Many of us have been involved in (or reviewed) work projects
that were in absolute desperation (always at the very last minute). Management
has instituted a new process (or person) in the hopes that that single event
will reverse the fortunes of a project in terminal decline. Welcome to The Cousin
Oliver Syndrome.
It is the well known
TV sitcom action of introducing a younger character to the cast of a show in its
later years as a hopeless attempt to add life to a show that needed to conclude
a long time ago. The addition can be successful, or disastrous. This syndrome
gets its name from Cousin Oliver introduced into the last season of The Brady Bunch.
Cousin Oliver suddenly appeared in The Brady Bunch when Carol’s
brother and sister-in-law (Jack and Pauline Tyler) went on an archeological dig
in South America, and left him with the Bradys since they couldn’t bring him
with him (no appropriate schooling). His sole purpose was to add youth to a
series whose ratings were beginning to plummet. It didn’t work because Cousin
Oliver disappeared six episodes later, and the show was cancelled altogether by
the end of season five.
The Brady Bunch has plenty of classic moments during the show's first four seasons. But by the sitcom's fifth season, those moments had dried up. The lackluster season repeats storylines, becomes more unrealistic and even includes a failed backdoor pilot where the Brady's neighbor adopts three children.
People bemoan Cousin Oliver’s inclusion by saying it was unnecessary, but the producers and writers didn't really have a choice. After five seasons about stories of growth and development, the show needed a shake up. The audience had become used to each kid's antics. An unfamiliar face could have helped the program.
The sitcom's ratings also forced a change. Despite being massively popular now, The Brady Bunch never ranked in the Top 40 of the Nielsen ratings. To avoid cancellation, something needed to change. Oliver isn't nearly as bad as people think. That's thanks to Robbie Rist. The child actor is cute, curious, and a little clumsy at times — a lively addition to a cast of incredibly seasoned child actors.
If anyone is to blame for Oliver's part on the show, it's the writers. They underestimated Rist's talents and made the character into a caricature. After all, the six main Brady children are never written to be stupid, they're depicted as children learning lessons from challenging experiences. It may not be a coincidence, then, that Rist transitioned to a successful voice-acting career in the 1990s.
Many shows have tried The Cousin Oliver Syndrome. While some have succeeded, others have failed miserably. Here are some of the more memorable ones (in no particular order):
Full House (Nicky and Alex)-Two cute twins with
blond bowl cuts, the spawn of Uncle Jesse and Aunt Becky, were added to the
late seasons of Full House.
In typical Cousin Oliver fashion, Nicky and Alex didn’t have a whole lot of
personality. We couldn’t even tell them apart, but neither could their parents,
who had them, wear different colored booties. We didn’t really care, because
the visual of twins wearing tiny motorcycle jackets and red bandannas is what
the people wanted.
We
didn’t know anything about them except for the fact that they adorably wreaked
havoc for a cheap laugh every now and then, like those times they wore
underpants on their heads or stole their dad’s Little Richard concert tickets.
Yet their weird, sudden presence was all worth it when they ruined
Michelle’s solar system project (their crowning achievement).
Gimme a Break! (Joey Lawrence)-It only took Gimme A Break! two seasons
to realize that the three teenage girls Nell Carter was charged with raising
just weren’t cutting it when it came to the “cute kid” factor essential to
ultimate sitcom success. Enter little orphan Joey, played by 7-year-old future
teen heartthrob Joey Lawrence. Season 3 saw Police Chief Carl Kanisky catching
the cherubic little Joey trying to steal from passersby to support himself
while living on the mean streets of Glenlawn, California.
The
Chief scoops Lil’ Joe up off the street and brings him home with Nell Carter
while he comes to grips with his own issues of abandonment and loss. ‘Gimme A
Break!’ gets extra points with The Cousin Oliver Syndrome because in Season 6
they did it again — bringing Joey Lawrence’s real life younger brother Matthew
Lawrence in to play his cuter, smaller little TV brother. In all fairness, Joey
Lawrence was ten at that point so he was pretty much over the hill in Hollywood
terms.
