: So we did D Money and then we, she was also obsessed with, um, midnight mass. Mm. So we did, um,

Todd: Sarah’s in, Sarahs in, uh, Friday Night Lights. Yeah.

Cathy: Who is also in midnight mass. Uh, and he did a really long sweet cameo where he talked about, I mean, it was so, like, it was so, um, it Loving Yes. For Cameron. We’re like, you don’t even know this girl.

Cathy: But it was, you know, that’s what we, and

Todd: we’ve also done, uh, doula, Dole Hill, doula

Cathy: Hill from Psych who we just named our rabbits after those guys. And

Todd: we did the Lady Parks and Rec.

Cathy: Yes, we did. Um, go Cal though. Cal Mezo for Skyler’s birthday. Yeah.

Todd: So shout out to, um. Cameo cameos. It’s a

Cathy: cool thing. We kind of were obsessed with it for a little bit and I’ve kind of forgotten about it, but that was fun.

Cathy: Yeah. Um, so I, I re I actually wrote that down under, remember when as well, Todd, but I also wanted to go back to, um, the fact that when Todd and I were growing up, we are, I am [00:15:00] 53, Todd, we’re both 53. Um, that we all came home and watched Brady Bunch.

Todd: Yeah.

Cathy: Everybody our age knew the Brady Bunch. And it holds our generation together.

Cathy: And I know that sounds like really grandiose or grand or, you know, hyperbolic, but it really does because we all have a cultural literacy around Brady Bunch. We, if you say an episode or a quote, maybe some people are more obsessed than others, but for the most part, you know, um, so it’s just something that, you know, is really important to us.

Cathy: And then I will say as far as modern family. Our family. You know, and we might get into this when we talk about favorite episodes, but the connection Lost episode for our Family of Modern Family, that was a lot of family, modern Family has an episode called Connection Lost that we as a family have watched how many times?

Todd: 10

Cathy: at least. Yeah. Together. And then I think we’ve used some of it for the conference. We use some of it for teaching, like it’s just an, [00:16:00] I mean, stellar episode, um, as far as communication and technology. Yeah. And, um, so that’s kind of a memory I have too, of watching the show with my girls.

Todd: But would you say that that’s your favorite Modern Family episode?

Cathy: Um, I, it is. If I was to be honest, probably yes, because it’s the one I’ve seen the most, but it’s not the one I chose for that category. Okay. Okay. So random facts.

Todd: Uh, random facts. Here we go.

Eight, you know, the.

Todd: The human head does weigh it does. Maybe not everybody. So I got a ton of stuff here, so I’m just gonna rattle through it.

Todd: Okay. Go for it. Uh, we already talked about Carol’s husband. Yeah. So we’re gonna, uh, Brady Bunch never cracked the top 30 in ratings, which you kind of indicated. Uhhuh. Um, cam from Modern Family is based on Jesse Tyler Ferguson’s real life friend, which I’d never heard of.

Cathy: Oh, that’s interesting.

Todd: Right. Um, Brady, the Brady Kids recorded an album and toured, [00:17:00]

Cathy: duh.

Cathy: I had the album, didn’t you?

Todd: No.

Cathy: You didn’t have the Brady album?

Todd: No.

Cathy: Okay.

Todd: I had a lot of other albums like that were good music.

Cathy: You’re like, I had the Doors, I had Pink Floyd, I had the Brady album, and I know exactly what it looked like. It was like yellow. It had a picture of them right in the middle. And I listened to that album a ton,

Todd: um, during the show.

Todd: So The Brady Bunch is like a happy go lucky, um, TV show, Uhhuh. But there’s a lot of things that happen behind the scenes in that show. Oh,

Cathy: yes, this is very true.

Todd: During the series, run Florence Henderson lobby, the producers constantly to allow Carol Brady to get out into the workforce. She should have, Henderson thought this would be more in line with how she was in real life.

Todd: The producers kept the character of Carol Brady unemployed, though she frequently, frequently did volunteer work in fundraising for charity. Sweetie.

Cathy: Well, and it’s a big question. Maybe we should have talked about this during set the scene, but the fact that Alice

Todd: mm-hmm.

Cathy: Still worked with them. Now here’s the thing.

Cathy: When the boys lost their mother, having Alice. You know, because Mike was working. Makes sense. [00:18:00] Right. But once the families come together, if Carol is not gonna work and be at home, why are Alice and Carol at home? That’s right. Now when I say that I’m all for support and help. Yeah. Like, I’m not trying to say women don’t need it or that women should do it alone or that it’s only mom.

Cathy: I’m all for an Alice.

Todd: Yeah.

Cathy: But as far as the show is concerned,

Todd: we all deserve an Alice.

Cathy: We all deserve an Alice and or,

Todd: or an Alec if it’s a male.

Cathy: Correct. An Alice or an Alec. And Alice deserves a Sam because of what Alice does for the family. It

Todd: kinda weird that Alice was a live-in maid.

Cathy: Well, this is my whole point.

Todd: I feel like we’re like, who had a live-in maid at the time?

Cathy: Um, like friends, like, uh, like I’ve

Todd: never heard of a live-in maid. Well, gimme

Cathy: a break now. Carter. Oh, there you go. Living made, um, uh, different strokes. Ibel. No, no. She went home. Those, this is Garrett. Well, Mrs. Garrett worked there and lived there, but the boy’s mom was Mr.

Cathy: Drummond’s, [00:19:00] um, maid. Right. Isn’t that, and she died and he took them in, isn’t that right? I think

Todd: that’s right. I believe that’s right.

Cathy: So again, I don’t know if she lived in, but Nell did and gimme a break. Yeah. Um, and like you said, Mrs. Garrett I guess did too. And then Mrs. Garrett, when she spun off into Facts of Life, was she the Mrs.

Cathy: Garrett from different strokes?

Todd: Uh, that’s a good question.

Just one. Jerome, what may Right? You may it not be right. This

Todd: might be one of the best theme songs ever. He’s a man. Good

Cathy: Bain.

Todd: Yeah. Rest in peace.

Cathy: Um, so anyway, I think it was more of a thing and in, in some ways I’m kind of like, let’s do it again.

Cathy: Um, but I also feel like for the show, that was probably one of the reasons Florence Henderson is like, if we have this help, maybe I can do some other things too.

Todd: Yeah.

Cathy: Because they, they were often cooking together, which again is lovely. Mm-hmm. Um. But

all you know about back supply,

Cathy: that’s

a

Cathy: fake

back

Cathy: [00:20:00] life song.

Todd: No, this was like the original

Cathy: one. Oh, I like the better one.

Todd: Yeah. So do I. Where is the other one?

Cathy: Yeah, this is it.

Todd: No, that’s not it. Um, okay. You ready for some more? Ran, keep going, keep going.

Cathy: And I got a bunch too,

Todd: a scene in the honeymoon. That’s, uh, I guess the second episode makes it clear that Mike, so this is, I’m the pendulum is swinging back and forth on the controversy about Carol.

Todd: Okay.

Cathy: So stay with us.

Todd: A scene in the honeymoon makes it clear that Mike’s first wave had died making him widower. Okay. But the status of Carol’s first marriage was kept a secret creator, Sherwood Schwartz maintained. Carol was divorced from her first husband.

Cathy: I know, but we already went through this. But

Todd: nothing about it was mentioned in the series at the ti at the time, divorce was subject matter that was still considered largely taboo for tv.

Todd: So. I’m, I’m going back. I’m saying she was divorced.

Cathy: Yeah, I, no,

Todd: I’m going back.

Cathy: Okay. But let’s move forward ’cause we already did that. Top that issue.

Todd: Robert Reed was a closeted gay man. Correct. Florence Henderson noticed early on that he appeared uncomfortable acting romantically with her and he admitted the truth to her privately.

Todd: They worked [00:21:00] around it, rehearsing, kissing, and hugging scenes off camera so they would look more natural when it came time to film them.

Cathy: I’m even questioning that ’cause there are plenty. Of gay actors. Well just that have

Todd: to, of course. So, but, but maybe Robert Reed had a higher version than other actors.

Cathy: I guess

Todd: so.

Todd: You don’t discount Robert Reed’s experience. It’s

Cathy: nothing to do with his sexuality. I know he was gay and that it was the time that it was, and he needed to be closeted for his own reasons or his professional reasons. That’s not what I’m questioning. It’s that the fact that you are not attracted to someone means you’re gonna have a discomfort with this.

Cathy: I’d say

Todd: like Robert Reed become a good actor.

Cathy: Yeah. Like

Todd: Act Kiss a woman.

Cathy: Yeah, exactly.

Todd: Robert Reed strongly disliked his role as Mike Brady.

Cathy: Oh. I believe that. He

Todd: claimed he only took the part because Sherwood Schwartz told him the show would be serious boundary pushing. Look at modern day family. It.

Todd: Didn’t push too many votes. Words considered the possibility of either hiring a new actor to play Mike or killing off the character altogether. If the series were renewed for a sixth season, [00:22:00] Reed stayed with the series, uh, and subsequent reunion spinoffs out of loyalty to the kids.

Cathy: Well, I had heard, first of all, if they killed him off, that’d be so sad.

Cathy: ’cause then the boys would’ve lost both, both of their parents. That would

Todd: be a mash moment.

Cathy: That would be brutal. Um, but I also would say that I had heard, um, from a lot of the kids have written books or talked on podcasts. You know, Florence Henderson has spoken openly that he wasn’t that easy to work with.

Todd: I think he was a little bit of a, I don’t wanna say a curmudgeon, curmudgeon, but, um, by the way, there is a podcast called, um, the is called, oh Boy. Are you the Brady Bros?

Cathy: Who’s in it?

Todd: Uh, Peter and Greg.

Cathy: Really, they’ve done

Todd: over 200 episodes.

Cathy: Do they go through the show?

Todd: They go through the show and talk about background of the show and everything else.

Todd: I remember Cindy

Cathy: Brady has a podcast too. Does she? But I think hers is political.

Todd: Are you ready for a sad, random fact? Sure. The Family Dog Tiger was killed in a, in season one by a car, [00:23:00] uh, before filming. Episode five was completed. A replacement dog proved to be unworkable. Mm. Tiger’s dog has remained on the set though, because one of the studio lights fell and burned a hole through the AstroTurf and the doghouse was used to hide the burned spot.

Todd: So random Robert Reeb was written out of the show’s Final episode. Huh. And it was called the Hair-Brained Scheme after an argument with the producer Sherwood Schwartz. Over what? Reconsidered ridiculous storyline with Greg’s hair turning orange. Oh, I remember that one. From the hair tonic. Yeah, because the ra, didn’t the rabbits turn orange too?

Todd: Weren’t there rabbits in there? And

Cathy: didn’t someone sell him that tonic?

Todd: Yes.

Cathy: Like one of the boys, like Peter.

Todd: Yes. Um, so I got, uh, Barry Williams. Remember the surfing episode? Sure. Uh, he did his own surfing. So he was a surfer. Yes. Surfing is not easy. Sweet. He was Johnny Bravo. He, he was a lot of things. He’s a heartthrob is what?

Todd: Barry Williams. Mm-hmm. Um, and one scene, Barry wiped out near the some exposed rocks, [00:24:00] rocks injured himself and was briefly lost. Filming had to be postponed until he had fully recovered.

Cathy: Sweetie, you know what? You need to play right now?

Todd: The Sound Tiki. The tiki torch. Yeah, it is gonna take me a bit to find it.

Todd: I do.

Cathy: I had, I had it sweet for you. I’ve got

Todd: so many different links, but I’ll see if I can find it. You

Cathy: gotta find it, you know, while you’re looking for it. Yeah,

Todd: go ahead.

Cathy: I’ll just say a few things to kind of fill in some of the Brady stuff. The Brady, after the Brady Bunch. There it is. T you gotta just keep that for this episode.

Todd: You know what the title of this YouTube clip you said to me in what it says? Um, uh, hold on. It says. The death, uh, what does it say? The sound of 2020, which I think is COVID totally COVID

Cathy: everything is like, yeah. Um, yeah. The Tiki that Tiki right. Was a mystery. Right. But let me just put this in here and then you can continue.

Cathy: Okay. Is after the Brady Show, after the show went off, we also had the Brady [00:25:00] Kids, which was an animated morning cartoon. Um, it was like the kids going on adventures and in the first season, the real kids did. The cast were the, the voices. Right. Okay. Then we had the Brady Bunch Hour, which was from 1976 to 77, only one hour.

