For a brief shining moment in our youth, my brother and I were really, really into The Monkees. Re-runs of the show played an Channel 44 every day after school and it was so weird and goofy-funny that we started racing home to watch it. Like, every day. That said, we were also huge fans of another iconic, after-school staple, The Brady Bunch.
So, when a star from The Monkees (Davy Jones) made a now-legendary guest appearance on The Brady Bunch, well, that was big-ass news in our house.
The episode was awesome, Davy Jones rocked it, and Maureen McCormick was at the peak of her loveliness (meaning, she had boobs) but the kicker was the last line of the show when Mr. Jones kissed Marcia on the cheek and she uttered the eternal line: “I’ll never wash this cheek again…” The perfect last line to the perfect episode. Except, it never happened. That’s right, myself and hundreds of other bloggers out there today simply got our Brady Bunch episodes mixed up.
Contrary to popular lore, and Patton Oswald’s hilarious tweet (see, he got it wrong too!) the Davy Jones episode ended with Marcia simply kissing him on the cheek after he promised to take her to the prom. The legendary “cheek washing” line was actually taken from a much earlier episode of the show, where a much younger, (pre-boobs) Marcia uttered the line after being kissed on the cheek by Desi Arnaz Jr.! Yikes, I would have seriously bet everything I own that that line was about Davy Jones…who knew?!
Anyway, regardless of who the line was about, it applies just as nicely to Davy Jones today as it did to Desi Arnaz Jr. in 1970. She might have meant it for someone else, but, leave it to Marcia Brady to perfectly capture the effect Davy Jones had on the world with a single, indelible line of dialog.
Rest in peace, Mr. Jones, you will be missed…
make. see. eat. do. 