Celebrate National Oliver Day and Meet TV’s First Annoying, Cute, Useless White Boy

Paramount Television and the estate of producer Sherwood Schwartz are celebrating the 40th anniversary of the end of the final season of The Brady Bunch by declaring today to be National Cousin Oliver Day.

As you can imagine, The Brady Bunch creator, Sherwood Schwartz, broke new ground with the introduction of the character Cousin Oliver to the series in 1973. Cousin Oliver was the first Annoyingly Bland American to make an appearance (and become a permanent fixture) in a major mainstream television series.

Due to a heavy schedule of personal appearances celebrating this day, we were unable to speak to Robbie Rist, who originally played the marshmallow in a bowl-cut. But many of the moderately genial but basically bland and annoying white boys who followed in his footsteps spoke highly of what his example meant to them.

“When George Lucas snatched me and made me talk to an Anti-Semitic merchant-fly in the middle of a computer animated dessert, I kept trying to give my character depth and motivation. But Mr. Lucas just kept saying, ‘be like Cousin Oliver, remember Cousin Oliver’ and I knew that my real role was to serve as a lighting rod for any criticism. Even then I needed Ahmed (JarJar Binks) to do most of the heavy flak catching. But I would never have had a career without Cousin Oliver.” said one former actor who asked not to be named.

“Many people think I’ve always been a talented and successful Awards Show Host and Gay Dad. But I always remember that I got my start being smarmy and strainingly adorable. Cousin Oliver paved the way.” said another actor, on condition of anonymity.

“I was just starting my career and no-one knew who I was when I was offered the role of Luke on Growing Pains.” said an anonymous baby-faced A-Lister, “I couldn’t believe they wanted me just to walk around with a dumb look on my face and be cute. But my mom showed me some old Brady Bunch episodes from the last two seasons. Those episodes were my college.”

Given the climate of the early seventies, a country (and world) still mourning the passing of Ed Begley, Sr., the introduction of Cousin Oliver to the established world of The Brady Bunch was not only timely, but retrospectively groundbreaking.

“In my day, we didn’t have a Cousin Oliver,” reminisced a balding Hollywood director/producer who hit me when I asked if I could use his name. “My brother and I would have loved to be openly talentless and grating. But back then we still had to be covert about it. It was like living two lives – there were the smug, chubby-cheeked, do-nothing, blobs we were in private and then there were the hard-working, talented kids we were forced to be on set. We didn’t know back then that it’s enough just to be white and fat to be on TV.”

The naming of this as National Cousin Oliver Day is thought to be an advance publicity move to remind people that there’s probably a movie or tv show starring Jack Black on somewhere right now.

– David LM McIntyre is contributing writer to the Trickstermac’s Issues blog page and is himself a recovering doughy, blue-eyed toe-head

David LM McIntyre (age 9)

Washington Team chooses new name

In a move hoped to finally bring peace and resolution to both the sports world and the indigenous people everywhere, the Washington D.C. football team has agreed to change the name of their team to the Washington Racists.

“We were nervous about offending the long-time fans and supporters, or, as we now call them, Racists,” said team owner, Dan Snyder. “But we feel this new name honors who we are, while also giving those hatchet-packing buffalo-jockeys one less thing to whine about.” Snyder then made a “boo-hoo, wah-wah” crying gesture to mock the suffering of all who have ever suffered persecution in the name of making white Americans wealthy.

Kluxxy’s evil grin is said to be “at the suffering of all non-white races.”

As part of the rebranding, the team will replace the previous caricature, designed by Joseph Goebbels, with a drawing of the club’s new mascot, Kluxxy the Klansman.

“Kluxxy is a true step forward,” said recently named team manager, Scot McCloughan. “We’ve always been proud of our team and now we can be openly proud of who we are as fans. I can walk down the street and openly say that I’m a member of Racist Nation. And that feels like progress for me. I’m glad we can finally call a spade a spade.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” joked Muriel Bowser, the African American mayor of Washington, D.C. during the joint press conference held to announce the new team name. “I just hope that this move helps to take the focus off anti-Native American sentiment and redirects it towards the Jews and those Hispanics. They’re a real problem.”

“As the team of the capital city of the nation, the Racists will always be held in high regard. But I’ve been a Racist long before I was elected and came to D.C.” said Presidential Candidate Ted Cruz.

Democratic hopeful HIllary Clinton tweeted “Living in D.C., it’s hard not to be a Racist. #KluxxyPower”

An early version of Kluxxy welcomes the newest member to Racist Nation.

Stephen Dodson, a full-blooded Native American and chief of the Aleutians tribe in Alaska told reporters, “Yeah, that seems about right. Now can we get cops to stop shooting Black people? And stop calling me an Eskimo!”