Yeah, he lived next door, and was a rock in my shoe. Loved the show when I was like, 6 & 7-- so young that I liked Laurie, not Keith best-- but hated that kid.
I caught a few episodes about a year ago, and was blown away to find out they weren’t rock stars, but more like lounge singers-- albeit, that was probably more realistic.
And, my family does “cousin”/“aunt” “uncle” pretty much by age. We are a family, on my mother’s side that stays in touch with second cousins, great aunts, etc, etc.
I call all my mother’s cousins aunt & uncle, and her aunts and uncles as well-- no “great” added on. My cousins’ kids are just my son’s cousins, not second cousins-- yes, we all realize they technically are, but “that’s for your cousin,” not “that’s for you second cousin.”
Sometimes the generations skew a little, and you have an aunt the same age as you-- so you call her cousin-- or the other way-- a cousin 20 years older-- you call her aunt.
Same here, and I’m probably about the same age as you. It was one of the first two non-kid TV shows I liked (the other being Emergency!). I was way too young to crush on Laurie, but being a young boy, I liked the Danny/Reuben interplay.
I’ve probably only seen a handful of episodes in the last 20 years, and I’d totally forgotten about Ricky, until I looked up the cast list to answer @solost 's question. Clearly, my mind had intentionally blanked him out.
I’ve got the entire series on DVD. It’s fun to binge-watch, but watching episodes back-to-back reveals a lot.
It demonstrates that the family was more lounge singers than anything else. If they’re playing a club, say in Las Vegas, the producers used the same stock shots of a lounge audience every time. That wouldn’t work every time, and it didn’t, and there were times when the Partridges played a concert in a park, for example, and a stock shot of a lounge audience wouldn’t work. But they sure weren’t filling stadiums like rock stars, and they weren’t mobbed by fans in public like other groups were. Remember, the kids went to school, and were treated like any kids at school.
Back to Ricky. He was a “Cousin Oliver”: Chris and Tracy are getting older, so let’s bring in a new “cute kid” to attract and keep younger viewers. The premise was that Ricky’s family moved in next door, and Ricky got to know the Partridges. Ricky would have nothing to do with an episode’s plot, but the producers would somehow shoehorn Ricky in to sing a song. And like any four or five year old, he would do so in an annoying, high-pitched, kid voice that lacked tone or tune, but with plenty of volume. Ricky only lasted maybe five episodes before the producers pulled the plug on him.
But he was not a ward of the Partridges. He lived next door with his mother, who (IIRC) occasionally showed up, usually after one of Ricky’s songs (aside: why couldn’t she show up before that damn kid sang?), to tell him to get home to eat dinner or similar.
I attended a show by the Cowsills – the real-life model for the Partridge Family – and it was on a big stage on the Steel Pier in Atlantic City – the same stage I’d seen the Supremes perform on another time. So I wouldn’t think it was ALL lounge shows.
I wouldn’t, either. OTOH, my suspicion is that they were limited to small venues (and small crowds) by the show’s production budget, and hence, they were playing “lounges” in the show.