Cathy: A lot of

Todd: spinoffs,

Cathy: a lot of, uh, musical variety show didn’t do very well, and Eve Plum wasn’t in it. And she was replaced by a woman named Jerry Reel that they would call fake Jan. Um, so it was a lot of sequence and stuff. It was probably very sunny and Cher. Mm-hmm. You know, kind of thing. Then we had the Brady Girls get married in 1981, which we’ve all seen.

Cathy: Yeah. Anybody in their, in Gen X has seen it, or most people have. Basically it’s just Marcia and Jan both getting married in a double wedding. And then we had the Brady Brides, which was the same year, which was Marcia and Jan living in the same house with their husbands, Philip and Wally. Mm-hmm. Why they were living in the same house.

Cathy: Go watch it. Who knows? It was only six episodes. Um, but it was all about the [00:26:00] difference between Marsha and Jan, which is, you know, easy, easy info there. Then we had a Brady Christmas 1988, which again, we’ve all seen, because we know about Peter in his nightgown.

Todd: First of all, nobody remembers that other than you, me, and Noreen.

Todd: So it’s just the three of us. But, but for some random reason where you’re watching like a normal bad show, like a remake of the Brady Bunch. Mm-hmm. And you’re like just there and then all of a sudden. Peter shows up

Cathy: in a nightgown, in

Todd: a full gown. A full nightgown. Yeah. And they don’t like address it. Like this is like normal business.

Cathy: Yeah. And maybe there are a lot of male nightgowns. Like I again, sweetie, it’s not shaming the, the decision. Right. But there’s not Sweetie

Todd: was odd. It looked like something from like 1850. Yeah.

Cathy: He looked like he should be carrying like a candle stick. Yes.

Todd: Yes. He

Cathy: looked like Scrooge. Um, but still not done Todd.

Cathy: Okay. 1990s, the Brady’s, this was the serious reboot. You and I talked about this on a previous podcast about the Brady’s dealing [00:27:00] with real issues like Bobby getting paralyzed. Geez, Marsha struggles with addiction. Jan has fertility issues. Boy. So they were trying to be kind of like 30 something. Yeah.

Cathy: Remember 30 something Of course. And you know, but it didn’t last. And then. A very Brady renovation. 2019 HGTV, the Brady Kids came together for H hd, HGTV remodel of a house to match their original house, the, the, you know, nostalgic set that they had. So anyway,

Todd: I, I think of, uh, Brady Bunch as Monopoly because they took something great like the board game Monopoly and the Brady Bunch, and then they made 45 different versions of Monopoly.

Todd: Like,

Cathy: and there was always someone left out like, yeah, like the Brady, can

Todd: we just get it together?

Cathy: Totally. Like the, the show that was like a variety show. You know, Eve Plum wasn’t there, Jan wasn’t there. And then the show, that was a Brady Girls Get Married, they didn’t have the right Cindy. It was just never Right.

Cathy: No. Like, you just can’t. So anyway, I gotta more random facts. I’m

Todd: gonna give you some random facts after I play this song. [00:28:00] Okay. It’s the, it’s the intro to the Brady Kids cartoon. Oh.

Cathy: Can’t wait.

Three sisters meet brothers who a leader on the good man for the job. There’s another boy by the name of Peter.

The youngest one is Fox,

quite pretty first there’s Marsha with her eyes is spark blue. Yes. Then there’s really groovy, groovy sister Cindy.

Todd: So top and these two pandas were part of the show. So there’s this dog that has. Hair over his eyes, top, mop top, and then these pandas. So I thought that was hilarious.

Cathy: First of all, poor Bobby and Cindy. [00:29:00] Yeah, it was Bobby. And then there’s Bob, and then there’s Cindy too.

Todd: Like they didn’t think really hard about the words to that theme song.

Cathy: Just follow suit with the whole, like Greg and Marsha were the stars. And then well,

Todd: yeah, and let’s just listen. You can just hear Greg’s voice. Greg’s just like too cool for school. Yeah, he’s too cool. So he’s so listen to him

first. There’s Marsha with her.

Todd: Okay. This is so great.

Cathy: That is so funny. And we all know this random fact I think has gone mainstream, but we know that Barry Williams and who’s Marsha again? Uh, Maureen

Todd: McCormick. Maureen

Cathy: McCormick had a relationship while the show was going on. Now a relationship just means they were hooking up. Yeah. I don’t think they ever got super serious.

Cathy: But it’s also very strange because in Greg’s book that he wrote, you know, Barry Williams, he also I think, kissed [00:30:00] Florence Henderson.

Todd: What’s Florence doing? Kissing a little, uh, young man.

Cathy: Well, I think he was an adult. Am am I, am I saying that right? Did you get that random fact? I remember

Todd: that story. I didn’t see it, my research this time around.

Cathy: Yeah. But anyway, there was just a lot of behind the scenes. And that’s the thing is like there was probably behind the scenes for Jan and Peter too. But nobody cares enough.

Todd: No. You know

Cathy: everyone’s Because they’re the youngest. They’re the youngest. Well, no, they’re the middles.

Todd: Oh yeah. That’s right Peter.

Todd: Yeah.

Cathy: Peter and Jan.

Todd: Um, so we’re gonna move on over to Modern Family, random fact. Sure. Let’s go Ariel Winter. And which one was that? Alex? Alex was only 11 years old when she was cast as Alex Dumpy and was always accompanied by on set by her mother. Mm-hmm. According to casting crew, the mother was always talking down to her about her weight and performance, up to the point where the producers wanted her band from the set.

Todd: Yeah. 2012 Winter was removed from her mother’s home following allegations of physical and emotional abuse. And in 2016, winter herself announced that she was legally emancipated from her parents. Correct. Yikes. And I

Cathy: think she ended up living with her sister. Yeah, I remember that whole thing.

Todd: [00:31:00] Um, she

Cathy: was actually on the cover of People Magazine a few weeks ago.

Cathy: Was she? Yeah.

Todd: Uh, the whole Cass agrees that Ty Burrell is the one who’s most like their character.

Cathy: That’s so cool,

Todd: which I love.

Cathy: Mm-hmm.

Todd: Uh, Nolan Gould, who plays Luke, right?

Cathy: Yeah.

Todd: He who plays dumb, has actually been a member of Mensa since he was four. Oh my

Cathy: God, that’s awesome. First of all, how

Todd: do you know if you’re in Mensa when you’re four?

Cathy: I don’t know, maybe they tested him. I

Todd: guess so. Um, in 2010, interview Without magazine, Jesse Taylor Ferguson said that the running joke that Jay kept forgetting his, that his son Mitchell is gay, and Mitchell had to come out to his father repeatedly as drawn from Ferguson’s real life. He had to come out to his real father three different times over many years before his fam, before his father actually believed it.

Todd: When Ferguson told the shows writer the story, they found it very funny and decided to add it to Mitchell’s story.

Cathy: That’s great, Jake. Uh, he get his dad eventually gets it.

Todd: Yeah, exactly. Um, before Sarah Hyland’s husband proposed to her, he asked her TV [00:32:00] parents, Ty Bur and Julie Bowen for their blessing. Do

Cathy: you know who her husband is?

Cathy: No

Todd: idea.

Cathy: I think his name’s Wells Adams. Um Okay. I think he’s sweet name. Yeah. I think I know it’s Wells, but he is the, um, bartender on Bachelor in Paradise.

Todd: Oh. Well that doesn’t help me at all.

Cathy: And also Sarah Hyland had a lot of, um, illnesses like she was struggling with. Yes. Do you have that as well? I did.

Cathy: I

Todd: skipped over it just ’cause I was trying to move quickly. Yeah. But yes, I heard that too.

Cathy: Okay.

Todd: Um, that’s what I got.

Cathy: Okay. So just a few little bonus things ’cause I was talking about all the shows of Brady Bunch again. Um, there were also Brady Bunch movies, Todd. So there was the Brady Bunch movie in 1995.

Cathy: There was a very Brady sequel in 1996 and The Brady Bunch in the White House, which I never heard of that. But that was in 2002. So they tried to basically take a modern day version, but kept the Bradys as they were. Yeah, that was the tone. It was really funny and it was actually really, yeah. Funny. So at least, least Can I play a clip clip

Todd: from Gary Cole?

Cathy: [00:33:00] Sure. Is that his name? Gary Cole plays Mike Brady.

Todd: Yeah. So there’s

some wisdom. Gift is only a good thing when the giver has given thought to that gift. But when the gift the Giver gives gives grief. And that gift should give the givee regrets. Being a good guest means respecting the house rules and the rules In the Brady House read, do not give lethal weapons to children.

Kids are like little people only younger.

Todd: Um, he has Robert Reed’s voice down pat,

Cathy: as does everybody. Yeah, I think it’s uh, Shelly.

Todd: Shelley, uh, Shelly. I was gonna say Shell Shelley Long.

Cathy: Shelley Long has, you know, um, Florence Henderson Perfect. Mrs. Brady. And then of course, the person who got the most like credit for like nailing their character was Christine Taylor, who played Marsha because she

Todd: looks exactly like

Cathy: she looks like her.

Cathy: She sounds like her. Yeah. She is married to Ben Stiller. She’s an actress in her own right. But that’s maybe where some of you may know her.

Mm-hmm.

Cathy: Um, also makes some, uh, is on [00:34:00] Arrested Development some of the time. Speaking of, I just have to say really quick, do you know this Skyler is watching Arrested Development right now.

Cathy: Thank

Todd: goodness.

Cathy: I know. She’s like asking me all these questions. I’m like, this is a joy. Yeah. So maybe we’ll do a show about rest of development sometime. Yeah. Okay. So just to my last things, Todd Yeah. Are the cultural shorthand of our generation. I’m gonna say these quotes to you and you tell me what it means.

Cathy: Bring it. If we said this, bring it. So if I said, oh my nose. That

Todd: means Marcia hurt her nose by the football,

Cathy: which it’s, to us, it’s like an overreaction to an injury. Oh, okay. Got like, oh no. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. So if we were like, Marsha, Marsha, Marsha, it

Todd: means Jan is being a little tpo.

Cathy: Yeah. And she’s feeling overshadowed.

Cathy: Yeah. It’s like when you feel like you’re not getting enough attention when someone says, sure. Jan.

Todd: Yeah. Um, okay, go ahead. I don’t know.

Cathy: We believe, we don’t believe you. Oh,

Todd: really?

Cathy: Sure. Jan. That’s actually from the movie. It’s a meme. I don’t remember that. But when Jan is explaining about George Glass, who we all know that is who that is.

Cathy: Marsh was like, sure. Jan, we believe you. And then how about [00:35:00] mom always said, don’t play ball in the house. I know

Todd: that means don’t play ball in the house.

Cathy: Yeah. It’s when you break something. Yeah. And you say that. Um, or if it, if, uh, let’s see, that’s, uh, this is probably from the movie ’cause it’s a quote from Mr.

Cathy: Brady. Being different isn’t bad, it’s just different. Um, and so let’s see, Pearl, Pearl

Todd: of wisdom from Mike Brady.

Cathy: Exactly. And then pork chops and applesauce, honey. Um,

Todd: do you mean

pork chop an apple sauce

Cathy: mean

that, well,

Todd: what’s going on in that episode?

Cathy: He was mimicking Humphrey Bogart. Oh, he was trying to find his new personality.

Cathy: Yeah. Remember, he wanted his own personality. He and Jan being those middle children, were just always trying to find themselves.

Todd: Just want to toast all the middle children out there.

Cathy: That is one of those, I’m

Todd: right there with you ladies, gentlemen, and all genders of middle, uh, who are middle children.

Cathy: But did you go to a birthday party and wear a black wig?

Todd: Not yet. Like

Cathy: Jan?

Todd: Not yet. Thinking

Cathy: about it, [00:36:00] I’m thinking about it. Um, okay, honey, I’m ready. Right. Or,

uh, WTF Boy, that escalated quickly. I mean, that really got outta hand fast. It jumped up a notch.

Todd: It did didn’t. It did, didn’t it? All right. WTF Um, I think I’ll go first. Okay. Um, I am just gonna say one thing.

Cathy: Oh my God. We are about, can we say it at the same time? No, we’re not.

Todd: No, you’re not gonna say what I’m saying.

Cathy: Are you sure?

Todd: Positive.

Cathy: If you say what I think you’re gonna say, and I know what you’re gonna say, then I’m gonna be mad that we didn’t say it together.

Todd: You sound like Mike Brady just now.

