Here's the Story...

"Here's the story/ Of a lovely lady..." - theme to The Brady Bunch

I am a huge fan of classic TV, mainly the sitcoms of the '60s and '70s. When I was in second or third grade, I would sneak out of bed at night, angry at my unreasonable 8:30 bedtime, and sit in the hallway where I could see the TV but my mom couldn't see me, and watch these great old shows on Nick at Nite.

But were they really the great, wholesome family entertainment that they were made out to be? Thanks to my overactive imagination, I have come up with some alternate storylines about the seedy underbelly of classic sitcoms that you may not only find surprising, but shocking in nature! Buckle your seatbelts boys and girls. We are about to enter the Twilight Zone (do do do do/ do do do do/ do do do do...)

* Disclaimer: The following storylines were made up by me, purely for my own amusement. I honestly love all of these shows, and I think I may be losing my mind a little after reading some of the stuff I came up with, but who cares? Enjoy!*

Let's start with "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis". On the surface, this seems like a nice sitcom about Dobie and his friend, Maynard G. Krebs, who was TV's first beatnik. But what people didn't know, is that Dobie Gillis was aspiring to be television's very first polygamist! Long before the days of "Big Love" and "Sister Wives", Dobie was planning on marrying his many loves and building a compound in Utah. I hope those girls were careful though. Just look at this next picture:

Next on the list is "The Andy Griffith Show". How, you ask, can the Taylor family of Mayberry, NC be anything other than a good old-fashioned American family? Well, what Andy didn't tell you was that Opie wasn't his son's full first name. Nope. Opie, in fact, was short for Opium. Now ask yourselves why the sheriff had a son named Opium Taylor. I think the sleepy town of Mayberry may have been a front for an underground drug ring that supplied opiates to the Southern states. Oh yeah, Aunt Bee was in on it too. She always added a little something special to everything she made in the kitchen!

Remember the Cleavers, the average goody-goody family on "Leave it to Beaver"? Well, they may not have been like the family next door after all.

I seem to recall Ward smoking a pipe quite a bit, and I am beginning to think that it wasn't filled with tobacco. Instead, I think Ward was the ringleader of a marijuana cartel whose members also included Jim Anderson from "Father Knows Best" and maybe even Ozzie Nelson from "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet". Adventures indeed! The frequent drug use could explain why Ward named his oldest son Wallus and chose to call his baby boy Beaver, somehow short for Theodore. And Jim could never even remember his kids' names, instead calling them generic nicknames like Kitten, Princess, and Bud. And don't think it was only the TV fathers who were one toke over the line. Oh no, the mothers were potheads too! Why else would they be so happy to stay home all day, cooking and cleaning in their high heels and pearls. They had to have a Mother's Little Helper to get them through the day (think of the Rolling Stones song)!

Now why, in 1961 when "Mister Ed" first aired, did nobody realize the real reason Wilbur Post moved out to the country was to fulfill his lifelong dream of making and selling bathtub gin and homemade whiskey? Of course they couldn't show these doings on TV, but good old Wilbur new he was on to something when that horse began talking to him. Yep, that was some good stuff! Something else that wasn't shown, was that the booze business steadily picked up steam, and Wilbur had to hire some help. Enter Uncle Joe from "Petticoat Junction" and later on Oliver Douglas from "Green Acres". They were a terrible trio, for sure, and television audiences were completely in the dark...until now.

Anybody remember Sally Field flying through the air as Sister Bertrille on "The Flying Nun"? I have come to the conclusion that no one in their right mind would wear that get-up, and it's now painfully obvious that LSD is what made her fly. I know, it's terrible, isn't it? A couple years before LSD was first mentioned on TV in the classic Blue Boy episode of "Dragnet", the Flying Nun was flying high on acid. It was way too risky to mention the truth on a family show, even if LSD was not illegal yet, and the creators of this show just assumed that no one would find out. Well, think again!

Ah, yes, the first witch on TV. Admit it, you always thought something fishy was going on while you watched "Bewitched", didn't you? Well, you were right! All that nose twitching was not just to cast spells. No, it was really a rather unfortunate side effect of cronic cocaine use. Samantha, Samantha, Samantha. What would Endora say? Come to think of it, I bet Endora was her dealer! That makes perfect sense. She always was a little out there. The years of cocaine use also explains why Samantha's husband, Darrin, had a total face transplant in the middle of season four and she never even noticed! Take a look below at how oblivious she is to her husband's switcheroo. She's just smiling away, with a bit of a crazed look in her eyes. Shocking.

Follow me as we near the end of the 1960s and take a look at one of the most beloved TV families in history, the Bradys.

Don't they look groovy with their outta sight clothes and far out permed hair (I'm talking about you, Brady men!)? Naturally, but the unofficial Brady family member was not as happy as everyone thought. Alice Nelson was out to get the Bradys at every opportunity, especially dinner time!

Poor overworked Alice. She rarely got a day off, had to wear those terrible uniforms (who wouldn't be furious?!), and was forced to sleep in a room on the main floor off of the kitchen. What she really wanted was to have the attic all to herself, but no! Greg and Marcia had to fight over it instead. Spoiled rotten children! And Alice always dreamed of wearing short dresses like Marcia and wearing a cool black wig like Jan, but it was against the rules strictly inforced by Mike and Carol. She had to remain in her uniform at all times. After hearing all this, I'm sure it comes as no surprise that Alice routinely laced the Brady Bunch's food with shrooms. No one realized this until the Brady movies came out in the 90s, but Alice sent that family on strange trips all the time. Meatloaf? Check. Pot roast? Check. Pork chops and applesauce? Double check. That kind of explains the wacky clothes and male perms, doesn't it? Those poor Brady's never saw it coming...

Hold on, don't get off the ride yet! We have one more family that you probably thought was a little off all along. Just one year after "The Brady Bunch" made it's TV debut, viewers were in for another treat with "The Partridge Family".

Their music may have been good family fun, but these guys had a real wild side! When they weren't filming their show, the Partridges were touring as The Grateful Dead's opening act, and their road crew was none other than Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters! Did you really think little Chris was going to set up his own drums and Tracy was going to carry around that heavy tambourine all day? I think not. And boy did those kids like their really swell Kool Aid! In fact, they painted that bus after drinking a whole pitcher. Oh, Shirley claimed at the time that she thought LSD was a vitamin and the acid those crazy pranksters were talking about was citric acid to give the Kool Aid a little zing, but who does she think she's fooling? Keith admitted all along that he knew what was happening, but no one blamed him at all. He needed a little something to escape the embarrassment of traveling around in the psychadelic bus and singing corny songs with his mom and younger siblings. Totally justified.

Okay, how are you feeling? Is your head spinning? Do you feel like your whole world has turned upside down? It's okay, I felt the same way when I discovered what had been going on in television sets across America for the last half of a century. I'll just leave you with this picture of a classic TV duo that no one could possibly think anything bad about whatsoever. Totally normal, straight-laced, not caught up in any kind of illegal doings at all, children's cartoon characters. ;)

There, don't you feel better now?