Bobby Brady (2024)

RobertEric "Bobby" Brady is a character in The Brady Bunch. He was played by Mike Lookinland.

About Bobby[]

Bobby, the second youngest Brady child, is very close to his sister Cindy. Bobby was initially stubborn toward his sisters; he warmed up to them, though they would occasionally still fight. The two youngest Brady kids bonded while lost in the Grand Canyon and became inseparable after their attempt at beating the teeter-totter record.He's close to his older brothers too, though because of the age difference, Greg and Peter sometimes tease him for his less mature ways.

Bobby, although spirited and cheerful, was not free from occasional normal childhood fears and hang-ups. Mostly, they were about him being left out of his older brothers' activities or trying to find his own special talents. After watching "Cinderella", Bobby becomes concerned that Carol, Marcia, Jan and Cindy hate him due to his being a "step" and decides to run away from home. However, Carol soon clears up to him that the only "steps" in the Brady house are on the stairs.^[1]

After falling from Peter's treehouse, Bobby develops a fear of heights that is cured when he rescues his pet parakeet.^[2] When he is overlooked for the school glee club in favor of Peter, Jan and Cindy, he becomes convinced that he isn't musical. He takes up drums, which drives his family crazy. He isn't really interested in playing them but keeps doing it to please his parents. However, Mike and Carol remind him that Bobby shouldn't pretend to like doing something just to please other people.^[3] After Cindy comes home with a trophy and Bobby discovers that all his older siblings have trophies as well, he starts to feel useless. After trying to win a trophy at a magazine-selling and ice cream-eating contest, failing at both, his siblings present him with a trophy for his persistence and trying hard.^[4]

Bobby becomes sensitive about his short height after nearly falling off a ladder. After Sam (Alice's boyfriend) calls him a "shrimpo", Bobby gets really upset, until Sam comes to apologize and reveals that he had the height problem himself as a child, but eventually would grow half an inch in a year, it gives Bobby motivation to attempt stretching himself taller on a bar, which doesn't work. After picking a fight with a boy twice his size at school, Carol suggests that while Bobby would be physically short, he could be mentally great and suggests him to develop his intellect instead, which with Bobby's lack of self-esteem still doesn't work. However, after Bobby manages to save himself and Greg from Sam's meat locker, he realizes that being short does indeed have its advantages.^[5]

Although Bobby is constantly in competition with his older brothers, he can certainly hold his own. He is better at doing chin-ups than Greg and is quick enough on his toes to save Peter from being knocked out by a falling flowerpot.Bobby wants to win so badly, whether it's being the best pool player or hall monitor, that he sometimes sabotages himself. He dreams of racing cars and lies to his friends about knowing Joe Namath.

Bobby becomes obsessed with Jesse James. Mike and Carol both meet with a principal in his school about the matter. They don't approve of his new hero and try to find ways to convince him that his hero was nothing but "mean, dirty killer." Eventually, the message comes through when they arrange for a man whose father was murdered by Jesse James to come to the Brady house to tell his story.^[6]

Bobby's personality is usually easy going, fun-loving, and mischievous.He spends much of his time daydreaming about adventurous careers, such as being an astronaut, a skiing champion, and even a cowboy.

Bobby's first job was at Sam's Butcher's Shop.

Bobby was in a college baseball team.^[7] However, he dropped out of college and became a race-car driver.^[8] His racing career ended abruptly when he crashed and ended up paralyzed from the waist down, making him a wheelchair-user. Going through rehabilitative therapy when he marries his former college girlfriend, Tracy, who had left him when he became a racecar driver because she considered auto racing to be too dangerous. Bobby resumes his originally intended career path and joins Peter in a business venture.^[9]

Age[]

In the late Season 2 episode "The Liberation of Marcia Brady" (airdate: 12 February 1971), Greg and Bobby are both ineligible to join Marcia's Sunflower Girls group for ages 10-14 (in retaliation for Marcia joining Greg's scouting organization), with Greg who had just turned fifteen and Bobby not being ten yet, so the task is handed to Peter.

In the Season 3 episode "The Teeter-Totter Caper" (airdate: 31 December 1971), when Bobby and Cindy get newspaper coverage for their attempt to break the teeter-totter record, Bobby is said to be ten (and Cindy 9 1/2) in the newspaper.^[10]

In the Season 4 episode "Greg Gets Grounded" (airdate: 19 January 1973), Bobby says he is eleven.

In the early Season 5 episode "Mail Order Hero" (airdate: 21 September 1973), when Cindy writes a letter to Joe Namath, pretending to be Bobby and "very sick", she writes that Bobby is twelve.

"Dear Mr. Namath, my name is Bobby Brady, and I'm twelve years old. And I'm writing to you because I'm very, very sick. The one thing I'd like more than anything in the whole world, is to meet you in person."

Trivia[]

• Coming-Out Party is the only episode in the entire series where Bobby does not make any appearance.
• Mike Lookinland's natural hair color was strawberry blonde, so for the role he had Clairol #43 applied to his hair. Starting in Season 4, Mike kept his natural hair color.

Casting History[]

• Mike Lookinland in The Brady Bunch
• Jesse Lee Soffer in The Brady Bunch Movie and A Very Brady Sequel
• Max Morrow in The Brady Bunch in the White House

References[]