Cathy: Okay. You go ahead.

Todd: The Kelly’s kids, the Kelly kids.

Cathy: Why is that? Remind, who

Todd: are the Kelly kids?

Cathy: I can’t remember.

Todd: In the final season of Brady Bunch.

Cathy: Oh my God. It’s so, so ringing a bell. What is it? The

Todd: Kelly kids,

Cathy: were they like, did they beat people up?

Todd: No, it was so. Kelly’s kids. So there was an episode of the Brady Bunch called [00:37:00] Kelly’s Kids.

Cathy: Okay.

Todd: And it was intended to be a pilot of a perspec prospective Spinoff.

Cathy: Yes. Of the

Todd: same name.

Cathy: Cindy was in it though.

Todd: There was a few Brady’s in it. Yeah. But it was not a Brady Bunch episode. No. And the worst is when you come home.

Cathy: Yes. From

Todd: school. From school, yeah. And you wanna see an episode and the Kelly’s kids one shows up.

Todd: So Ken Berry started as Ken Kelly, a friend and neighbor of the Brady’s who with his wife Brooke Bundy adopted three orphaned boys. Oh boy. Of different racial backgrounds. One of the adopted sons was played by Todd Lookin land.

Cathy: Uh, is that Bob? The younger brother of Mike Mackin land. Okay. Okay.

Todd: While Kelly’s kids was not sub, sub, subsequently picked up as a full series producer, Sherwood Shortz reworked the basic premise for the short-lived 1980s sitcom.

Todd: Together we stand,

Cathy: I think they should have come up with a different. Last name then Kelly’s Kids. ’cause that’s hard to say. It should have been like, maybe

Todd: that’s why it never got picked up, sweetie. Oh,

Cathy: [00:38:00] I’m like, Kelly’s kids. They needed

Todd: you. They needed you. And

Cathy: it’s also like a first name. Yeah. And so it’s confusing.

Todd: Yeah. Um, so that’s all I have is WTF Moments.

Cathy: How do you not have the one thing that was so WTF on the Brady Bunch first. What is it? Oliver?

Todd: Oh, I love Oliver.

Cathy: No. Yeah. We don’t love Oliver. Yeah. He was introduced in season five for the last six episodes. He had to be the cute new kid because I guess Cindy, he was

Todd: cute.

Cathy: Cindy and Bobby weren’t cute anymore. Um, and he was supposed to like, bring in some youth energy. Kinda like

Todd: Andy from Family Ties.

Cathy: Correct. And

Todd: Leo DiCaprio from Growing Pains.

Cathy: Correct. It was like, they were like, Oliver,

Todd: I’ll take Oliver over Leo any day.

Cathy: Oh boy. I just was not, I felt the same way coming home from school and it was an Oliver episode.

Cathy: I was Can I play the Jinx thing that you sent to me? Sure.

You certainly feed us well [00:39:00] wherever you don’t build that too high. The city is building an earthquake fault. Oh, very. Come. You just begun. That’s fine.

No thanks. I’ll get it. Oh no, I ketchup. You gotta hit the bottom real hard like this.

Think you got the hang of it now, Greg.

Todd: I love Oliver. He was just trying to help Greg sweetie.

Cathy: So, okay. I’m feeling bad ’cause his little voice is so sweet.

Todd: Yeah. He’s like a little Jonathan Lipinski guy.

Cathy: Or like, he looks like a little John Denver. Yeah. He’s like Baby John Denver. He’s

Todd: a true John Denver.

Cathy: But when, okay, so he sounds cute.

Cathy: And now I’m my mom and I’m like, okay. He’s a cute kid. But when I was watching the episodes, I didn’t care about Oliver. And anytime there was an Oliver, what was the Oliver episode in the one where the earring was missing?

Todd: That sounds familiar. Yeah.

Cathy: Anyway, so Cousin Oliver. Okay. Another thing where, um, hold on.

Todd: Just this is out of respect for Oliver, [00:40:00]

Cathy: uh, rocking back.

Todd: They may as well be the same person. They,

Cathy: it’s basically Oliver grew up and became John Denver, even though when Oliver was a little boy, John Denver was already a man. So, yeah. Doesn’t quite work.

Todd: No.

Cathy: Anyway, so one more Brady Bunch and then I’ll get into the, uh, modern family WTF.

Todd: Okay.

Cathy: Aunt Jenny.

Todd: Oh yeah. Love Aunt Jenny.

Cathy: I know. Who is,

Todd: uh, aunt Edna.

Cathy: Yes. Ima Jean Coka, who’s in vacation. So the Aunt Jenny episode is Jan. So Aunt Jenny comes to visit and Jan freaks out because they happened to look, or Aunt Jenny when she was younger looked just like Jan. But Aunt Jenny now is a little more like, um, older.

Cathy: She’s a little more goofy. A little. She just looks older.

Todd: Yeah.

Cathy: And Jan’s like, oh shoot, I’m gonna look like Jenny when I grow up. Yeah. So I’m sad. Yeah. And she was like very upset. And that was the whole like premise. But then Aunt Jenny does this like circle where she gives everybody a gift and she’s so [00:41:00] quirky and fun that Jan’s like, I’ll be like Aunt Jenny after all.

Cathy: But just that episode I was like, wow, Jan. Wow. Like I guess that’s kids for you. Sometimes they get like worked up about things. Didn’t we all want an Aunt Jenny? Right. But she was more worried about looking like Aunt Jenny. Sure. Aunt.

There we go.

Oh, let’s see. You dig. Magic Peter. I’m a big boy. Okay, come on. Put these on me.

Todd: Good old Aunt Jenny. She’s got a lot of necklaces on. She sure

Cathy: does. She was, she was quirky. Yeah. Okay. Modern family. WTF. Let’s hear it. And these are like, I’m trying to be fun with this. WTF I’m not really like annoyed by it, but Cam’s fsbo.

Todd: Yeah.

Cathy: Did you like fsbo?

Todd: Uh, not particularly.

Cathy: And the joke with Fsbo the clown, which is who Cam would become occasionally, is that he would show up to things that were kind of inappropriate. Mm-hmm. Like at a, to a birthday party he wasn’t invited to, or like a business event or like a funeral [00:42:00] or a fight.

Cathy: And so he just was kind of always outta place and nobody really liked it when he was fsbo.

Todd: What about, uh,

excuse me. Why are you dressed like that? Re you are the out. If that word means what I think it means, he’d stolen fsbo. The whimsically mismatched plaids. My trademark Bold splash of pink, my blue lip.

He’d clearly seen one of my online clown tutorials. Hey guys, FSBO again. Just remember when you’re applying your rouge to go easy, you’re in a goose clown, not a tramp.

Todd: I did not, uh, I was not a fan of fizz. O

Cathy: That’s what I mean. Like we, it, but that was kind of part of the joke. It was like a meta joke. Yeah.

Cathy: Like nobody really likes clowns. Sorry. People who are clowns. Who like clowns. Very

Todd: clown people.

Cathy: Um, okay, my last WTF, which is one of my favorite Yeah. Scenes, but it’s, so, WTF is Dylan’s song.

Todd: Oh, yes.

Cathy: So Dylan has the song that he sings during one. We might have to play

Todd: this whole thing. It a, it’s

Cathy: the light.

Todd: Here we go.

Actually, a song I wrote for Hailey. [00:43:00] It’s called In the Moonlight. Lovely title, Dylan. Thanks. The stars are falling from the sky ran off. The reason why I love Hailey’s face, she’s so happy. The moon is shining on your face. Does it finally feels it’s found its place because maybe baby, I just wanna do you, do you, do you wanna do me, do me underneath the moon, baby, baby?

Cathy: Should

Todd: I let go or is that good?

Cathy: Good. First of all, setting the scene, if you haven’t seen it, her whole family is there. Yeah. And so he’s singing, this is supposed to be a sweet moment. Yeah. And everyone’s like, oh my God. Now the funniest part of that episode is the ending credits. Mm-hmm. Everybody’s getting ready for bed, like brushing [00:44:00] their teeth.

Cathy: So they’re all in their own homes and everyone is singing that song. That’s really

Todd: funny. So

Cathy: it’s just a great, it’s, it’s WTF in that, it was very, very funny.

Todd: No doubt.

Cathy: All right, let’s move on to Zen Parenting Radio.

Todd: Uh, oh. Yeah. So where can I find that one? I think that would be over here.

Todd: Uh, it seems weird to say that. I

Cathy: know, but you can do it every time.

Todd: I can do it every time. Um, so this is the part where, I don’t know, explain this part for, well, the

Cathy: next three things that we do, rolling in the deep and, um, parenting. And then what did we learn Fall much more under our old model, which is Zen Parenting Radio.

Cathy: So let’s start with rolling in the deep.

Todd: All right.

Cathy: Okay, so let’s, rolling In. The Deep is about exploring [00:45:00] the emotional depth of, you know, why we chose these shows. Again, we’re talking about blended families and we’re talking about the, you know, how they were portrayed in both shows. I. I’m gonna just give you some like, overall ideas that come from this.

Cathy: Okay. Um, number one is that family is our own. It’s a construction, it’s not biology. Right. Um, that’s obviously true in that the girls start calling, um, you know, Mike, their dad. Yeah. Right away. Um, and you know, I always think about sound of music too, how once Maria and get married, you know, she becomes a entrap.

Cathy: How like the first night she and Liesl are together, she’s like, mother, can I call you mother? You know, it’s like so quick, you know? Yeah. It

Todd: usually takes like years or decades to arrive at that place.

Cathy: Yeah. And make that choice and let it evolve. But again, it’s TV and then, you know, same with modern Family.

Cathy: There’s so many different, you know, people in the family that we’re focusing on and, um, you know, them learning to love each other and accept each other. [00:46:00] And of course that’s the beauty of the show is that with the challenges that they have, they still learn to appreciate and accept each other. One of the hardest is probably the fact that, um, Jay’s wife, um, Sophia Vera, what’s her name, uh, on the show help me.

Todd: Gloria.

Cathy: Gloria. Thank you Gloria. And. Jay are married and she is much, much younger than him. Sure. And so his children are kind of like, wait, she’s our age. That happens a lot. Yeah. You know, Todd and I have a lot of friends who, um, marry someone who is much younger and the children have to kind of learn how to negotiate a stepparent that’s actually their peer.

Todd: Yeah.

Cathy: And so, you know, they do that beautifully. Um, so, you know, one of the things in the Brady Bunch that’s interesting is they actually never use the word step parents. Mm. Interesting. They never even say it. They don’t, you know, it’s all about, they’re already a family, it’s already blended. And both parents, they work together to come up with solutions or consequences or decide [00:47:00] together.

Cathy: They actually have a really lovely, again, show from the seventies and eighties, but they do work together. Yeah. Mike and, and Carol. So in Modern Family, um. For them. The thing I think we all appreciate about that show is that the family, it’s not about perfection. They’re never achieving perfection. Not even close.

Cathy: It’s about the effort. It’s about their willingness to keep, like there’s this episode, I’m, I don’t even remember which one it is or what they end up saying, but there’s three people, cam and then Phil and um, Gloria who are married into this family, the dumpy family. Yeah. And they do this thing, they call each other and they’re like.

Cathy: You know, we need orange juice. And he’s like, okay. He hangs up the phone, he’s like, I’m going out for orange juice. Like they have a word that they use code, they code word, a code word. So that can come together, need

Todd: to assemble

Cathy: because the dump fees are overwhelming them. Yeah. So there’s just kind of things like that where you’re like, it’s never perfect.

Cathy: Sure. They need each [00:48:00] other. Um, they need to have these alliances to get through it. Um, and then, you know, in both shows, something that’s really important, and this is important to you and I also in our family, is that humor is what helps people survive. Right? Sure. Like things are messy. I wrote a book called Restoring Our Girls, um, and one of the, there’s a whole chapter about the importance of recognizing messy Sure.

Cathy: Like not recognizing and going, oh shoot, yeah, I can’t wait till I get through messy. You never get through it. Things that are, we’re in the midst of living and changing all the time. And so instead of trying to avoid messy. How do we engage with messy? Yeah. And these shows demonstrate that through humor.

Cathy: Um, so that’s how they diffuse tension.

Todd: I got, uh, two quotes that I’m talking about, Brady Bunch and some heavy themes. Sure, go ahead. Uh, maybe you remember this one.

I’m not gonna stay where I’m not wanted. [00:49:00] I’m gonna run away. That’s what I’m

Cathy: gonna do. Blown away.

