the Shakespeare of 11222 Dilling Street

Here's one way to ring in the new year: by resolving to adopt the sanctimonious seriousness, the principled priggishness of Robert Reed, otherwise known as Mike Brady of the Brady Bunch. Turns out Reed wasn't always pleased by the show's lack of verisimilitude.

Without belaboring the inequities of the script, which are varied and numerous, the major point to all this is: Once an actor has geared himself to play a given style with its prescribed level of belief, he cannot react to or accept within the same confines of the piece, a different style.

When the kid’s hair turns red, it is Batman in the operating room.

I can’t play it.

Click through and read the entire memo to the show's producer, which pits a classically trained actor against the small-minded commercial interests of the Hollywood establishment is hilariously overwrought.

Unbeknownst to Reed (and "unbeknownst" is just the sort of word Reed would appreciate), the red-hair-transmogrification episode would be the Bradys' last. Reed did not appear on screen.

[via Ed Brayton]