The Brady Bunch (TV Series) Today, I Am a Freshman (1972) User Reviews

Marcia Would NEVER NOT Be Popular

[TheFearmakers · 7/10 · 26 March 2024]

This episode really is a stretch beyond disbelief because Marcia Brady is so gorgeous, if she winds up acting foolish around Greg's friends it wouldn't matter... guys are different than girls...

A girl will judge even a good looking guy if he acts goofy, but Greg's friends would have been happy just to hear her talk when, on her first day of high school (despite looking like a senior), she acts pretentious... and she's really, truly one of the prettiest girls in the history of television... it doesn't matter what she says...

Of course this episode's b-story is what everyone remembers, as it's known as the Volcano episode and ends with a literal bang, with Pete's projects messing up Marcia's new clique, as everyone remembers, better even than the frogs hopping into Greg's date's hair and pizza...

And so, another great episode... but most of them are.

Marcia Has New School-itis

[Jimmy_the_Gent4 · 9 August 2020]

Marcia is nervous about her first day of high school.

A great Marcia episode with some good laughs. Mike asks Greg to introduce Marcia around at school. She tries to be sophisticated but ends up embarrassing herself. Then she signs up for every school activity on the board. A sub plot has Peter building a volcano for the science club, he tells everyone it will have smoke and oozing lava. One funny moment has Alice taking a pratfall when she sees Marcia in her scuba suit. Marcia applies for an exclusive club called the Boosters and has a meeting with them at home. The leader of the group is a very stuck up girl, this leads to the funniest scene when Peter's erupts his volcano on the haughty Boosters.

POST HAWAII WITHDRAWAL... FOR MARSHA?

[tcchelsey · 10/10 · 22 October 2023]

Usually outgoing, way cool Marsha is way down in the dumps. It's time to go back to school, and she's now a freshman at high school with many new classmates. She doesn't think she'll fit in. OMG.

In the first place, y'all can't blame her after being in Hawaii! The family doc is called in --and comes a suggestion. Why not get into some school activities? So in typical Brady Bunch fashion she signs up for EVERYTHING.

You can't miss Marsha struttin' around the house in a scuba suit! That is the absolute first. She also applies to an exclusive club called the Boosters, which is sort of a snooty group --and is that really her? Noooo way.

Best of the best is industrious Peter ( in a world of his own), who all us teens could relate to back in the day. His school project is to build a mini volcano --and lava will ooooooze out all ova' the place!!! This is actually a tried and true project that lots of kids did (still do), and Pete is having a blast. He comes off as the wacky teen mad scientist.

Even to see a picture of a volcano, to this day, I always think of this goofy episode.

The stuffy Boosters, of course, pay a visit just as Peter ignites the killer volcano and everybody gets SPLATTERED. The Big Explosion also gets Marsha out of her deep funk.

Two important footnotes. This way fun episode was written by William Raynor, one of the best sitcom writers, behind such shows as MCHALE'S NAVY, DORIS DAY SHOW and later, DUKES OF HAZZARD. John Howard returns as the family doctor, who worked at Paramount 40 years earlier. Howard was a movie star way back when, his breakthrough role in the original LOST HORIZON (1937).

Don't miss Alice getting dumped on by the volcano. Classic Brady Bunch.

SEASON 4 EPISODE 4 remastered Paramount/ABC dvd box set.