The Brady Bunch : Re: Goodbye, Alice, Hello

Re: Goodbye, Alice, Hello

What in the world was up with the scene where Bobby and Cindy want to go swimming naked at a neighbor's house. An adult who would let kids come over naked and swim?

I sure don't remember this scene as a child, and was shocked it would be written into the script. Surely that was unacceptable even by the "free" standards during that time.

Re: Goodbye, Alice, Hello

I saw that episode last week and I remember that scene from back in the day.

Re: Goodbye, Alice, Hello

It aired as is and then shown in repeats early on but later removed from the episode when shown on various TV networks.

I like what Alice said about it being X-rated. Skinny dipping was popular and people shouldn't be ashamed of their bodies but it is still weird. People also didn't talk about child molestation as much as they now do. It happened but it wasn't often discussed.

What's weird is that Bobby and Cindy didn't have an issue with seeing each other and letting others see them but were uncomfortable for Alice to see.

Re: Goodbye, Alice, Hello

I think they just didn't want Alice to know because they knew she would stop them.

Re: Goodbye, Alice, Hello

That but also Bobby was noticeably uncomfortable for Alice to see.

Re: Goodbye, Alice, Hello

Bobby really shouldn't have been uncomfortable, considering Alice lived with the boys before he was born, and may have even helped bathe him as a baby.

Re: Goodbye, Alice, Hello

Yes, that was my point. He didn't seem to care that Cindy, the neighbors, and whoever else saw him yet was uncomfortable when Alice did even though she was like another mother to him.
I guess the show just needed a moment for Bobby and Cindy to also turn against Alice.

Re: Goodbye, Alice, Hello

I don't think it was acceptable even back then, since Alice said she couldn't let them go without their parent's permission. I thought it was funny how much the kids argued with Alice about it, they really wanted to go swimming naked!

Re: Goodbye, Alice, Hello

It was though more acceptable to be shown on air. There was period of time when it was removed from the repeats. Some channels still won't show it.

Re: Goodbye, Alice, Hello

That was hands down the creepiest, weirdest Brady Bunch scene ever!

Re: Goodbye, Alice, Hello

If you weren't a child of that era, this would seem outrageous and unrealistic to you. But believe it--this kind of stuff was uncommon, but it was going on. My next
door neighbors sometimes had skinny-dipping pool parties (at night, at least, and it was an above-ground pool) in the 1970s. A friend at middle school invited me
to sleep over at her house, and I considered it until another friend warned me that the girl's entire family routinely walked about the house naked and thought nothing of it (I didn't go). Families had hot-tub parties and invited friends over
to join them, children and all. Communes were more popular, and photos from those places show scenes of families sleeping together in one bed and naked or near-naked children running around outdoors. There were nude weddings, too. While most people
reacted to these events in the same way Alice did, everyone seemed to know someone
who engaged in these activities, and the scene in this episode would have been familiar to a lot of families.

Sadly, this kind of thing did often lead to child molestation, but that subject was nowhere near as widely mentioned as it is today. Like a lot of children back then, Bobby and Cindy's education on the subject would likely have been a cursory
"don't get in a car with strangers, even if they offer you candy" and that would have been about it. That's why adults who came forward decades later claiming that they had been molested as children very often weren't believed, because it
was almost never talked about in those days, to the point where people who grew up in the 1970s and before then didn't think there was such a thing.

I'm not crying, you fool, I'm laughing!

Hewwo.
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