In the first of many episodes to explore Jan's middle child insecurity, Jan gets a mystery locket in the mail and much of the episode is about her trying to find out her admirer is. At the end it turns out to be Alice, a middle child herself who understands Jan's insecurities all too well and wanted to give her that feeling of being special. Jan's response? "As long as I have this locket, I'll always feel like someone special".
A similar incident happens with Bobby pretends to be a secret admirer for Cindy, who wishes she were older and more glamorous. When Cindy wants to meet the guy, he offers his friend a half-dollar to play the part of the admirer...only for the kid to fall for Cindy for real and give Bobby back his money. Although Mike and Carol are not too happy with Bobby for either.
"The Possible Dream" had seen the boys wrapping up an new (and identical to her missing diary) diary for Marcia. There is talk that a missing diary isn't about the possession but about the memories invested in it, but it was sweet they thought to cheer her up this way.
On the pilot episode, Mike notices that the photo of the boys' birth mother is missing from the dresser. Bobby admits that he put it away because he didn't think Carol would want to see it. Compassionately, Mike tells him to put it back. "I don't want you to forget your mother, and neither does Carol."
He also tells Bobby that if his mother was there to see it she would be proud of him for considering Carol’s feelings.
In the first season Marcia writes a letter to a local newspaper saying why her new stepfather should get their "Father of the Year" award. In order to secretly mail it she sneaks out of the house past curfew. She gets caught and Mike has to punish her by not allowing her to go with the family on a ski trip. The newspaper picks Mike based on Marcia's letter and a TV crew goes to the house to surprise him and present his award. That's when Mike discovers why Marcia snuck out of the house. He reads Marcia's letter, which says "Even though he's been my dad for a short time, no father could be a realer father than Michael Brady." Mike then hugs Marcia.
In the 3rd season, Mike's anniversary present to Carol is a professional photo of the kids together. Unfortunately, Jan ruins it by crashing her bike into it and the kids have to go out and get a new one without their dad finding out. They succeed, but afterwards Mike corners Jan and tells her he knows something happened because she's wearing her glasses in the new photo; when she tells him the whole story he tries to ground her from riding her bike, but Jan says that won't work because she already sold her bike to pay for the new picture. Mike is so blown over by her integrity that he decides not to punish her and promises to get her bike back.
In "54-40 and Fight", the kids come into unexpected Checker Trading Stamp gold when Alice offers her collection. The boys want a rowboat, the girls want a sewing machine, and ultimately they end up building a house of cards to determine the winner of a whopping 94 books of stamps. The girls win, but after seeing a rowboat near the sewing machines at the redemption center they feel bad for the boys, and instead pick out something the whole family can enjoy: A color TV set.
In the episode "Every Boy Does It Once", Bobby decides to run away because he's just a "stepchild". The most heartwarming part is where Carol offers to run away with him so he wouldn't be alone because "it's a big world out there".
Also, when Carol says "The only 'steps' in this house are the ones leading to your room."
In a real life example, one of the reasons Robert Reed kept staying with the show despite disliking the scripts was because he had grown fond of the cast and treated the children in the cast like they were his own.
This extended even to the end of his life: when he learned that he was dying, he called Florence Henderson and asked her to break the news to "the kids," not wanting them to learn it from the media or anywhere else. And after his passing, Henderson spoke for all of them by saying "We are a family and we have lost our father."
The first Christmas episode is sweet from start to finish. The kicker is when Alice convinces Greg, Peter, Marcia and Jan not to cancel Christmas because all Carol wants is for them to be happy.
In one episode, Bobby gets his first-ever kiss from a crush, and Cindy finds out. Since she loves to tattle about things, she spends a good deal of time running around bragging to her siblings—"I've got a secret, I've got a secret!" But then it turns out that the girl Bobby kissed might have mumps, which makes him an absolute wreck (the disease is highly contagious). Cindy's discovery of his fear coincides with the older kids finally getting her to talk, but she ultimately demonstrates loyalty to her brother by saying that "The secret is...that there is no secret," pretending that her previous taunting was all for show—Bobby's happiness was more important than all the secrets in the world.
In one episode, Cindy gets spooked by the disappearing act done in a magic show at school. As it happens, Peter is preparing for a talent show himself and decides to make Cindy his "lovely assistant" in another magic act to help her conquer her fears. That alone is sweet, but things take a turn for the worse when Peter demonstrates his trick with Bobby's help—only for Bobby to pretend that he really disappeared, scaring Cindy even further. Peter decides to ask Jan to be his new assistant, but on the day of the show, she sprains her ankle. It looks as though Peter's act is ruined...until Cindy comes to the rescue and helps him, as she realized her love for Peter was greater than her fear. She has so much fun doing the trick that she even asks to do it again!
In one episode, the kids think that Alice has told Mike and Carol about some of their misdeeds and thus turn against her (even though she didn't deliberately blab—it was a genuine accident on her part). She decides to have her friend Kay, also a housekeeper, take her place while she gets work as a waitress. Once the children learn the truth from Mike and Carol, they rally and go back to ask Alice to return. Though she pretends to be OK when they go to the diner where she works, she can't resist offering them advice and nurturing them, and they all realize that Alice is truly a part of the family. She happily returns.
In the same episode, Kay gets a small moment, too. She's not cruel by any means, but she also doesn't have any sort of bond with the family, viewing her housekeeping as nothing more than a job. She tells Alice that this philosophy is important, and that she should always avoid getting too close to her employers. But when she notices how genuinely miserable the kids are without Alice, her heart softens, and she tells them where they can find her in an effort to reconcile the group.
Jan runs away from home after one too many instances of Marcia stealing her thunder and ends up hitching a ride with a trucker. After hearing Carol call out for her on the CB radio, she decides to go home where the family finds her asleep in the living room. A warm reunion is had, complete with Jan telling her family how much they mean to her and Marcia finally returning the credit she took for an idea of Jan's.
Jan's psychotic inner voices finally shutting up after Grandma pays her a little attention. Doubles as a Funny Moment when the voices transfer themselves to Cindy.
After spending the entire movie either drunk or hungover, making sexual advances toward her neighbors' teenaged sons, and neglecting her children to the point she wishes they would run away, Mrs. Dittmeyer manages to pick herself off the floor to go and watch her son's band perform at the Search for the Stars show.
Doug's long-suffering ex-girlfriend (who earlier made some catty remarks about Marsha) is one of the few people who sincerely likes the Brady siblings' musical number and also gets some Les YayShip Tease with Marsha’s best friend Noreen (who has been hopelessly crushing on her throughout the movie).
Holly and Peter's attraction involves each of them separately comparing the other to a Gilligan's Island character.
In the second movie, Jan finally getting the boyfriend she's always wanted (who's just as Adorkable as she is) and Marcia genuinely being happy for her after playing the bitchy older sister for the whole movie.
Cindy giving her doll to the millionaire after realizing she doesn't need it as her security item anymore.
Peter realizing his father's been his best role model all along, after realizing what a dick "Roy Martin" is.