Todd: Remember Poor Bobby?

Cathy: Yep. Bobby leaves and Carol goes with him.

Todd: She’s got her suitcase at the bottom of the stairs

Cathy: because he’s leaving ’cause he doesn’t feel like she has time for him. Right.

Todd: I don’t know why. I feel like he just left out, like basically something good happens to, you know, all the attentions on the middle, kids in the oldest kids. Uh, and Cindy and Bobby are always left out.

Todd: So this is probably an episode where something good happening to Cindy. Yeah. And Bobby’s like, well I guess I’m the loser here so I’m gonna bail.

Yeah. Um,

Todd: this is probably a less popular theme, but you remember this one.

I am a little Sunflower, funny, brave and true. Some kind of led

Cathy: to blossom. I do good dates for you.

Cathy: I do. That was Peter. Yeah. And he joins the Girl Scouts.

Todd: He does. Very interesting. And then Marsha tries to do the Boy Scouts.

Cathy: She doesn’t just try, she crushes it.

Todd: Right.

Cathy: Do you remember,

Todd: I remember she started a fire and none of the other boys could start a fire. Correct.

Cathy: Boys are making fun of her. I remember she has dirt on her face.

Cathy: Yeah, right. You [00:50:00] know, like they’re trying to make it like a, it’s such a big deal, but she crushes it. Right.

Todd: Um, so those were the two,

Cathy: only two.

Todd: So this is the last one and it’s about Mitchell from Modern Family. Okay. And, um, his need to, this is just an interesting clip about, you know, his sexuality and his dad.

Just tell you what happened. Mitchell is embarrassed to kiss me in front of other people. No, you ambushed me. Oh, cam, come on. Don’t take it personally. When Mitchell was in high school, he was dating this girl Robin Chiller. He would never kiss her either. That’s because I was gay. What’s your excuse now? Hi Cameron.

It’s not Mitch’s fault. He gets it from his father. Jay doesn’t like the lovey Doy in public either. I can’t believe you’re coming at me right now. I’m standing here with shoes around my neck. And for the better part of a half hour, I screamed the death outta your

Todd: meat. So he goes on. But then there’s another part I just wanna play later on in that scene.

This, I never did that. Trust me. I gave you twice as much as my father ever gave me. The man kissed [00:51:00] me one time in my entire life, came up behind me, kissed me in the back of that and said, goodnight, Becky. He thought I was my sister. Wait a minute, when was the last time you kissed Mitch? What does that have to do with anything?

Mitch? When was the last time he kissed you? I, I don’t remember. It wasn’t that long ago. I was 12.

Todd: That’s really funny. So, you know, emotion, guys kissing. Yeah. Like really kind of heavy ery and

Cathy: recognizing those streams of like that, that belief system that runs through our family. Like Jay is talking about his dad.

Cathy: So intergenerational trauma or generational trauma is what we call it. This is what I learned from my dad. So this is what I did with Mitch and now Mitch is not kissing his partner right in front of people. Like it’s this thing that we keep passing along unless we resolve it.

Todd: Sure.

Cathy: Um, and so, and with that being flexible with change, this show, both of these shows is about learning how to adapt.

Todd: Yeah.

Cathy: You know, if we are, and again, Todd and I are talking about this with pop culture, and so [00:52:00] obviously this is more than just the things we’re saying. There’s so much that goes into adapting, you know, that in itself could be a hundred shows. Sure. But I’m just trying to get across like that. The fact that we, if we are blending families, our ability to stay connected depends upon our ability to adapt.

Cathy: Mm-hmm. We don’t get to go on and say My way or the highway, we’re doing this like we used to do this or my experience is this, therefore it should be happening again. We have to learn how to blend our beliefs and our needs, you know, with other people and be open and curious to, you know, what’s changing.

Cathy: And on that note, repairing conflict, you know so much of, I love Brady Bunch and Modern Family for all of their episodes about conflict and how they eventually repair it, how

Todd: people

Cathy: apologize.

Todd: So of the three main characters on Modern Family. Cameron and Mitchell, Gloria and Jay, and Phil and Claire.

Todd: Mm-hmm. Which one do you think has the [00:53:00] highest volume of conflict?

Cathy: Well, I think that, um, gosh, Todd, I don’t even know. I, I, I, I think Cam and Mitchell are going at it. Well, cam is more expressive Yeah. About what he needs, and I don’t think it’s necessarily always a big argument.

Yeah.

Cathy: It’s more about, do you notice me?

Todd: Yeah.

Cathy: Are you paying attention and not, I’m not even talking about that last clip. Like, I think there’s more expression in Cam than there is in Mitchell. Mitchell grew up in a very different family. I think Phil also has more expression than his wife. Um, Julie Bowen’s character Carol. No. Julie Bowen’s character.

Cathy: Um, Claire. Claire. Thank you. Claire is more face forward, steadfast, moving fast. Anxious. Phil is more chill, but he’s never really asking her to change. Right. Do you know what I mean? Like they have just as much agreement. Yeah. He stepped her.

Todd: Through all of

Cathy: her, through all of it. And he can be super flighty, [00:54:00] like Sure.

Cathy: He’s the one running that house. Yeah. You know, so it’s not like Phil’s the greatest and she’s the worst. It’s not that

Todd: specific. It’s so funny. I was at this men’s weekend this weekend and um, there was some dialogue about how, um, dads are perceived as these like silly goofball clowns. Yep. And, uh, and Phil is kind of that like, he emulates that.

Todd: I don’t tend to get offended. Some guys do like Yeah. That we’re, we’re more than that. Whatever. Mr. Brady’s the patriarch and he’s the one. It’s really, I would say the clowns are more the minority than how dads are typically perceived on show, on sitcoms. Right.

Cathy: Look at modern family. I mean, Jay is not that way.

Cathy: Yeah. And he’s a father. True. And Mitchell’s not like that. And he’s a father. Yep. I think that the reason why sometimes they get portrayed that way is it’s for good reason. Todd? Yeah. I mean, first of all, a lot of, and then I’ll say the positive and then the negative. The positive is that men tend to be more playmates because.

Cathy: I’m speaking very generally, but if they are at work all day and they come [00:55:00] home, then they’re not focused on the day to day. Right. They are like, now it’s time to play. Now we’re gonna go out to eat. Now let’s go through the ball around, you know, being very general here. But I also wanna say that because a lot of times men, okay, everybody hold their seat is are being taken care of.

Cathy: Yeah. As well. Is that sometimes in a family structure, because I work with women and you know, I’m a woman myself, sometimes the woman is also taking care of her partner. If he happens to be male in a way, like, oh, I put your clothes away. I did your laundry, I made your doctor appointment. And they tend to be more, uh, perceived as, as, as in up, uptight, capable.

Cathy: Well uptight. The, the mom ends up being uptight, but the. Husband is then portrayed in a way of like, he’s a child himself. And sometimes that’s on a TV show and sometimes that’s in reality.

Todd: You ready for my list of classic clown sitcom dads?

Cathy: Yes. Let’s see. Oh, can I guess some? Sure. Go ahead. Um, on The Simpsons Homer

Todd: boom, that’s number two.

Todd: Phil [00:56:00] was number one.

Cathy: Phil was number one. Homer Simpson. Um. H all the sitcoms, like King of Queens,

Todd: like all those, he’s not on there. Whatever that guy’s name is. Yeah. Uh, Ray Barone from everybody loves Raymond Reman. Peter Griffin, family guy. Family

Cathy: guy.

Todd: Yeah. Uh, Al Bundy. Married with children. Yeah. Uh, Hal Wilkerson from Malcolm in the Middle.

Todd: I never watched that show. Me neither. George Lopez from George Lopez. Um, red Foreman from that seventies show. I don’t even know who these dudes.

Cathy: That’s why I said all those sitcoms. ’cause I feel like that’s like a trope. Yeah. You know, if you have a sitcom, the dad is kind of like a goof. He can’t do anything.

Cathy: Right.

Yeah.

Cathy: And so, to your point with your men’s weekend, that is a trope. But then we always have to ask where it comes from.

Todd: Yeah.

Cathy: You know what I mean? Like why

Todd: some truth in it.

Cathy: There is, there’s always truth in it. Of

Todd: course.

Cathy: Just like even with, um, you know, Claire, you know, she the type of mom she is like kind of overbearing and anxious and always on the go.

Cathy: There’s real. That’s true too. Yeah. I know a lot of women like that. I can be like [00:57:00] that. You know? So we see ourselves in these things and they’re just like over, not overreactions, what are they? They’re like over the top performances.

Todd: Yeah.

Cathy: Of things we, we see just a few more things enrolling in the deed.

Cathy: Can I go

Todd: to the moms real quick? Sure, go ahead. Highly anxious sitcom moms. And that’s what I asked for. Okay.

Cathy: Okay. Do you want

Todd: me to say ’em to you?

Cathy: Um, I bet Julie Bowen’s on there.

Todd: Uh, she’s first.

Cathy: Yeah.

Todd: Mm-hmm. Uh, Debra Barone from Everybody Loves Raymond. Jill Taylor, who Home improvement. I don’t remember her being Did you ever watch Home Improvement?

Todd: I did. I did watch Home Improvement. Uh, Monica Geller. She wasn’t a mom actually. She was a mom at the end. Right at the very end. Um, Marie Bar and the grandma. Okay. Right. Uh, Judy Geller. Whatever.

Cathy: That’s Monica’s mom. Yeah. Yeah. They’re kind of pulling from nowhere there. Yeah. So, again, okay, go ahead. Another part of rolling in the deep, as far as blended families is the idea of that we all wanna be seen, valued, and heard.

Cathy: Mm-hmm. Like you just played the clip of Bobby, you know. Yeah. Leaving because he felt like he wasn’t seen all the times. The Jan felt like she wasn’t seen. I mean, there were so [00:58:00] many episodes

Todd: Yeah.

Cathy: Around that, you know, about no one recognizing her. There’s so much about Manny not feeling seen when his mom and Jay first get together.

Cathy: There’s um, parts about, you know, Alex not being seen because Hailey is so popular, and then Hailey’s not feeling seen because Alex is so smart and the girl’s not feeling seen because Luke and um, his dad have a stronger relationship. You know, like there’s all of these. Ways. And again, that’s a big part of Mitch and Cam.

Sure. You

Cathy: know, cam not feeling seen. So this is an ongoing discussion about how in a family, especially when we’re blending, we have to pay attention to each person’s needs and not just be like the kids. Right. Because each kid needs something different. And in a partnership we need different things.

Todd: Sorry, go ahead.

Cathy: Um, so the last thing I’ll say, I think it’s the last thing I have so many pages on this, is that we, I, this is really important for Zen Parenting Radio stuff. We can [00:59:00] outgrow our roles. And what I mean by that is sometimes we come into a, you know, our lives are into a family and people think of us a certain way.

Cathy: We’re the funny one, the responsible one, the fixer, whatever it may be. Um, you know, in the Brady Bunch, Greg is the golden boy. Jan is insecure, Bobby is a tag along. But over the course of those five years, you see a shift.

Todd: Yeah.

Cathy: You know, there’s a change. And because when it’s time to change, and then in modern family, Hailey goes from being kind of perceived as ditzy to being a thoughtful mom.

Cathy: Mm-hmm. And having a really cool influencer job. Claire softens, Claire becomes a CEO when she had been a stay, stay-at-home mom. Right. Cam learns to listen better, et cetera. So in Send Parenting Radio, we’ve always talked about how. You know, not labeling your kids or each other, like allowing the people we love to grow and evolve rather than pigeonholing them.

Cathy: Where does pigeonholing come from?

Todd: Uh, is that the right word? Yeah, pigeonholing. Pigeonholing. Where do you think that comes from? Well, all you have to do is Google [01:00:00] it. If you really want me to find out. I

Cathy: don’t know if I do. Okay,

Todd: then I, um, let’s just let people think on that

Cathy: one. Yeah, everybody you email us about that.

Cathy: So anyway, that’s rolling in the deep, you wanna hear,

Todd: uh, Mike Brady. Uh, and this will be good for the parenting aspect. So let me just play this

like you,

Todd: this the right one? Yep.

And the cat?

When you coming home,

Todd: dad? Oh no, when. All right. So, uh, through the parenting lens, Uhhuh, uh, you ready to hear Mike Brady kind of do some discipline with Marcia? When’s she was younger?

All right. Marcia, did you have your mother’s permission to be up this late? No, sir. Did you have permission to be in my den?

