Jody from "Family Affair" could not sing or perform for shit

You should have done some smacl like Buffy.

That would have calmed him down

LOL at the double tracked voice mixed with a vocoder/flanger in an attempt to make him sound good! 😂

He’s no Jack Wilde.

He was such a fairy on Family Affair.

Bless his heart…

Ann B. Davis and Robert Reed in the audience at 2:50...Robert drinking to get through this....

I had those pants!

Thanks to mom & the Sears Catalogue.

I still recall the episode where Whitaker sang a song called "Every Little Boy Can Be President" on "Family Affair" fifty years ago....chilling!

There's a lot of ways to go with that song and he took all of them.

No shit

He invented Auto-Tune?

I loved the shots of the children staring dead eyed into space during his "thrilling" performance.

For a fugly kid, he had a decent career.

R6 He'd have to be. The man wanted to be a serious actor and then he's watching Jody lip sync. Buffy and Jody were too cute by half. There extended baby talk and tilted head innocence hasn't aged well. They come across as smarmy. Jody and Buffy: "Uncka Bee Ohh, Uncka Bee Ohh!". Uncle Bill: "Shut the fuck up. I used to be knee deep in pussy until you little shits got here. Now I'm so horny and desperate old Frenchy is starting good",

The only reason I liked Family Affair was that fabulous apartment.

Standards for entertainment were obviously much lower in the early 70s.

I have to say, Whitaker's story about the set of Sigmund the Sea Monster catching fire and a confused Rip Taylor in full costume running around screaming "What's happening?! What's happening?!" is funny as fuck.

How dare you think you can sing, child from fifty years ago!

Things were brutal for child stars back then, exploitation, bilked of their earnings, etc. He doesn't seem polished there, but he has the chutzpah to survive it.

He's had a rough life. Married briefly in the 80s, no children. Seems much older than he is.

Family Affair left me cold. I didn’t care for any of them, and the iconic apartment didn’t even appeal to me. Those acres of dull green carpet and the drab Levitz warehouse furniture didn’t speak of Manhattan or sophistication to me. The place looked like a spacious but boring ranch style house in a suburban development out West somewhere.

And even the mesmerizing bejeweled background of the opening credits didn’t do anything for you, R20???

Jesus Christ, R19!! Johnny Whittaker became Brian Keith!! And God bless Oprah, ending the nation’s long nightmare by bringing the two survivors together again.

Is it a boy or a girl?

Terrifying to look at. Chuck vibes.

R22 I meant Chucky.

Such a male apology at R19. 🙄

That’s one sparsely attended concert.

R7 Me too. Most of my 4th grade class picture from 1973 is wearing them!

Who cares! This is all that mattered!

I saw Tom Sawyer when it came out in 1973. I recall Jodie Foster was in it but mostly I remember having a crush on the actor playing Huck Finn.

R3 I'm a 90's kid but I used to watch reruns of H.R. Pufnstuf as a kid and I had such a huge crush on Jack Wild.

I thought he was the same age I was back then (10) and I was surprised years later when I found out he was actually 17-18 in 1969.

Sad thing about Family Affair is they didn’t allow the kids to age. Buffy was carrying around that fucking doll and wearing baby doll dresses for the entire run. I do remember how touching those first few episodes were. Three siblings who were split up after losing both parents and were reunited and taken in by their bachelor uncle.

I follow Kathy Garver on social media and she’s a lovely woman.

Kathy Garver popped up in a tv commercial the other day and I recognized her immediately. Same sweet smile.

Uncle Bill was a hot daddy.

Regarding the video at R19 about Kathy Garver and Johnny supposedly "burying the hatchet", Kathy Garver herself left the following comment on the OWN Network's YouTube video:

"The show was cut mercilessly

They left out the part where I told Johnny I hadn't talked with him (which he knew) because after we had both been booked onto an appearance he told the promoter he would not appear with me if I was going to be there

Since the promoter had booked him first I graciously said fine and then never appeared with him again

Re if it was just because he didn't say thank you that would have been Very petty of me

And Johnny knew we didn't appear together yet insinuated himself into a show (Oprah)which had taken six months to set up

I was not happy to see him and I guess my attempt to be gracious when he forced himself into my home came across as insincere

I was not sincerely glad to see him and I think you all can see why"

Rowr!!!! Cissy HATES Jody's fat ass, and I am here for it!

He looks like a young William Katt (Halloween) in that OP pic.

Lmfao R14!

[quote]Now I'm so horny and desperate old Frenchy is starting good",

Oh, dear.

Love the title of this thread, OP! I wish I could give you more than one W/W's. It gave me a chuckle.

