In the early years of this series, none of the girls was supposed to be stupid. Billie Jo was most interested in her own looks and in boys, Betty Jo was the tomboy who played baseball, and they made Bobbie Jo to be a bookworm, shy around boys.
As they moved along and Betty Jo got married, the producers decided to make Bobbie Jo sort of the opposite of what she had been, by making her the "dumb brunette." I have to say it would have not worked as well with Meredith McRae trying be dumb.
Some of Bobbie Jo's dumb comments were quite funny, some just seemed dumb to me--that's typical for any similar character.
I think it was nice to avoid the stereotype by having a female seem dumb who was not a blonde. Of course, too many of today's TV series have replaced the "dumb female blonde" with "every male" as the dummy. Not only TV series, but commercials seem to universally these years depict every male as being dumb, when compared to any female.
Why don't we just shoot 'em down and be through with it?
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