The Brady Bunch is an American
television sitcom starring
Robert Reed,
Florence Henderson, and
Ann B. Davis, which revolves around a large
blended family. The show originally aired from September 26, 1969, to March 8, 1974, on
ABC and was subsequently
syndicated internationally.
Series overview
Plot summary
Mike Brady (
Robert Reed),
widowed
architect with sons Greg (
Barry Williams), Peter (
Christopher Knight) and Bobby (
Mike Lookinland), marries Carol Martin (née Tyler) (
Florence Henderson), whose daughters are Marcia (
Maureen McCormick), Jan (
Eve Plumb) and Cindy (
Susan Olsen). The wife and daughters take the Brady surname. Producer Schwartz wanted Carol to have been a divorcée but the network objected to this. A compromise was reached whereby no mention was made of the circumstances in which Carol's first marriage ended. The blended family, Mike's live-in housekeeper
Alice (
Ann B. Davis) and the boys' dog Tiger settle into a large, suburban, two-story house designed by Mike. Their specific location is not explicitly stated in the series, though numerous indications suggest they reside in Southern California.
The theme song penned by Schwartz quickly communicated to audiences that the Bradys were a blended family. In the first season this blending figured prominently in stories. These episodes chronicled the family learning to adjust to its new circumstances and become a unit, as well as typical childhood problems such as rivalries and family squabbles. Over time the episodes focused more on issues related to the kids growing up, such as dating, self-image, responsibility, and puberty.
From the second season the blending and its particular tensions were less intrinsic to stories but would sometimes be casually mentioned in dialogue, often as part of a joke. Two episodes from the third season, "Not So Rose Colored Glasses" and "Jan's Aunt Jenny", mention that Mike and Carol had been married for just three years. "Kelly's Kids" in the final season explicitly recalled Mike and Carol's adoptions ("Either way, you adopted three boys and you adopted three girls, right?") when their neighbors, the Kellys, adopted three boys of different races.
It was not the first series to show a "blended" family (two series which debuted in the 1950s, Make Room For Daddy and Bonanza, had stepsiblings and half-siblings respectively), but came at a time when divorce and remarriage in America was seeing a surge.
Contemporary issues were sometimes explored. Season two's "The Liberation of Marcia Brady" explored the equality of women, as Marcia sets out to prove a girl can do anything a boy can. The boys challenge the idea and coerce Peter into joining Marcia's club, the Sunflower Girls, to make a point.
Episodes
In 1971, due to the success of the Bradys' ABC Friday night companion show The Partridge Family (about a musical family), some episodes began to feature the Brady Kids as a singing group. Though only a handful of shows actually featured them singing and performing ("Dough-Re-Mi" in the third season, "Amateur Nite" in the fourth and "Adios, Johnny Bravo" in the fifth), the Brady Bunch began to release albums. Ironically enough the LP records featured background vocals sweetening by the same session vocalists who were on The Partridge Family platters. Though the kids never charted as high as the Partridges, the cast began touring the United States during the summer hiatus from the show, headlining as The Kids from the Brady Bunch. Only Barry Williams and Maureen McCormick stayed in the music business as adults. Christopher Knight readily admits he felt he could not sing and recalls having great anxiety about performing live on stage with the cast.
Main characters
The regular cast appeared in an opening title sequence in which video head shots were arranged in a three-by-three grid, with each cast member appearing to look at the other cast members. In a 2010 issue of TV Guide, the show’s opening title sequence ranked #8 on a list of TV's top 10 credits sequences, as selected by readers. A replacement dog proved problematic, so the producers decided the dog would only appear when essential to the plot. Tiger appeared in about half the episodes in the first season and about half a dozen episodes in the second season. In a parallel to the Partridge Family, whose dog Simone disappeared during their second season, Tiger vanished without an explanation and was not shown again after "The Impractical Joker", which aired in 1971. According to Barry Williams, the doghouse was retained as a prop to cover holes in the artificial turf caused by a falling stage light.
In The Brady Bunch Movie, after Carol tells Mike "Go get 'em, tiger" she remarks to herself, "Tiger... Tiger... whatever happened to that dog?"
At the end of A Very Brady Sequel, a dog runs through the yard where a party is occurring. Cindy and Bobby turn to each other and say, "Tiger?" Cousin Oliver chases the dog off screen, which is followed by the sound of an unseen car crash. Cindy and Bobby seem unfazed.
The series pilot featured the only appearance of another pet, Fluffy, a cat that belonged to Carol's girls prior to her marriage to Mike.
Cousin Oliver—In 1974, in yet another parallel to The Partridge Family who brought in a younger neighbor for six episodes of its final season, the producers added a younger character Cousin Oliver (9-year-old Robbie Rist), to fill the age gap left by the maturing Brady children. Susan Olsen, the youngest, was 12 during the show's final season. Robbie appeared in the final six episodes of the series.
Celebrity guests
During the five seasons of the series' run, the Bradys had unusually frequent meetings with famous people, both real and fictional, typically in their own home.
Desi Arnaz, Jr.—Teen heartthrob son of Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball and brother of Lucie Arnaz who met Marcia to whom she had written about in her diary in "The Possible Dream" episode from Season One.
Don Ho—Hawaiian singer who met Cindy and Bobby and who serenaded Cindy in Honolulu in the episode "Hawaii Bound" (part one of a three-part episode, filmed on location in Hawai'i) from Season Four.
