Cousin Oliver
Badger and I were talking about Cousin Oliver on the Brady Bunch the other day and about the Cousin Oliver syndrome as a whole. We both agreed that when a television show adds a cute and snarky kid, the show is doomed.
No one knew what happened with Cousin Oliver, not that we cared but then again, me being me, had to go and look up Robbie Rist. I know. I have some sort of blogging ADHD. I guess I did care after all.
I’m a child of the 70s. We may have had LSD in the water back in the day. One never knows.
I found this interview with the Washington Post from a couple of years ago with Rist. This kind of made me laugh.
RR: On occasion. Susan Olson and I talk maybe a couple times a year. We talk about her kid and whatever I’m working on. I think the last time I saw Mike Lookinland was at a shooting for the CBS Morning Show. They had all the Brady guys on, so it was Barry [Williams], Chris Knight and myself in New York with Mike on a remote TV screen and oddly, with that episode, I was on the morning Bryant Gumbel quit. Coincidence? I don’t know.
Liz: Cousin Oliver strikes again.
RR: I’ll take credit for it. What the hell?
I think Cousin Oliver might indeed be the best pop culture term ever and that he might just be the greatest “harbinger of death” ever.
After “bloated whitey” which is a pop culture term I invented but hasn’t taken off yet. Anyway, here is Robbie Rist’s MySpace page. He apparently has been a busy boy.
In the spirit of disclosure, I think saying “bloated whitey” just flows off the tongue. Followed closely by “fishsticked.™” invented by Sara Clark and I which is a great word. It never took off either.
Dang.
He’s still no Ted McGinley, Patron Saint of Dead TV Shows. No matter how good he was on Married with Children, he’s still the harbinger of TV death.
Yeah. Robbie Rist is on my Friends List, not really sure why. He’s definitely different these days.
(actually I think he’s on it ‘cos of the International Pop Overthrow festival connection. He does have a pretty good music following nowadays, I understand, at least in California.)
Buffy didn’t necessarily get worse when Dawn was shat from another dimension into the family. That show rocked pretty hard the last couple of years.
Any chance we can get Rist to do an interview with Katie Couric?
A friend and I were also talking about Cousin Oliver the other day. We were calling him the “John Denver kid” on “The Brady Bunch.”
Good point about Dawn.
The “John Denver kid” comment made me laugh, paper doll.
LOL! Yes! That’s what we called him, too…”The John Denver Kid”…
[...] Homer: Why the fascination with Cousin Oliver? [...]
One last thing. I can’t post on a blog without turning it into a commercial.
I produced a low budget horror/comedy movie called Stump The Band that is coming out on DVD on June 3rd. Check out the trailer at http://www.stumptheband.com.
Thanks!
Robbie
Most don’t realize, Cousin Oliver had his own supernatural spin-off series, it was rather good.
Here more about it:
http://www.tvscifi.com/content/view/33/35/
[...] Angie Dickinson) they leapt the ferocious, fanged fish as badly as Fonzie. Verily, they pulled a Cousin Oliver! They started subbing in any old wannabe and trying to pass them off as [...]