dogeatdog7

The Brady Bunch had a lot of great episodes that dealt with coming-of-age issues. Even though the scripts were corny, they were well-intentioned and grounded in reality, and the cast always rose above the material. This is NOT one of those episodes. For starters, it's unlikely that a school would sponsor a contest as shallow as Most Popular Girl and Boy. Second, having Jan make a bunch of campaign promises that she has no intention of keeping is silly. If she's so popular, why does she need to buy votes? The writing in this episode is lazy and broad. The writers were clearly running out of ideas..

Sloppy Documentary. Couldn't even keep the airlines involved straight.

In the first few minutes of this poorly produced documentary, the narrator states that American Airlines Flight 175 left Boston Logan airport. I had to rewind and listen again because I thought I must've heard incorrectly. It was United Airlines Flight 175 that left Logan airport, not American Airlines.

As someone who's worked in television production, I'm baffled that a professional producer could make such an egregious error AND that no one caught it during post production. It's inexcusable.

The rest of the film isn't any better.

As with many episodes of The Beverly Hillbillies, this episode is part two of a two-part story arc. In the first part, Elly May enrolls in an exclusive all-girls finishing school, and through a series of Beverly Hillbillies-style farcical misunderstandings, the Clampetts come to believe that the wealthy, snobby Cynthia Fenwick, one of Elly's classmates, and her equally snobby widowed mother (the widda Fenwick) are poor and need their help. What follows is one of the funniest episodes of the series. Writers Paul Henning and Mark Tuttle have crafted a perfect script, and Joanna Barnes and Doris Packer play the uppity Fenwicks to perfection. We're also treated to another fine performance by Harriet MacGibbon as Mrs. Drysdale.