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Sam Franklin
Sam Franklin
Sam Franklin, Alice's boyfriend and bowling team partner, appears in eight episodes of the series.

Occupation

Neighborhood butcher shop owner

Episodes/Seasons on series

8 episodes over 5 seasons, 1969-74 Season 1: Sorry, Right Number, The Big Sprain Season 2: Alice's September Song Season 3: Big Little Man Season 4: The Show Must Go On?? Season 5: Snow White and the Seven Bradys, The Elopment, Top Seceret

Character played by

Allan Melvin on The Brady Bunch
Lewis Arquette in A Very Brady Christmas movie, 1988
David Graf in The Brady Bunch Movie

Girlfriend

Alice Nelson, also Alice's bowling partner

Sam Franklin, better known to viewers as Sam the Butcher, is a character in The Brady Bunch. He was played by the late Allan Melvin.

About Sam[]

He was Alice Nelson's boyfriend. He soon became a good friend of the Bradys. He made frequent trips to the Bradys' when delivering meat.

In "Sorry, Right Number", Alice had recently started going out with Sam and was making a lot of phone calls to him. This was only contributing to an ongoing problem with the kids wasting Mike's phone bill. Alice later visited Sam in his meat shop and told him about the problem. Sam said that he had a similar problem at his store. He used to have a phone that customers could use, but they were doing the same thing the kids were, and making him spend more monkey on the phone than actual meat. So, he got the idea to install a pay phone. Alice taught Mike this method and he did the same thing in his home.

In "The Big Sprain", Sam and Alice had a date at the Meat Cutter's Ball, but after Alice busted her ankle, she had to cancel, allowing Sam to take someone else. Alice feared that whoever he takes as a replacement, will also win his heart. As it turned out, Sam couldn't find anyone else to take, so he went to The Brady House and spent the Saturday night with her there.

In "Alice's September Song", Mark Millard, an ex-lover of Alice, comes back into her life and steals her from Sam. It would later be revealed that Mark is a scam artist, who has a history of using women for their money. When Alice finds out, he attempted to escape, but crashed into Sam, who was carrying a cold hard frozen leg of lamb at the time, knocking him out. After this, Alice went back to dating Sam again.

Sam mentioned in episode "Big Little Man" to Bobby, who had a complex over his diminutive size, that he had the same problem as a child - he weighed only four pounds when he was born and his father wanted to send him back, and he even flunked out of kindergarten - he was so short that the teacher always marked him absent.

In "Dough Re Mi", Sam was mentioned, but not seen. Peter talked to him on the phone and Sam mistook him for Marcia, due to his high pitched voice. Peter later reported to Alice that Sam was calling because he was in the hospital, after fall in a manhole and that he was recovering well.

Twice during the series' run, Sam makes upgrades to his store. The first came in early 1972, when, in "Big Little Man," where Greg accidentally becomes locked in the meat freezer and can't get out (because the door has no way to open it from the inside), Sam vows to pony up the cost for the two-way door to prevent an accident from happening again. He also talks about expanding his store in the Season 5 episode "Top Secret."

In the Season 5 episode, "The Elopement," Alice and Sam become engaged. The series ended before a script focusing on a wedding for Alice and Sam could be commissioned, but the wedding is considered to have happened sometime between the events of "The Hair-Brained Scheme" and The Brady Girls Get Married. Alice becomes Sam's business partner at that time, using her secretarial and business experience to help Sam manage the store.

In 1988, in the TV movie A Very Brady Christmas, Sam and Alice briefly separate after Sam meets a younger woman at a trade convention and the two spend the night together. Alice is distraught and briefly comes to live with the Bradys to sort out her emotions. However, by the end of the movie, Sam is remorseful, realizes he made a grave mistake and asks Alice for her forgiveness, which she does.

Appearances[]

Trivia[]

  • The part of Sam The Butcher was played by veteran character actor Allan Melvin, who is also well known for his roles on The Phil Silvers Show where he played the part of Cpl. Steve Henshaw, Sgt. Charlie Hacker on Gomer Pyle, USMC, and as Barney Hefner on All in the Family. Lewis Arquette portrayed Sam briefly in A Very Brady Christmas, wearing a Santa Claus beard.
  • In "Sorry, Right Number", Sam told Alice about the payphone he installed in his meat shop. In "Big Little Man", the pay phone appeared again, when Bobby used it to call for help.

Sam in Pop Culture[]

  • He is mentioned by the Beastie Boys in the lyrics to their 1989 song "Shake Your Rump" ("Like Sam the butcher bringing Alice the meat...")
  • He is mentioned in the American Dad! episode "Home Wrecker", when Roger dresses himself as Alice and says that Sam is coming over to "give him his uncut salami".



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