It was the only place I could find that was private. Sorry if that made you angry. Hey, remember our slogan around here? A wise man forgets his [01:01:00] anger before he lies down to sleep. You gimme a good night kiss. We’ll talk about it in the morning. Okay?

Cathy: Okay. He’s a good dad. Was that the one where she was trying to do something nice?

Cathy: Yes. And he got in trouble. I think she was trying to do something to pick something for him or

Todd: him.

Cathy: Yeah.

Todd: Yeah. So that’s a really good one.

Cathy: Yeah, it’s a, it’s, and the fact that she keeps that in.

Todd: Um, what else do I have here? Uh, Phil Zoie. Um, do you guys know what Phil philosophy is? You know what that is, sweetie?

Todd: I’m assuming

Cathy: it’s from Phil and Moderate family

Todd: one. I know. So you say one because I gotta find it,

Cathy: so I’ll just, I’ll keep going and you tell me when to stop. I’ve got a bunch of ’em. So, parental issues when it comes to blending families, it comes to these shows. Blending takes time and patience. That’s why I like having a lot of seasons of these shows.

Cathy: ’cause it shows you them evolving. They,

Todd: oops, sorry.

Cathy: Relationships don’t click overnight. You know, they grow through mistakes and shared experiences and [01:02:00] forgiveness. So for those of you who are just blending a family, you’re just starting, it’s gonna be messy. You know, the blending takes time. Um, I actually just listened to a, uh, podcast, uh, goop podcast with Gwyneth Paltrow and her new husband, he’s not really new anymore, but her current husband, Brad something.

Cathy: And they were just talking about how difficult it was to blend their families and how it took years for them to kind of figure out and, and all the mistakes they made along the way. I thought, I thought it was really interesting. Yeah.

Todd: Um, were you gonna play something? Yeah. Phil. Phil Zoie.

Phil Zoie, A hardbound collection of all the life lessons I’ve learned such as,

always look people in the eye, even if they’re blind, just say, I’m looking you in the eye. Or if you get pulled over for speeding, tell the policeman your spouse has diarrhea.

Todd: The [01:03:00] thing that makes that scene so great is Claire’s

Cathy: sitting there face.

Todd: Yeah, just,

Cathy: um, is that his book that he wrote? Yes. Yes. I remember the book, yes.

Cathy: Okay. A few more things Under parental guidance, uh, guidance, um, fairness feels different to everyone. I think that some of the, you know, when we get really deep into these two shows, what one person needs. May be different than what another person needs. And again, I’m kind of harping on this idea that everybody has their own personality and you need to get to know them.

Todd: Mm-hmm.

Cathy: But you know, depending on who you are, some people don’t need as much as someone else. Like I’ll just talk about, you know, Brady Bunch. Like Jan needed a lot of encouragement and support and we can say, well, Marsha didn’t need that, but that’s because she was, had a different personality, she had a different kind of status in the school.

Cathy: She already had a lot of confidence. And when it came to Jan, there needed to be more support, not to feel sorry for her. Mm-hmm. But to encourage her and remind her. And obviously there was a time when that was true for Bobby [01:04:00] and Cindy and Peter as well. You know, Bobby was trying to figure himself out a lot.

Cathy: Yeah. Remember when he was the hall monitor? Of

course.

Cathy: Um, and then with that said, that means that the parents had to like. Balance, loyalty and inclusion. One of the hardest things I think, um, when it comes to blending families is because they’re in essence, all your kids now, you know, like you’re coming together.

Cathy: So if you have these children who are stepchildren and then you have your children and how you make things fair. Where you’re not only taking care of your biological children and that you have some sense of justice within the home where everybody gets their needs met. I think that’d be really challenging.

Todd: Yeah. Don’t you, John and Judy Cassani tried their best to do that, sweetie. Well, but my parents were not a blended family. I’m just saying the idea of parenting and trying to keep things fair, yes. That

Cathy: was very big for my parents. They were very, very big on fairness

Todd: to the point where it’s just like, yeah, we get it.

Todd: We know you guys want it to be, you [01:05:00] know, Christine got a piece of furniture, now we gotta make sure you get, you know, like leftover furniture from their offices.

Cathy: Oh, I totally like that though. Yeah. I mean, I’ve, I’ve inherited that for sure. Like if something, if we, if this girl gets money for some reason, then I’m like, well then these girls do as well, meaning my daughters.

Todd: So I’m gonna play a clip from an episode called The Grass is Greener. Okay? She just reminds you of anything. Okay.

By 11 kinds of trees, 10 types of plants, six wild flowers, and three noxious weeds. That still sounds like fun, huh? This is hard work. Oh, Carol, hard work is an hour in the hot sun with regrowing boys.

Playing baseball with the boys is fun compared to this. Eh? You women just don’t understand. Mike. Mike, easy, easy. Mike, what are we gonna do about him? We, last time I got between a man and his wife was the last time I got between a man and his wife get all my sympathy. Do you realize that in the past month I’ve had to help [01:06:00] Marsha get her water fund badge, her foot traveler’s badge, her gypsy badge, and this morning her Daniel boom badge, and at the same time, keep two other girls occupy.

At least it’s a variety. Do you know in how many different directions three spirited girls can move at the same time? Three. 300. And next Saturday while you are playing in the backyard, oh, Marsha’s cooking badge. Honey. They’re girls. The gentler sex. Now three boys are much easier to handle. Right? They are like, heck, what’s more exhausting than playing ball with three young boys chasing after three young girls?

Didn’t we already hear this part? No. Two are beginning to repeat yourselves. Oh yeah. He won’t listen to logic. Yeah. And she won’t listen to hard facts. You’re both so sure. You’re right. Next Saturday. Why don’t you simply switch jobs? Mm-hmm.

Todd: Alice is like the Yoda of the show. She sure is. She is listening.

Todd: She just throw throws in these nice little. Little things, but you should have played the tiki sound. Uh, I know. [01:07:00]

Cathy: Um, so I mean, they’ve been talking about emotional labor even on the, uh, Brady Bunch before. Right. Way back then before we were, we, we’ve done like 10 episodes on the damn subject. I know. It’s, it’s always been around and, and it’s always this silly argument about.

Cathy: Who has it more difficult? And the thing is, is it’s all, even though I definitely think that the whole idea of invisible labor and emotional labor, there’s a better understanding of all the work that women are actually doing behind the scenes. Like that is a real thing that takes up a lot of energy and time.

Cathy: I don’t believe when we’re talking about genders, that there is a, they have it more difficult or we have it more difficult. We both have experiences that are very unique and then all genders, you know, everybody, regardless of their gender identification, have their own unique experience. And it, we do much better communicating about it, sharing, acknowledging, validating than we do, trying to have a competition.

Todd: When one [01:08:00] gender wins, all genders lose.

Cathy: That’s correct. And that’s why communication matters more than structure. Like that’s, communication is what’s so necessary when it comes to families, regardless of your blended or not. We have to be able to talk about this. The, the thing that, why do people do therapy?

Cathy: I used to talk about this all the time on our other podcast, people do therapy because they wanna be able to say what they’re feeling inside and have someone validated

Todd: Yeah. Not be judged.

Cathy: And to, it is unfortunate that many people in their own families do not get that. Yeah. Children, teens, young adults, partners, all they’re trying to say is, this is how I feel like.

Cathy: I don’t know if you guys ever watch couples therapy, but that is like such a good show for just seeing how certain couples respond to each other and how there are so many people that cannot validate each other. Yeah. It’s like they’re so threatened by the validation. Oh. And so anyway. Um, so I feel like that is my parental guidance.[01:09:00]

Cathy: All right.

Todd: What did it teach us? What did it teach us? I have nothing here.

Cathy: I think the big lesson is that there’s no right way to be a family. Oh, there you go. I think that, um, since you and I have started talking about parenting 20 years ago, one thing that we have always believed is that family is, um, unique and it’s dependent on your circumstances, your identification, your love, your history, your trauma, your.

Cathy: Um, your needs, your future desires, like family is what we create and there are people in my life. Um, obviously I have my family of Todd and the girls and my sister and, you know, I, that whole my aunt, but. There’s also family, or excuse me, friends that I have that are my family for sure. Sure. Um, they are, not only do [01:10:00] I, is it very literal, like I invite them to family events, but they are people that I count on in a really significant way.

Cathy: And so many of my students, um, you know, I teach at the university and so many of my social work students, their families are their grandmother and their uncle or their families are my best friend and my dad when we are living in the same place. You know, like no people, the whole nuclear family idea or the idea of a very traditional family, that’s still a percentage, but there are many ways to create a family.

Cathy: And, you know, one podcast that’s very helpful or one family that I think has been really interesting with blending is, um, Glennon and Abby’s family. Um, you know, we obviously we Glennon and Abby, we’ve known forever. We actually had them at one of our conferences, um, kind of watched their whole, um. You know, creation of their family, but they talk very openly about the challenges of blending their family.

Cathy: And there’s also, you know, the fact that, that, you know, Glennon was married [01:11:00] to a man, now she’s married to a woman, you know, they’re raising now three young adults. Um, you know, how they’re managing all the expectations and what I appreciate about their conversation. It’s less about do what they do and more about how they talk about the ongoing challenges.

Yeah.

Cathy: That they’re, they’re learning, they have growth, um, and then something else happens. Yeah. You know, ’cause that’s life that’s real.

Todd: As I think about the kids in each of these two shows, um, I don’t know if there’s a question in here, but. Of the six Brady’s and however many kids are in, uh, modern family, which set of kids is more conscientious or evolved?

Cathy: Well, I think it would have to be Modern family just because of the Yeah. The year that it came out. Yeah. I think that in the Brady’s, all those kids are very sweet and grounded. You know, they all have bad moments or times when they don’t treat people kindly. Um, but then there’s times that they stick up for each other.

Cathy: Bobby Hinton, sweetie. Buddy Hinton. [01:12:00] Buddy Hinton, that’s it. ’cause Bobby Peter hits him. Who hits Buddy Hinton?

Todd: Um, Peter does, after Peter, his dad does the boxing. He teaches him how to hit. That’s right. Um, so I’m gonna rank the girls. You rank the boys of the Brady’s. Okay. Rank them in. What am I favorite to least favorite?

Todd: Oh gosh, I can’t do that. I’m gonna say Cindy is one, Marsha’s two and Janice three.

Cathy: But are, do you look at as being high maintenance?

Todd: I don’t know. I just ranked them as favorite from most of least.

Cathy: Yeah. I, I don’t think I’m gonna

Todd: do it. Okay. Um, now rank the kids in Modern Family. Okay. We got, uh, any of the names

Cathy: I can tell you?

Todd: Go ahead

Cathy: Hailey.

Todd: Okay.

Cathy: Alex.

Todd: Yep.

Cathy: Luke.

Todd: Yep.

Cathy: Then we have Lily.

Todd: Yep.

Cathy: And then we have, uh, Manny.

Todd: Yeah. And then

Cathy: we have Joe.

Todd: Joe, Joe didn’t offer anything to that show.

Cathy: What?

Todd: Joe didn’t do anything.

Cathy: Actually, there are funny memes about Joe because they, a lot of times when Gloria was carrying [01:13:00] Joe around, you could tell she wasn’t carrying a baby.

Cathy: Yeah. Uh, I think I, I

Todd: think

Cathy: my

Todd: favorite is, wait, sweetie, Joe was the Oliver. Yes. Exactly’s. How did we not make that connection’s? Another Oliver. Yeah. Anyway, keep going. Why these sitcoms always think they have to bring in a new kid.

Cathy: Don’t know. I don’t know. Growing. We already talked about, um, we said growing pains.

Cathy: No, not growing pain. No. They brought in Leo DiCaprio. Yeah, but he wasn’t like a

Todd: baby. No. He was like an adopted teenager off the street or something. And then

Cathy: Andy in um,

Todd: uh,

Cathy: family Ties. Family Ties.

Todd: Um, I’m gonna say my favorite in Modern Family is Luke. Yeah. My least favorite is Manny.

Okay.

Todd: Um, and then I’ll just put in the three sisters.

Todd: Uh, Lily, I didn’t really get a chance to know, although she does have some funny, funny lines. Lily was so funny when she was little. Yeah,

Cathy: I, all of them. See this is the thing is when I think about Modern Family, every single one of them had an episode, episode that I loved. There is an episode that I, um.

