A Brief History Of TV Series Desperation

UNITED STATES – FEBRUARY 08: THE BRADY BUNCH – “Two Petes in a Pod” – Season Five – 2/8/74, Robbie Rist (Oliver), (Photo by ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images)

Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images

Susie Baxter on Hazel. Trisha Stone on The Donna Reed Show. Ricky Stevens on The Partridge Family. Ernie Thompson and Dorothy “Dodie” Harper on My Three Sons. Jeffrey and Serena Burton on The Waltons. James and Cassandra Cooper on Little House on the Prairie. Jeremy Andretti on Eight Is Enough. Olivia Kendall on The Cosby Show. Andy Keaton on Family Ties. Andy Moffett and Pippa McKenna on The Facts of Life. Seven on Married… with Children. Lily Foster-Lambert on Step by Step. Sam McKinney on Diff’rent Strokes. And, of course, the ultimate “series killer,” Cousin Oliver on The Brady Bunch — among others.

The commonality? Each of these tots was added to an already established series in a bid to inject a fresh “cute factor” just as the original young characters were aging out of their once-adorable phase. The phenomenon became so infamous that Robbie Rist’s turn as Cousin Oliver spawned the term “Cousin Oliver Syndrome” — shorthand for a younger character introduced late in a show’s run as a last-ditch effort to revive flagging momentum. Rist’s arrival on The Brady Bunch occurred on this day in 1974.

But here’s the twist: The Brady Bunch wasn’t even first. Ricky Segall’s little Ricky Stevens had already been dropping by the Partridge household to warble an excruciatingly annoying song for Shirley (Shirley Jones), Keith (David Cassidy), Laurie (Susan Dey), Danny (Danny Bonaduce), Chris (Brian Forster), and Tracy (Suzanne Crough) — for absolutely no reason whatsoever. And years before that, television had already tested the formula with Julia Benjamin on Hazel, Patty Petersen on The Donna Reed Show, and Barry Livingston and Dawn Lyn on My Three Sons.

Livingston, no doubt, is a rare example of this casting stunt actually working. His arrival in season four of the long running My Three Sons as Chip’s (Stanley Livingston) new best friend in place as the grating Huey “Sudsy” Pfeiffer was actually welcome. When Tim Considine as oldest son Mike exited after season five, it was a natural progression to be upgraded to Steve’s (Fred MacMurray) third son. But Dawn Lyn’s arrival in season 10 pushed the “cute” envelope a bit.

Fun factoid over at The Donna Reed Show: Patty Petersen is the real-life sister of Paul Petersen, who played Jeff Stone on The Donna Reed Show. As the newly orphaned Trisha, she is kindly adopted by the Stone family just as Mary (Shelley Fabares) is heading off to college. Yet no one — Donna Reed included — ever seemed to notice that Patty and Paul looked exactly alike.

Julia Benjamin, meanwhile, was added to the fifth — and final — season of Hazel, coinciding with the exits of Don DeFore and Whitney Blake as George (“Mr. B”) and Dorothy Baxter. The couple relocates to Iraq when George is transferred for work, leaving their son Harold (Bobby Buntrock) behind in Hazel’s care. Come now — would “Mr. B” and “Missy” really leave Harold halfway around the world?

Fifty-two years ago today, Robbie Rist secured his unlikely place in pop culture history on The Brady Bunch. Post–Brady-land, he went on to The Mary Tyler Moore Show as David Baxter, the adopted son of Ted (Ted Knight) and Georgette (Georgia Engel) — proving that “killing” one series was apparently not enough.