He molested me.

Well, he's no Mr. French, that's for damn sure!

I saw Johnny Whitaker in the Pussy Cat theater bookstore in the "the Valley" in the 1980's? He walked into the gay section and looked around and then left back to the pussy section.

Years ago somebody here posted a weird anecdote about Kathy Garver having a breakdown of some sort while rehearsing for an interactive dinner-theater murder mystery in San Francisco. She complained of a headache then curled up in a fetal position screaming "I WANT MY MOMMY!" She was fired from the show the next day.

As a child, I was scarred by The Littlest Angel. All I could think of the entire show was "Wait -- he's DEAD?!"

On viewing again as an adult -- this is pure late-60s cheese!

He had an extensive collection of snuff porn, it turns out.

Oh wow R43 I'd forgotten about that dreck, I remember being scared too.

This thread has the Kathy Garver batshit meltdown story.

What about the other Mr. French?

I watched "Family Affair", in the early 70s. (I'm 59.) I thought the show was sad and depressing. The intro was wonderful, with the lush kaleidoscope and the beautiful handwriting. I didn't like Uncle Bill's apartment, but was intrigued by the front doorknobs.

R48, I work in publishing and have always had a thing for lettering and typography. I loved the animated cursive too and used to try to copy it down from memory.

Yikes!

[quote]Sad thing about Family Affair is they didn’t allow the kids to age. Buffy was carrying around that fucking doll and wearing baby doll dresses for the entire run.

The producers actually made her wear a chest binder after she started puberty.

Starting at 44:50, the musical stylings of "Cissy," Kathy Garver.

It must feel so strange to have once been famous, and then no longer be. I’d be interested in understanding the economics of careers like these. Where money went, how they manage before pensions “kick in”. I have a few friends who appeared on popular shows in the early 1980’s but ended up guiding tours and low skill, low wage jobs like these, then cobbling together retirement income from two or three pensions, for stage performances, television work, etc. I know another performer who took whatever performance work they could to maintain their health insurance. Fame without serious money must be hard and alienating. Some Broadway performers also end up pretty broke, too.

back in those days everybody thought they could sing. I think Jodie Foster was on some tv show singing. Brooke Shields was on some show singing. Anty they could not "sing for shit", either.

Couldn't find Julie Brown's "Buffy" song so I'll post this instead.

I thought he was gay but I might be confusing him with some other ex child star

She's nearly 15 yrs older than him but has aged so much better

Gay six year old me always thought the Don Fedderson Font was SO fancy!

R17 I want to watch that

This was no doubt to promote the film Tom Sawyer and I'm sure the audience got in for free.

Some of the posts here reminded me of the opening theme from The Smith Family which was sung by the gorgeous Petticoat Junction daddy Mike Minor.

Wow. Johnnie Whitacker really did morph into Brian Keith.

He looks like the inspiration behind Chucky

R61, [italic]The Smith Family[/italic] was a show in search of an identity: Was it a family sitcom or a cop drama? They filmed another opening that was more along the lines of [italic]The Mod Squad.[/italic]

R64 the cop show intro was the first one I found when I was looking for the one i posted.

R64

That's hilarious - reminds me of the gear changes in the Too Many Cooks" Video.

He was an ugly child who grew up to become an even uglier old man.

R30- Same with Susan Oleson on the Brady Bunch. She was practically a teenager and the still had her in curls and baby doll dresses 👗

I at least had a marionette orchestra to back me up!

—J. Osmond

R69- All of the kids in the audience are so slim. No FATTIES. This was before the obesity era which began in the 1980's.

Reply 64

Well isn’t Opie Cunningham the vicious little statist.

My god that was some awful acting.

Gingers. Always thought Johnny was one of the ugliest runts ever on television.

Well, R70, I saw the showgirls doing bumps of coke backstage—no surprise how those anorexic bitches stay slim! And I wouldn’t exactly call H.R. Pufnstuf a lightweight—those little white boots do his stumpy legs no favors!

R52

The best part of the American Bandstand episode were the commercials. Dick Clark was such a tool. Shits on his copywriter and insults a girl in the audience in the interview. Always a fucking asshole.

R43

Fred Gwynne and Tony Randall in anything for a paycheck. Such laughable dreck.

R73- I ALWAYS thought Dick Clark was a DICK.

He would routinely say obnoxious things to the teenagers.

Something about him always reminded me of that other DICK from the Price Is Right

Bob Barker

I had forgotten that Jimmy Osmond was the worst of them all.

R76- Even back in 1974 he already looked like a CHUBBY Lesbian.