Cathy: Wrote about, [01:14:00] it was about Alex, um, about how she is such an overachiever, as we all know, that’s her character. And she, there’s a, like this thing going on at school where her mom has to go kind of figure out what Alex’s day is like at school. Yeah. It’s like an orientation. Yeah. And her mom goes to this orientation and sees all the pressure that’s on Alex and sees all the things that she’s expected to do.

Cathy: And when she comes home, she says to Alex, oh my gosh, I had no idea how much, you know, weight was on your shoulders. And Alex just breaks down and cries. Yeah. And hugs her mom because nobody understood how much pressure she felt. I just always thought that was really beautiful. And then Hailey has so many funny things when she goes to college and before that, and then Dylan, she just, and then Luke is great too, but most of Luke.

Cathy: It’s good because

Todd: with Phil, Luke is young. Luke is so much better than old Luke

Cathy: because of his relationship with Phil. Don’t you think? Yeah.

Todd: The best moments with Luke is always with Phil. So I’m now going to go over, um, guest [01:15:00] stars that just kind of appear on each show and you tell me which set of stars you think is better.

Cathy: This should have been in anyway. That Yeah, that’s fine.

Todd: Brady Bunch. She ready? Yeah. Ready. Marian Ross Uhhuh. You know who she is? Oh God, I can remember it. You know the actress though, right?

Cathy: Yeah. She’s on Happy Days. Mrs. Cunningham. Mrs. Cunningham. But I can see her in the show and I can’t remember what she plays.

Cathy: I feel like she cleans up. What does she do?

Todd: Dr. Porter Swift.

Cathy: Doctor. She’s the doctor. Yep.

Todd: Um,

Cathy: Joe Namath. Yeah, he’s Joe Namath.

Todd: Vincent Price?

Cathy: Yep. He’s the t You gotta have the tiki sound, dude.

Todd: I know. I gotta pull it up. Um, let’s see. Deacon Jones. Yeah. You know who that is? Yep. Football player. She was Nick Glee Club.

Todd: Or that was the, the Glee Club thing

Cathy: that he gave Peter permission to stay in the Glee Club.

Todd: Yeah. Uh, Don Ho. Don Ho. Yeah. Don Drysdale. Correct. Imogene Coco. We talked about her. Uh, Desi Arna. Yep. And Davy Jones. Sweet. Don’t get into David Jones yet. No. Okay. Um, and now I’m gonna head on over to Modern Family.

Todd: Okay. The stars. You ready?

Mm-hmm. [01:16:00]

Todd: Um, I’m not ready. Family Tree. Charlie Long. Uh, hold on to your choppers. Oh, holding God. A lot more information on Modern Family, which is interesting.

Cathy: Well, it was on for 11 seasons.

Todd: Um, I can’t find it. I can’t find it. I had it now. I can’t find it.

Cathy: Well, let’s try and think of them.

Cathy: Um, there’s so many. Lynn Manuel was

Todd: on it.

Cathy: Um, yeah. And some of these people just came in and out versus like Phil’s parents. Yeah, it was, um, or his ex-wife? No, Jay’s ex-wife was Shelly Long. His parents were, I got it. Okay. Fred Willard. Fred Willard,

Todd: yeah. Uh, Shelly Long? Mm-hmm. Chaz Palm and Terry. Who did he played?

Todd: He played Jay’s buddy.

Cathy: Oh, I was thinking that was related to Gloria. Gloria’s ex-husband was Benjamin Brat though. Benjamin Brat. Uhhuh Elizabeth Banks. Okay. Yeah, she is. She’s their, uh, cam and Mitchell’s best friend, Nathan Lane

Todd: Pepper. Uh, Rob Riggle. Yeah. Who is he in? That is Gil Thorpe. Phil’s realtor rival who later comes out as gay.

Todd: [01:17:00] Yes. Um, those are the ones that I recognize.

Cathy: What about their next door neighbors?

Todd: Oh yeah. Your guy

Cathy: that you love.

Todd: Oh, what’s his name?

Cathy: Steve.

Todd: No, I know. What’s the name of the actor?

Cathy: I know. That’s who I’m trying to come up with. With

Todd: ZZ. Steve

Cathy: Zan. Steve

Todd: Zan. He’s like my favorite actor of all time. Behind Maybe Michael Keaton,

Cathy: that Halloween episode where they decorate their houses.

Todd: What about Carol’s? Uh, love for Halloween. I love that about her. You keep calling her. Cl Carol? She’s Claire. Claire, sorry.

Cathy: Carol is Mrs. Brady. That’s right. Claire. Claire is Mrs. Dumpy. Thank you. Mrs. Dumpy Uhoh. What’s

Todd: happening?

Cathy: Wait, bill, dumpy. Uh, before, when I was talking about the family, I was saying the dumpy family, but really it’s Jay’s family.

Cathy: So what’s Jay’s last name? Pritchett. It’s the Pritchett family that is really the family that everybody’s trying to, I, I had that wrong. Sorry, everybody. Speaking of Todd, can I bring up something from an old show? There we go. Thank you. More tiki. Just like more cowbell.

Todd: Um, [01:18:00] did you get scared during those episodes?

Todd: Of course. Yeah. Okay.

Cathy: I got scared when they rolled the donkeys down the Grand Canyon. I was like, that’s scary. Um, I wanna say something. We did an episode, our very first episode was about MTV. Mm-hmm. And Todd, you kept mentioning, um, Taylor Swift and Kanye.

Todd: Mm-hmm.

Cathy: And that was VH one. That wasn’t MTV,

Todd: it wasn’t on, that was the Video Music

Cathy: Awards,

Todd: right?

Todd: Isn’t that on MTV?

Cathy: I thought that was the VH one thing.

Todd: I don’t think so. VH one is like the stepbrother of MTV

Cathy: where, but I think that that I, I could be wrong.

Todd: Yeah. I think he went, I, when I was

Cathy: listening though, I was like, this

Todd: one, does VH one have any awards, sweetie? VH one was huge. No, they did Inside the music and storytellers or whatever that my prep is.

Todd: Yeah. My God. Maybe we’ll have to do another one on VH one, one. There they

Cathy: had, they, there was the E True Hollywood story that was on E and then there’s Behind the music. Yeah. Anyway, I’ll bet you a dollar. I’m right. You could be. I was listening and I was like, I think that was VH one. Okay. [01:19:00] But I, I just, I’m waiting as we do this show.

Cathy: Okay. When Todd and I, you know, we’ve been doing a parenting show for 15 years and we would get emails of people who were frustrated or annoyed or thought we were wrong. But, you know, not that much. But I think now that we’re talking about pop culture, we’re gonna get emails from people who are right.

Cathy: That’s not right.

Todd: For sure. So we’re ready for it. We’re, ’cause we’re flawed and I’m doing search on the internet, which is filled with misinformation

Cathy: and it’s messy. Yeah. Just like these, you know, blended families can be. So, um, are we going to Yes. Cringe or class?

Nobody puts kids in the corner.

Todd: Nothing. Oh, Johnny. Johnny. He’s the best. You’re crazy. No, you’re wild. Oh, whatever. Same thing. Um, what do you got? I.

Cathy: I think the Brady Bunch is a total classic. Yeah, I think Modern Family is a total classic. I hold them both up in very high regard. Nice. [01:20:00] What do you say?

Todd: Um, here’s my question.

Todd: Like if I were gonna ask you what’s a better show,

Cathy: Uhhuh

Todd: one of it’s unfair because Modern Family has 11 seasons. Modern Family is a better show. Now here’s the question. Is the re are the reruns gonna be here in 20 or 40 years? The way reruns for Brady Bunch is still here. No. So if we’re, if you’re viewing it through Standing Power, I don’t think Modern family is gonna be as successful as Brady Bunch is.

Cathy: But you have to look at all the aspects of why that is. You can’t just say that as like a flat like concept of like, it’s not gonna be as popular. Therefore, I mean, TV was so different. Syndication was so different.

Todd: True.

Cathy: Where a show was played, you know, over and over and over again. ’cause that’s all they had.

Cathy: Yeah. And so to. Like put modern family up against an eighties way. Yeah. Of doing syndication is not fair.

Todd: I just think that in 10 years we’re [01:21:00] still gonna be watching Brady Bunch, but we don’t watch Brady Bunch anymore. Nobody watches Brady Bunch. Of course, it’s still on tv. It’s still on Paramount, it’s still on all these places.

Todd: It’s getting viewed all the time. We had to kind of

Cathy: force feed it on our children when they were sick one time. We’re like the Brady Bunch. Do you remember? I

Todd: do.

Cathy: And so it’s not something they come across. It’s not

Todd: cool.

Cathy: No,

Todd: but it’s still being viewed today.

Cathy: I think once the children, 50

Todd: years

Cathy: later. I think once the children are no longer here, which I hope they’re here for a while, ’cause they’re not that much older than us, that the show will go away.

Cathy: I don’t think it will. Uh, not completely, but it’ll go away. The fact that, you know, you’ve never seen Carol Burnett, you know what I mean? Like. Carol Burnett was the biggest thing ever. Right. And you’re like, I didn’t see it

Todd: so well. Carol Burnett doesn’t have the lasting power the Brady bench does.

Cathy: No, but she had power.

Cathy: Of course. That show was so more popular is probably the number one show on tv. Absolutely. And then as far as Modern Family goes, Mo, I mean, again, it’ll run its course just like every show does, but it’s so available. Yeah. Like [01:22:00] when my daughter sits down to have a really quick lunch, she puts on a modern family, watches it.

Cathy: Yeah. You know, this is her norm. Yeah. And when we all wanna get together and watch something like for just 30 minutes before we go to bed, we can agree on a modern family.

Todd: We can. And there’s times when I, as this has been years, but I would, Skyler and I got into family ties, like Right.

Cathy: We try and pull in some of

Todd: these shows.

Todd: Yeah. ’cause they’re good. And the fact that Skyler’s watching Arrested Development is hilarious. But I know Tweet is this cringe classic.

Cathy: Got, get the next part, Marcia.

So now I’m

Todd: looking at the video and I think Peter has the least amount of rhythm.

Cathy: Could be. What about Bobby in that little [01:23:00] love? Bobby, you know, solo. He has, Bobby’s my favorite. I know Bobby’s the best. Um, do you have any others? Do you have the silver platters? Do you have keep on?

Todd: Uh, I do have. Keep on. Um, I think it’s right here. Where is it? Um,

Cathy: you got keep on, keep on, keep on, keep on, keep on dancing all through the night. Do you want me to like, oh.

Todd: Tell us about things. Oh, that’s okay. Where did they get those costumes? Where did they get the money for those costumes? I forget.

Cathy: Well, the silver platters, I don’t know that mean

Todd: from the silver platter,

Cathy: didn’t they? Like we, they wanted a silver platter.

Todd: Noreen would know. Noreen would know. We a friend Nora call us Nora, let us know how they got the money for the costumes.

Todd: Yeah. Maybe they made ’em outta drapes, like in the Sound of music. They didn’t [01:24:00] make ’em. I think somebody fronted the cash. Oh God, who was it?

Cathy: If they’re fronting the cash for the costumes front, the cash for the silver platter, then you don’t have to buy the silver platter.

Todd: If the episode would be so much worse though, sweetie.

Todd: ’cause if,

Cathy: or Jan runs into it and breaks it. No, no. That’s the, she break, she’s not wearing glasses.

Todd: Uh,

Cathy: yeah. Well, she’s on the

Todd: bike. She rides her bike

Cathy: and, and like breaks something

Todd: and, and Craig’s like, Jan.

Cathy: Jan, Jan. There was a lot of gender stuff in that show. Remember Marcia and Greg’s little fight over who could drive better.

Cathy: I love it. Okay, so can we go to best quote? Uh, are we there yet?

Todd: We’re not there yet because I wanna, I wanna find that quote. I’m not gonna be able to

Cathy: find Jan.

Todd: Jan, Jan. That’s all right. Good enough. Okay. Um, all right, so what’s the next category? I’m lost.

Cathy: It’s best quote you, I think you wanted to do favorite scene, but are we there yet?

Todd: No. We’ll do that later.

Cathy: Okay.

May the force be [01:25:00] with you. May the force be with you. May the fool be with you.

Todd: May the force be with you. The force be with you. Okay. What do you got, sweetheart?

Cathy: So I’m gonna do one from each show. Okay. Um, from, uh, I have to do Phil, because there’s so many good quotes. Modern Family is so brilliantly written, but a lot of it is because what comes before and after it, it’s how the, it’s the rhythm of the show.

