Calling mcs from frame

1

Hello again.
In my undying attempt to use the simplest things in 2004, I have run across another oddity.
I have 5 movieClips (named b1,b2,b3 etc) that I want to tell to play() one at a time with actionscript. So I write a simple getTimer thing with a trace that worked fine. But the movieClips would not play(). So, I took out all the code and put in this:

b1.play();

…Nothin. So I tried:

_root.b1.play();

…Nothin. So I put in in a movieClip (load) just off the stage…works. Why won’t it play from the frame? Should I start putting my code in movieClips?? What the???

Happy Holidays.