The Brady Bunch/Sorry, Right Number

Sorry, Right Number
Season 1, Episode 9
Airdate	November 21, 1969
Written by	Ruth Brooks Flippen
Directed by	George Cahan
Produced by	Sherwood Schwartz
← 1x08 A-Camping We Will Go	1x10 → Every Boy Does It Once
The Brady Bunch — Season One

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Sorry, Right Number is the ninth episode of the first season of The Brady Bunch.

Starring: Robert Reed (Mike Brady), Florence Henderson (Carol Brady)

and Ann B. Davis (Alice)

Maureen McCormick (Marcia), Eve Plumb (Jan), Susan Olsen (Cindy), Barry Williams (Greg), Christopher Knight (Peter), Mike Lookinland (Bobby)

Guest Star: Allan Melvin (Sam)

with Howard Culver (Mr. Crawford)

Plot Overview

Six children and one phone begin irking Mike. After all, he is an architect who sometimes expects business-related telephone calls at home, but yet those contacts can't get through when others — namely, Carol, when her sensitive friend calls — are constantly using the telephone to engage in mere chatter. An initial solution of installing a second line only makes matters worse: The kids are using it to place less-than-important calls to their friends.

The phone bill arrives, and it's more than the family budget can take. Mike (still needing his own line free for business purposes) decides to restrict his children to just the family room telephone, and imposes strict time limits. Then the phone bill arrives, and it's more than Mike's budget can take.

Counseling, threats and restrictions haven't worked, and Mike fumes aloud as to why there is no apparent solution. Then Alice comes home with an idea. Her new boyfriend, Sam (the operator of a local butcher shop), recently installed a pay telephone because customers were constantly using his, preventing him from receiving important calls. So Mike decides that, to teach his children phone ettiquite and the value of money, takes Alice up on the suggestion and installs one in his home.

The pay telephone seems to be doing its job ... until Mike needs to make a call to Mr. Crawford, an executive in London (presumably California) to close a lucrative contract, and — thanks to his children and Carol — there are no telephones free! So Mike has no choice but to use the pay phone.

Just as he's about to close the deal, the operator cuts in asking for another dime. Mike can't find a dime and is cut off. When Mike is able to get re-connected, the hard-nosed Mr. Crawford begins wondering about the financial stability of the architectural firm, since he believes the firm conducts business on pay telephones, and begins cancelling the deal; Mr. Crawford is even angrier when Mike says the pay phone is in his home. But Mike is able to blurt out just in time that the reason he installed the phone was because his children were abusing their phone rights and needed to learn a lesson. Mr. Crawford decides that the parenting move is quite ingenious and agrees to close the deal.

In the coda, Mike is painting over the area where the pay phone was installed, and reveals that he sold it to Mr. Crawford.

Arc Advancement

Characters

• First appearance of the recurring character Sam Franklin, Alice's boyfriend and proprietor of Sam's Butcher Shop.

Trivia

Behind the Scenes

• In his book, "Growing Up Brady," Barry Williams writes that he had met many fans of the show who, after watching this episode, decided to install their own pay telephone to teach their children about such things as the value of money, etiquette, prioritizing, etc.