Cathy: So it’s hard to find just like one alone quote. But Phil, um, he says, I may not understand women, but I do understand not understanding women. Beautiful. And then my, my Brady Bunch quote, it’s not one quote Todd. It’s just Jan. Mm-hmm. Okay. Can I give you all of Jan’s insecurity quotes? Sure. Babe, you ready?

Todd: Yep. Let’s do it.

Cathy: We already did. Marsha, Marsha, Marsha. And then her next quote is, all I hear all day long is how great Marsha is at this, or how wonderful Marsha is at that. Marsha. Marsha. Marsha, same one. I’ll never be as pretty or popular as Marsha. Then she says, I’m ugly, ugly, ugly, ugly. This [01:26:00] was about getting glasses.

Cathy: Then she was, when she did wanna go out with this guy, she said, oh, I can’t go. Something suddenly came up. Mm-hmm. I think that was given to her by Marsha. Yeah. I just tell him something suddenly came up. Then when Jan’s like, kind of losing herself, she’s like, maybe I’ll just dye my hair black and become a new person.

Cathy: Which you haven’t done yet. No. Um, but

Todd: I’m going to.

Cathy: And then Jan, she started talking about how, she said, sometimes I just feel like I don’t belong. She this, there’s a theme here. And then Jan says, why does everything have to be about winning or losing? This is when she takes a step back from her competition and just wants to be herself.

Cathy: And then the final one is, I’m tired of always being in someone’s shadow, which, you know who that someone is?

Todd: Fricking Marsha.

Cathy: Marsha. So I just wanna give Jan her her like her moment.

Todd: Um, my favorite quote is this one.

Todd: Oh, that’s not it. That’s a commercial. [01:27:00] That sounds like a commercial. No. Can’t find it. I’ll try to find it and bring, come back to it. Was

Cathy: it a modern family or? It was a Brady

Todd: Bunch. One that I love, but I’m trying to do it. Um,

Cathy: let me guess. It’s Bobby.

Todd: Of course. It’s Bobby

Cathy: a duh.

Todd: Oh, I just need to pause this and I can do it.

Todd: Um, frustrated. Hmm. I’ll figure it out. Um, so are you done with quotes?

Cathy: I think so. I mean, we, I think we’re moving on to where are they now. So can you do that with where you are producing?

Todd: Uh, let me find, where are they now? Todd is juggling a lot of things here, over there. I’m juggling a lot of things.

Todd: There it is. That was it. Hold on a second though.

I’m afraid it is.

Todd: There’s other sounds coming and I’m frustrated with my production. Let’s do, let’s just cancel that part. Let’s, let’s, let’s, let’s just skip it. I know. I just don’t know, but now I’m playing something [01:28:00] frustrated. Something’s playing and I can’t figure out where it is.

Cathy: Oh, no. Well, what if I do this?

Let’s do this.

Cathy: What if I start talking about where are they now?

Todd: Uh, you can do that.

Cathy: Can you have, do you have the jingle palette of like, where are they now? I,

Todd: I’m gonna have to pause this. I was doing so well

Cathy: on why women kill,

is this

Cathy: Okay, so can you, oh,

Todd: there, it’s, can you cut all this out? Yeah. Okay, good.

Rob kissed a blonde. I don’t like doing that,

Todd: but I will do it. There it is. Um,

Cathy: so you could probably scoot back pretty far.

Todd: Yeah, I’ll, okay. Let me just, 1 28 31 1 28 31. And now we are at what category? I’m confused.

Cathy: So you were gonna play a quote from Bobby.

Todd: Oh, let’s see if we, oh, sorry. Let me see if I can get that.

Cathy: Mother kept

Todd: there.

It’s talked. Come on Tiger. It concerns you too.[01:29:00]

Um, I’m pretty serious, Jeff. Well, I’m afraid it is pretty serious. Son. Mother kept Jan home from school today. Just thought she had a cold. Jan has an allergy. An hour. What? Allergy. That’s something that makes you feel miserable when you get anywhere near it. Whatever it is, let’s just get rid of it, even if it’s tiger.

Tiger.

Jan’s allergic to tiger. And I’m afraid, boys, that they cannot live together in the same house. Oh my dad, it’s terrible. Where’s Jen gonna live?

Todd: Jen lived with us. Bobby Time. That’s my favorite line.

Cathy: But I cannot believe it’s taken us this long to talk about this. Our, the reason why we call each other sweetie is because of the show.

Cathy: Oh my God. I gotta find that. How have we not talked about that? As Todd’s looking for that, I will share that. Um, Todd and I, [01:30:00] our term of endearment for each other, which it’s not even conscious anymore. We just call each other sweetie. That’s just what we’ve always done. And it comes from the Brady Bunch where there’s an episode where Greg is going out on a date.

Cathy: Mm-hmm. And Bobby again, it’s a Bobby quote. Yeah. And I think it’s raining or something. And he says, you wouldn’t want sweetie pie to get wet, would you? So we used to call each other Sweetie pie. I know. And it turned into sweetie, then we stopped. I know. Well, we, we didn’t stop. We still call each other sweetie all the time.

Cathy: But sweetie, I’m more now in the babe thing. You, you do use babe a lot. And you know what’s funny about you using Babe? You used to say that it drove you crazy when people said, babe,

Todd: I know. Earlier in our relationship now, like now I have jumped in. I know. See if I can

top now. Look Bobby, you might as well do it.

It’s warm in here. Put the top down. [01:31:00] Put the top. Now look, Bobby, you might as well do it, Greg.

Todd: Oh, this is now he is gotta get the umbrella,

Cathy: right? Doesn’t he break the top with the umbrella?

Todd: Yeah. That’s coming up.

I

Todd: He’s got the umbrella. He is. All right. There we go.

It might rain.

You wouldn’t want sweetie pie to get wet, would you?

Todd: There’s a lot of work to get there, but it’s worth it.

Cathy: You should cut that clip so we can play that a lot.

Todd: That’s right, because

Cathy: that’s why we call each other what we do anyway. Not a bad idea. It’s a Brady Bunch reference and I appreciate all your hard work and finding it.

Cathy: Can you now find the, where are they [01:32:00] now? Um, sound.

Where are you?

Cathy: Couldn’t food.

Todd: Uh, I got nothing because there’s so many. I didn’t know where to start.

Cathy: I’ll do a really quick recap. I will not dig in super deep, but Barry Williams, he is, he was on Dancing With the Stars in 2023. He’s still on social media, big part of the fan convention circuit. He’s like all over the place.

Cathy: I see him all the time. Maureen McCormick, Marsha Brady. She wrote a book called, here’s the Story. She was also on Dancing with the Stars, celebrity Fit Club. HGTV is a very Brady Re, um, renovation, which we already talked about. Christopher Knight, Peter Brady, left acting for a while, but came back with my Fair Brady.

Cathy: He was married to then wife, Adrian Curry. There was a whole thing about that, which I won’t get into, but if you’re interested, look up Christopher Knight and, um. Adrian Curry. Uh, he was also part of a very Brady res, uh, renovation Eve Plum. [01:33:00] Um, she’s a professional painter. She also was on the very Brady renovation, but she’s kind of stayed out of the spotlight a little more.

Cathy: Mike Lookin land, left acting to become a camera operator. Um, he, Susan Olsen, Cindy Brady, she’s in radio voice. Uh, she’s a podcaster, all that kind of stuff. So, um, Robert Reed, as you said. Um, rip. He died when he was 59, Todd, geez, uh, 1992. His official cause of death was colon cancer, but the death certificate also listed HIV as a contributing factor.

Cathy: I remember watching Reality Bites, which is a movie from 1993 or four. Ethan Hawk, Winona writer Win. Ethan Hawk’s character. Actually says, you know, something about our generation and that, you know, Mr. Brady died of aids. I was like, what? Yeah, he didn’t die of aids, but he did have HIV and as Todd said, he was a closeted, um,

Todd: gain pill after he died, I think.

Todd: Right. Did we? [01:34:00] Or was it well known?

Cathy: I don’t think it was well known. ’cause like I said, I remember being surprised by that. Yeah. In reality bites when I heard it. Um, Florence Henderson, she passed away when, in 2016, when she was 82, she was also on Dancing with the Stars, et cetera. So, um, Andy Davis died in 2014.

Cathy: That’s Alice. Um, she and Alice like

Todd: much younger than we thought she was when she was on the show.

Cathy: Of course, just like the Golden Girls were like younger than me.

Todd: Yeah.

Cathy: The golden girls were younger than me.

Todd: Yeah.

Cathy: This is, this is

Todd: sweetie abomination, sweetie. Are you enjoying your shared house with your three best girlfriends in Miami right now?

Todd: I

Cathy: know Miami is nice, so I’ll say it twice. Um, that’s from Golden Girls anyway. So like the cast updates for Modern Family, I mean, they’re real basic because they’re still so around. Yeah. Like, you know, there’s nobody, ’cause obviously we know the Ty Burrell still acts. Julie Bowen is still around. Ed O’Neill still acts, uh, Sophia Vega, we see everywhere.

Cathy: Eric Stone Street, like Jesse, [01:35:00] Tyler Ferguson, Sarah Hyland, they’re, they’re all still doing their thing. They’re not necessarily doing modern family things anymore, but they have podcasts. They’re in, you know, have acting parts, all those kind of things. Um, yes. And by the way, Sarah Hyland’s husband is named Wells Adams, so we’re probably related to him.

Todd: Yeah,

Cathy: we’re related to Sarah Hyland in some way. Of course. Um. And I think that’s, I mean, anything else about where are they now that you would like to say?

Todd: I don’t think so. I, um, did we, I do. Are we gonna do Best scene eventually too?

Cathy: Yeah, let’s do that now before we get into the music.

Todd: I don’t think I have a sound clip to be Scene

Cathy: I do for mine, and it’s the funniest, it’s the scene that I feel like I talk about with the girls the most.

Cathy: And it’s the episode, I can’t remember what I think it’s called, message Received or something like that. And it’s about when Lily really wants more attention and they are trying to teach her about the fact that she’s Vietnamese and that she is, you know, they, [01:36:00] they wanna teach her about Vietnamese food, et cetera.

Cathy: And she doesn’t wanna talk about that. She wants, when I say she wants more attention, she wants to belong more in her family. So the scene that I sent you Yep, I got it right here. Is. It’s Mitch and Cam and Lily and Gloria are having dinner and, um, the whole scene and it’s, the visual is better, but we still laugh about it all the time.

Cathy: It is

so good. Cheeseburger. This is a special soup called fa. You told me not to say that word. It is delicious. This is the food of your people. Can I get you anything else? Actually? Um, we’re just trying to teach our daughter about your country and as I’m saying that, I’m hoping you’re from Vietnam.

Cathy: I was born there,

so was Lily.

Cathy: Oh, it’s a beautiful country. Uh, my family still lives there.

Vietnam, Lily. Honey, we don’t hate, I hate Vietnam. Hey. Oh, we need just a second, Lily. That was rude. I wanna go home. No, [01:37:00] it’s important that you celebrate the culture of your ancestors. You are Vietnamese. No, I’m not. I’m gay. I’m gay. Honey. No, you’re not gay.

You are just confused. Oh my God. What is wrong with me? It’s like, oh, please. We have tons of lesbian friends. Odd that you would reference our friends and not us. That’s okay. We should just go. No, nobody’s going anywhere until she finishes the whole soup. No, Gloria, it’s fine. No, no it’s not. That’s the problem with this country.

Nobody cares where they come from. They just want cheeseburgers and prep school and they have forgotten about Colombia. Okay. I can’t help but feel that maybe you’re bringing something to the table that’s possibly, uh, not at all about Lily. I think you’re right. It’s just that I feel like I’m losing my children to America.

They’re just going to grow up a bit of boring old white people. Most of our friends are white actually. Oh, geez. Seen, okay. Can everybody just calm down and go back to their own?

Cathy: All these people keep when they say things, these people keep [01:38:00] walking by and listening. The whole see the whole thing is so great.

Cathy: So that’s one, I mean, besides the connection episode with all the technology. Yeah. Um, that’s the episode that we laugh at a lot.

Todd: Um, so mine is, uh, this is not gonna come as a surprise to you. It’s a modern family clip. We, I’ve played it numerous times on Zen Parenting Radio. We know what it is, and at the conference, and it’s Phil Dumpy at the spa, getting a phone call from his wife.

