As I began this journey into the world of The Brady Bunch. I wanted do a re-watch type of podcast. Basically a guest and I would watch an episode of the iconic show and then jump on the show and break it down, beat by beat. I knew I wanted to go in sequential order. However, I hit a little snarl along the way.
The Brady Bunch streams on three major platforms; Hulu, CBS All Access, & Amazon Prime. Sounds good, right? No problem, right? Wrong. Not all of the episodes are available to stream. I checked each platform and for the most part they are missing basically the same episodes (more or less). I decided to look into this a little deeper. There must be a reason.
I was able to find a website that did have the missing episodes, luckily. DailyMotion is my hero. However, when I was looking for S:1/E:13 - "Is There a Doctor in the House?" it was nowhere to be found. I mean NOWHERE. Interestingly I did find an AP article dated on May 24, 2019 explaining a possible reason for this.
Apparently the synopsis of the episode is the kids get the measles and then get better at the end of the episode. The fact that CBS & Hulu "quietly" removed the episode sent Facebook on a frenzy of conspiracy theories. One comment in a thread read, "They can’t have people remembering and knowing that the measles wasn’t that big of a deal until big pharma and the CDC had to push their vaccines".
Now I did find an article stating that the missing episodes are to blame because of a copyright clearance with CBS. Nothing more... Which most likely is the culprit. Anyone else hear the abomination that is the "theme song" to The Wonder Years on streaming platforms? Yuck...
So, copyright clearances?... Maybe.. Remember how I said I was unable to find the measles episode?...