Christopher Knight revealed how he was duped to shoot alongside a live tarantula on The Brady Bunch. The classic sitcom cast member, who is now 67, appeared on the Today Show discussing some insightful events in the history of the show with cast members Barry Williams and Eve Plumb.
Knight played the role of Peter, one of the three children of Mike Brady (Robert Reed) in the classic ABC sitcom that ran from September 26, 1969, to March 8, 1974. Williams starred as Greg, Peter’s brother, and Plumb played the role of Jan, one of Mike’s new wife Carol Martin’s daughters.
Knight remembered a terrifying scene on the season 4 episode titled Pass the Tabu, where Peter Brady was supposed to wake up with a tarantula over him. He said, “They did lie to me. They told me that they put ball bearings on its fangs so that it couldn’t inject.”
He was terrified while filming the scene, as he elaborated on his experience to show host Hoda Kotb and Carson Daly. He added, “I was terrified, but I was a perfect kind of terrified because I got to prove my hero self to the ladies. I shouldn’t let them know I’m scared to death.”
Williams was there on the scene and still remembers intervening. He assured the audience how he was used to tarantulas since he had a spider as a pet. Worried about Knight’s safety issues, he personally lifted the spider up and kept it away safely. He said, “That was a real spider and he had nothing under it; it was on him. And then I came in and I had to figure out how to get it off of him.”
Eve Plumb remembered one detail about the show that stood out to her and that was Fluffy, a cat belonging to the Brady girls. The cat was shown in the pilot episode but then was written out of the series for no apparent reason.
Another story about the Brady family that Christopher Knight, 66, recalled was the family pet, Tiger. The dog brought in also in the first few seasons became obsolete in the storyline.
The Brady Bunch is available for streaming on Pluto TV and Paramount+.
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