Phil, I need you to take care of dinner for me. What’s wrong? Oh, Alex ripped Haley’s favorite sweater, and now I’m driving around from store to store trying to find the exact same one before. Haley finds out. Don’t do that. Just explain to her what happened. Uhuh. Haley’s not gonna understand. Sure she will.

No, Phil, you don’t understand. I’m trying to avoid this turning into a whole big thing and just get her something close. She’ll never know the difference, bill, but you just take care of dinner, sweetie. That’s all I’m asking. That’s it. I’m just saying there’s a simpler way to do this. There is no simpler way.

Just make dinner. Thank you. Hello?[01:39:00]

So all the women are looking at ’em in judgment. Okay. I’m confused. You’re saying that if she tells me she has a problem, I’m not supposed to help her. Not unless she asked for your help, but if she lets me help her, I can make her problem go away. That is such a male thing to say, well, forgive me for being a man.

Mango or kiwi. Ooh, Kiwi. When you say, you know, do this or do that, all she’s hearing is, I’m smarter than you. Believe me. She doesn’t think so. She doesn’t want you to solve her problems, she just wants you to give her support so that she can solve her problems herself. Yes. And sometimes, sometimes she just wants a sympathetic ear.

Oh, whoa. Maybe it’s all the creams. But that just made sense, girlfriends. So if Claire says, I hate getting stuck in traffic, I shouldn’t say, maybe you should leave earlier or don’t get on the freeway, I should just say, I know. That’s so frustrating. [01:40:00] Yeah, really? Yeah, and And if she says, uh uh, the waiter I had today was so rude, I shouldn’t say, maybe you should just order something on the menu for once.

No, I should just say. What a jerk. Wow.

Todd: Yay. Film. Uh, that is, um, a very important clip. Yeah. Long clips. I know, but they’re good. They’re best scenes, right? They are. We’re playing some scenes. They are. Um, so are we playing music game now? Let’s do it.

Oh.

Todd: I’m a little nervous about this. And will you explain one more time what this category is?

Cathy: Um, this category is, it’s the song that captures the vibe of the discussion we’re having. So it’s not specifically about Brady Bunch, it’s not specifically about Modern family. It’s what’s capturing the [01:41:00] vibe of the discussion we’re having.

Cathy: You don’t wanna be super obvious and you also don’t wanna be so obscure that nobody knows the song you’re choosing. So there’s this really, there’s this sweet spot that Todd and I are always trying to find when we’re trying to find the music for this

Todd: game. And I’m gonna go first. Okay. And once again, I’m nervous that mine’s not that good, but you keep telling me that.

Todd: They’re good. You’ve done, I’ve been impressed. Thank you. I’m a little nervous about this one. Okay. But here we go,

Sam. So the days float through my.

And these children that you spit on, they try to change their worlds are immune to your consultation. Here we go, quite a Okay. Going through.

Cathy: See you like it. I like it. I would give you where historically I, I think the last show I gave you like an A Yeah. Gimme [01:42:00] a I would give you like a, B, B minus maybe because, because this might be my own block. That song reminds me of so many other things. Yeah. That it’s hard to, but the words, well,

Todd: it’s reminds me of Breakfast Club.

Cathy: Correct. And, and a lot of other things that it’s used in. Yeah. And so it feels grittier to me than the discussion we’re having today. Yeah. Like changes by Bowie has like a, there’s a darkness in it for sure. Do you know what I mean?

Todd: Yes, I’m with you. So, I don’t know if you told me what your song is. I didn’t.

Todd: So I gotta pull it

Cathy: out. Let me tell you now. You ready? I’m ready. I’ll give you a minute. It is by The Beatles.

Todd: Mm-hmm.

Cathy: And it is called, all You Need is Love.

Todd: Oh, I’ve heard of that one.

Cathy: And while you’re pulling it up, the reason I chose it is because it is kind of a classic. So we’re blending together a show from the seventies and a show from, you know, fairly recent.

Cathy: So I wanted to find something that was classic in between and the, you know, what we figured out in a blended family is, it’s gonna be messy, but all you need is love. There you go.[01:43:00]

Todd: I’m gonna fast forward to the middle.

Sure.

Todd: Yep. That’s good, sweetie. Yeah, yours is better than mine. Well, well done.

Cathy: Well, we just did our first, um, I on social media, everybody listening, go to social media, follow us at Zen Pop Parenting, or it still might say Zen Parenting Radio. Just follow us on Instagram or Facebook or wherever threads. And I am posting, um, the picks that we have in each show, like the song we pick, and then you guys get to vote.

Cathy: Yeah. Which one wins? There you go. So right now we’re kind of close for our most recent, um, show that came out, but we’ll see. Okay. Who

Todd: ends up being the victor? [01:44:00] Um, I, is it trivia time?

Cathy: Trivia.

Todd: Okay. Almost done. I gotta find the trivia.

Todd: You ready, sweetie? Here we go. Uh, I have to find the Brady Bunch one. I think it’s close. What did, uh, but I’m starting with Modern Family. What did Claire have to tell Cameron in strangers on a, on a treadmill? No idea. Some of these are hard. Uh, that she, that he stopped wearing bicycle shorts, I remember.

Todd: Okay. What type of animal has Luke kissed on the mouth? Dolphin Pigeon. Okay. Uh, you already answered this, but I’ll ask anyways. Who acts as Manny’s father? Uh, Benjamin Brat. Very good. Uh, what was the name of the friend Cam and Mitchell called for a Night Out?

Cathy: Uh, is that Elizabeth Banks? Yep. Character? Yep.

Cathy: Mm, I, I can’t remember her name. Sal. [01:45:00] Okay.

Todd: What’s the name of Jay’s first wife?

Cathy: Uh, that’s Shelly Long I. I can’t remember.

Todd: Dei. Dei, uh, what does Mitchell say? Yellow is not Cam. Why does Mitchell say yellow is not Cameron’s color? This is like a deep dive. Yeah. I don’t know. It makes him look like the sun. Okay.

Todd: A little bit of a shot. Um, what couple has been together the least amount of time?

Cathy: Uh, Jay and Gloria.

Todd: Very good. What’s the name of Jay’s trusty dog? Butler.

Cathy: Oh, I love the, oh, the, the little dog that always jumps in the water. The butler.

Todd: The

Cathy: Oh, the Butler that Gloria hates? Yeah. Oh, I can’t remember. Barkley.

Todd: Barkley. And the Little Real Dog is Stella, right?

Cathy: Stella Sweet. Stella.

Todd: Uh, what’s the name of Gloria’s Ventriloquist? Dummy? I can’t remember. Uncle Grumpy. Uh, where is, this is a hard one. Where is Barry living? So there’s a character named Barry and he lives somewhere.

Cathy: Oh, I know where he lives behind, um, cam and, uh, [01:46:00] Mitchell.

Cathy: He lives in that he’s always in the hot tub. That guy. Yes, that guy. He lives in that house bag. That’s James Marsden? Yes. Yeah,

Todd: he lives in the Princess Castle. Lily’s Princess Castle.

Cathy: That’s right. They see him in hot tub and he’s living in her Princess Castle

Todd: in moon landing. What sport are Cam and Jay playing?

Todd: I don’t know. Bracket ball. Uh, what movie did Jay watch with his grandchildren?

Cathy: It was a horror movie.

Todd: It’s called The Gunfighter. Oh, uh, who plays the character? Sal?

Cathy: Uh, Sal.

Todd: Yeah. Who plays the character? Sal, you already said her.

Cathy: I know, but I, I it’s not, uh, Dee is

Todd: Shelly Long. Elizabeth Banks. Elizabeth

Cathy: Banks.

Cathy: Sorry. Sorry. What’s

Todd: the name of Mitch and Cam’s new baby. So I guess this is at the end, at the very end. Yeah. I

Cathy: don’t remember.

Todd: Rexford, uh, who was scared of clowns at Luke’s birthday party?

Cathy: Um, I’m trying to remember who runs away. I can’t remember.

Todd: I believe it’s [01:47:00] Phil.

Cathy: Okay.

Todd: Alex’s job is taking her to which country?

Todd: So this is like series ending. Yeah. Can be good at

Cathy: these

Todd: Switzerland. And then lastly, who is Phil’s sexy alter ego?

Cathy: Oh, Phil’s um, Clive? No. Oh, I do know this. Is it Clive Bixby?

Todd: Very good, sweetie. Thank

Cathy: you.

Todd: All right. Brady Bunch. What year did Brady Bunch first premiere?

Cathy: Uh, I think we already said, I think it was 68 or something.

Cathy: 67.

Todd: 69.

Cathy: 69. Who

Todd: created Brady Bunch? Uh, Sherwood Schwartz. Very good. Um, what network did Brady Bunch NBC? Very good. Uh, what sitcom preceded the Brady Bunch? Ooh. Uh, also created by Sherwood Schwartz. Oh, not the Kelly Brothers or whatever. No, that didn’t work out, did it? Okay. No. Uh, Gilligan’s Island. Oh. Uh, that’s a dumb one.

Todd: That’s a dumb one. Um, where is the Brady House located? According to the TV series? Uh,

Cathy: California.

Todd: Yeah. LA Suburb.

Cathy: Mm-hmm.

Todd: Um. [01:48:00] Do, do, do, do. Who played? Uh, that’s too easy. These are some days are too easy. What was the original pilot title for the Brady Bunch TV series? The original pilot is called what?

Cathy: Something like three girls. Three Bo I can’t remember

Todd: The Brady Brood. Oh, I wouldn’t have known that. Um, what’s brood mean? Brood. It’s a brood, sweetie. Okay. Okay. Um, all the others are stupid. Okay, so, oh, last one. Which character was added in the final season to fill the age gap of the Brady Children?

Todd: Oliver, you know, one thing that we didn’t get to, sweetie. What? And this was your, this was your clip, but we didn’t talk about it. Let’s hear it.

The music. Oh, George Glass. Hello, operator, will you call back on seven six two oh seven nine nine? There may be something wrong with our bell. Thank you.[01:49:00]

See, that’s George Glass Pauling.

Todd: That is George Glass.

Hello.

Todd: Do you wanna keep going or is that it?

Hi George. This is Dan. Oh, hi George. I’m so thoughtful of you to call

Todd: Overacting. Yeah. Excuse

Cathy: me, George. Well, he’s fake, so, um,

Todd: I got some good modern family clips that I didn’t play.

Cathy: Okay. Just play a few ’cause I gotta go,

Todd: but watch this.

Todd: So walk away, grandpa. You know what

I do?

Todd: That is such a funny line. That

Lily,

Todd: uh, well, no, that was Luke. Oh, that was Luke. Nobody calls him Grammys like I do. Um, this is a really good one. When I’m

playing a new drinking game, it’s called, every time I’m Depressed, I take a drink. That game exists. It’s called alcoholism.

Todd: Um, and then this one is this one.

Todd: God, we can so take a deep dive, but I’ll play this last one.

I’ve got [01:50:00] two special gummy bears. You can have just one for each of us. Leave me one is all you need. I guess we can get more of the concession stand. No, they don’t sell gummy bears like these here. Oh, you get extra cool ones from Europe or something.

Guys. How are you not getting this? It’s pot. Ah, that’s a funny episode.

Cathy: Um, what about the episode when Phil goes on all the rollercoasters and realizes he can’t handle it anymore?

Oh yeah. ‘

Cathy: cause you and I, when we watched that the first time, we could so relate. Yeah. Because you and I used to go on every, you know, every ride rollercoaster, even if I didn’t love all of ’em.

Todd: Yep.

Cathy: But then all of a sudden, Todd and I went to Universal Studios one year, just the two of us, and we went on like all these crazy rollercoasters and we like, couldn’t handle it.

Todd: Yeah. We like

Cathy: felt sick.

Todd: Not bad. Not good. Not bad. We were, we were Phil, um, which should we do our playoff music?

Cathy: I think either, um.

Cathy: Thank you for bringing that in. I think we should do, um, sunshine Day or [01:51:00] something like that. I think we could finish with the Brady’s. They came first, you know? That’s right. And, uh, you know, hope you guys enjoyed our discussion about blended families. Yeah. Um, more to come.

Todd: Yeah. Hour and

Cathy: 51 minutes. Geez. I think next week we’re talking about nerd culture.

Cathy: We’re going revenge of the nerds. Uh, weird science and how the nerds are now running our world. That’s right. And I’m not even saying that in a derogatory way. It’s, that’s what we’re gonna talk about nerd culture.

Todd: Uh, see you next week.

Round two. Change a little bit. And change a little bit. Pretty [01:52:00] pleasant.