The Big Sprain is the nineteenth episode of Season 1 of The Brady Bunch. Written by Tam Spiva and directed by Russ Mayberry, it first aired 6 February 1970 on ABC.
Short Summary[]
Alice sprains her ankle after slipping on some Chinese Checkers left out by the kids, so as punishment, the kids are all pressed into service to perform all the household chores.
Summary[]
Alice is confident that she can handle all the housework while Carol is away tending to her hypochondriac Aunt Mary. Alice's assertion quickly exceeds her capabilities when she trips over some of the kids' toys and sprains her ankle. As Alice is told by her doctor to stay off of her ankle, Mike and the kids are left to do the housework, which scares Alice, who believes she will have to clean up whatever mess they make. As for the kids, the house chores begin when they come home from school. No activities for the boys (team practices for Greg and library for Peter) or the girls (music lessons for Marcia and dance class for Jan).
Despite a plan of who is to do what, each individual's capabilities and narrow views of accomplishing only his/her own task leads to disaster. (e.g. The boys say that the girls --Marcia, Jan, and Cindy-- might take perfectly good food --when they fix breakfast-- and make garbage out of it. The girls --on the other hand-- Jan says the Marcia dropped the eggs.) The kids eventually come to an understanding of what's going wrong, which they try to fix. However, it will be more difficult for them to fix what they see as the bigger problem. Alice was scheduled to go on a big date with Sam to the Meat Cutters' Ball on Saturday. Sam still plans to go without Alice, who fears that whoever he finds as his replacement date will also replace her in Sam's heart.
Quotes[]
- (The girls are arguing, except for Cindy.)
- Marcia: HERE IT IS! THE FIRST BREAKFAST! AND I HAD TO DO EVERYTHING! ABSOULUTELY EVERYTHING!
- Jan: IF EVERYTHING MEANS DROPPING THE ORANGE JUICE, THEN YOU HAVE DONE EVERYTHING ALL RIGHT!