This Date in 1973: Filming began at Kings Island for the "Cincinnati Kids" episode of The Brady Bunch
Don Helbig
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Forty-nine years ago today, filming for episode No. 106 of The Brady Bunch titled “The Cincinnati Kids” began at Kings Island.
The filming of the episode, which featured stars Robert Reed, Florence Henderson, Barry Williams, Maureen McCormick, Christopher Knight, Eve Plumb, Mike Lookinland, Susan Olsen and Ann B. Davis, was filmed over a five-day period Aug. 20-24 at Kings Island, the second year the park was open.
In the episode, Mike takes the entire family on a trip to Kings Island, with the purpose of the trip for him to submit plans for a park expansion project, but a mix-up causes the blueprints to go missing, resulting in a search all over Kings Island to find the architectural drawings.
Brady Bunch writers Al Schwartz and Larry Rhine, along with director Les Martinson, first paid a scouting visit to Kings Island July 29, touring and studying the park, conceiving the plot and working through all of the filming logistics with park officials.
The episode originally aired Nov. 23, 1973 on ABC and can be seen a handful of times a year in syndication on TV Land. MeTV and other channels around the world. Parts of it can also be found floating around on YouTube. It’s one of the most watched and most popular episodes of The Brady Bunch series, which aired for five seasons from 1969 to 1974 and has been in syndication since 1975.
I always love watching this episode. It brings back so many memories that I have of Kings Island’s early years as the Brady kids literally run through the park in search of a poster tube containing Mike Brady’s drawings that Jan (played by Plumb) lost. A number of rides that are long gone but not forgotten can be seen in the episode, like Halley's Comet, Der Spinnen Keggers and the Wheel of Fortune.