Growing Pains (Luke Brower)-Turns out, adding
adorable children to a cast to raise ratings doesn’t always work out. Growing Pains found that
out the hard way when they made Mama Seaver crank out a fourth kid, ‘Baby
Chrissy’ at the beginning of Season 4, only to age her four years over one
summer hiatus when they couldn’t figure out what to do with her.
Then
they called in future mega Hollywood star Leonardo DiCaprio arrived on set
during Season 7 to play homeless teenager Luke Brower. Mike Seaver discovers
Luke has been living on the street, and takes him home to live with his own
parents like an adorable, stray puppy with a trendy haircut. Unfortunately,
even the power of DiCaprio wasn’t enough to keep the Seaver family going for
another season.
I Love Lucy (Little Ricky)-For most shows, The Cousin
Oliver Syndrome is the kiss of death, but there are rare exceptions, like I Love Lucy, where the
addition of a cute young kid actually worked. The show was already a hit by season
two when Lucy found out she was “expecting” (the word “pregnant” was taboo in
1952). When Little Ricky was born in 1953, nearly 72 percent of Americans tuned in. Unlike most TV children,
Little Ricky aged in real-time (although played by different children
throughout the series).
Unlike
most TV children, Little Ricky wasn’t obnoxious just to sell merchandise. In
fact, audiences really didn’t see that much Little Ricky. The show continued to
focus on Lucy, (Big) Ricky, Fred, and Ethel, producing classic episodes like
“The Charm School,” ‘Lucy and John Wayne,” and “Lucy’s Italian Movie.” Plus, it
didn’t hurt that Little Ricky was so cute.
The Cosby Show (Cousin Olivia and Cousin Pam)-When you think of The Cosby Show, and random
children joining the household out of nowhere, most people think of Raven
Symoné as the tiny, adorable Olivia. Arriving in Season 6, Olivia was widely
recognized as a ploy by the producers to preserve the show’s cute element. Olivia’s
entrance was quite memorable: Denise Huxtable comes back from Africa with a new
husband and a step-daughter (Olivia). The husband goes away with the Navy.
The
real “Cousin Oliver” of The
Cosby Show arrived in Season 7. This time around, the producers
realized that with 3 of the Huxtable daughters out of the house, Cousin Pam (Erika
Alexander) entered. Cousin Pam was from a less well-off part of the family. The
early part of her first episode is spent hastily explaining Pam’s sudden
appearance. Pam made it through two seasons before the show called it quits.
The Facts of Life (Everyone)-“You take the good.
You take the bad. You take them both and create an entirely new show each year
for The Facts of Life.
The first season didn’t work so eliminate half the cast. Are you bored with
boarding schools? Move the show to a gourmet food shop, “Edna’s Edibles.” We
meant a collectables shop called “Over Our Heads” because that’s what the
writers must have been feeling.
Bring
in the handyman George Clooney and little orphan Andy, because it can’t
just be about the girls anymore. Swap out Mrs. Garrett for Cloris Leachman, and
in the final season, bring in an Aussie exchange student, Pippa.
“When I was a kid I was a big
fan of the Universal Monsters movies of the 1930's and the 1940's. I loved
movies like The Wolfman (1941) and Dracula (1931). I really wanted to be in
those movies. Eventually I started nagging my parents about it, and it turned
from, "I wanna be in a monster movie! I wanna be in a monster movie!"
to "I just wanna be in a movie." So I think my parents just thought
that if they took me to one audition I'd see how boring it was and I wouldn't
wanna do it. But I ended up getting the part, and I got a bunch of roles after
that as well. “(Robbie Rist,
Oliver Tyler in The Brady Bunch)[i]
[i] Sources used:
·
“In
defense of Cousin Oliver on The Brady Bunch”
·
“List of The
Brady Bunch characters” from Wikipedia
·
“The Cousin
Oliver Syndrome” By Tom McLeod
·
“The highs and lows of ‘Cousin Oliver Syndrome’, TV’s most
shameless ratings ploy” by Amber Dowling
·
The Worst Examples of Cousin Oliver Syndrome in TV
Sitcom History” by Derek
 |
| Robbie Rist on the left as Cousin Oliver and now |
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