Davy Jones—Former member of The Monkees who performed at a music studio and who took Marcia to a school dance in the episode "Getting Davy Jones" from Season Three. Davy Jones satirized his cameo decades later in The Brady Bunch Movie.
Wes Parker—Los Angeles Dodgers first baseman who met Mike and Greg in Greg's math classroom, thus curing Greg of the crush he had on his teacher Miss Linda O'Hara (played by Gigi Perreau), Wes Parker's fiancée in "The Undergraduate" episode from Season One.
Don Drysdale—Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher who tries to inject reality into Greg's dreams of being a professional baseball player in "The Dropout" episode from Season Two.
Deacon Jones—Los Angeles Rams defensive end who encourages Peter's singing in "The Drummer Boy" episode from Season Two.
Joe Namath—New York Jets quarterback who visited Bobby because he thought Bobby had a terminal illness in the "Mail Order Hero" episode from Season Five.
Brigadier General James McDivitt—NASA astronaut who signed autographs for Peter and Bobby after appearing on a talk show in the episode "Out of This World" from Season Five.
E.G. Marshall—Actor best known as Lawrence Preston with Robert Reed as Kenneth Preston in The Defenders from 1961 to 1965 who played Marcia's school principal Mr. J. P. Randolph who kept Marcia after school for an entire week in "The Slumber Caper" episode from Season Two in which this episode reunites E. G. Marshall with Robert Reed.
Natalie Schafer—Actress best known as Mrs. Lovey Howell alongside Jim Backus as Mr. Thurston Howell, III in Gilligan's Island from 1964 to 1967 who played Mike's fussy client Penelope Fletcher and who was charmed by Cindy's impromptu 'Shirley Temple' routine in "The Snooperstar" episode from Season Five.
Jim Backus—Actor best known as Mr. Thurston Howell, III alongside Natalie Schafer as Mrs. Lovey Howell in Gilligan's Island from 1964 to 1967 who appeared three times in and for the series' entire run, twice in two of three Grand Canyon episodes "Ghost Town U.S.A." (part one of a three-part episode, filmed on location at the Grand Canyon) and "Grand Canyon or Bust" (part two of a three-part episode, filmed on location at the Grand Canyon) who played the demented Zaccariah T. Brown who mistakenly thinks the Bradys are jumping his gold claim and locks them in a ghost town jail, and once in "The Hustler" episode from Season Five who played Mike's second boss Mr. Harry Matthews who gave Mike a pool table as a "thank you" gift and who played Bobby in a game of pool.
Vincent Price—Horror film actor who appeared twice in and for the series' entire run in two of three Hawai'i episodes, "Pass the Tabu" (part two of a three-part episode, filmed on location in Hawai'i) and "The Tiki Caves" (part three of a three-part episode, filmed on location in Hawai'i) from Season Four who played the villainous Professor Hubert Whitehead who held the Brady boys hostage until Carol and Mike found them.
Marion Ross—Actress later to become famous as Mrs. Marion Cunningham, Richie's mother in the hugely popular 70s sitcom Happy Days appeared as a lady doctor who comes to treat the girls' measles in an episode during Season One.
Imogene Coca—Actress best known for working with Sid Caesar in Your Show of Shows who played the Brady girls' Aunt Jenny, whom Jan fears she will grow up to resemble after seeing a childhood photo of Aunt Jenny in the episode "Jan's Aunt Jenny" from Season Three.
Production
American television producer Sherwood Schwartz conceived the Brady Bunch television series in 1966 and registered the idea that same year with the
Writers Guild under the name "
Yours & Mine" as a blended-family presentation. Schwartz then developed the
pilot script to include three children for each parent, a widower, a mother whose marriage past was left open, and a housekeeper, each of whom would be introduced in the pilot in connection with the wedding between the parents. After receiving a commitment for 13-weeks of television shows from
American Broadcasting-Paramount Theatres in 1968, Schwartz hired film and television director
John Rich to direct the pilot, cast the six children from 264 interviews during that summer, and hired the actors to play the mother role (whose maiden name was Taylor and first married name was Nelson), the father role, and the housekeeper role. As the sets were built on
Paramount Television stages 2 and 3, the production crew prepared the backyard of a home in
Sherman Oaks, California as the Taylor home's exterior location to shoot the chaotic backyard wedding scene. Filming of the pilot began on Friday, October 4, 1968 and lasted eight days. The original show last aired on March 8, 1974.
Development
In 1965, following the success of his TV series
Gilligan's Island,
Sherwood Schwartz conceived the idea for
The Brady Bunch after reading in the
Los Angeles Times that "40% of marriages [in the United States] had a child or children from a previous marriage." He set to work on a
pilot script called
Mine and Yours and passed it around the "big three" television networks of the era.
ABC,
CBS and
NBC all liked the script but each network wanted changes before they would commit to filming and Schwartz shelved the project.
There are similarities between the series and the 1968 theatrical release Yours, Mine and Ours starring Henry Fonda and Lucille Ball. The original script for The Brady Bunch predated the script for the film. The success of the film was a factor in ABC's decision to order episodes for the series.
The real house is a Mid Century modern, split level. A false window was attached to the front's A-frame section to give the illusion it had two full stories during filming of the series' many establishing shots, all of which took place before the program debuted.
During the third season of The Brady Bunch, the living room of the Brady home was used as a villain's Hawaiian home in a sixth season episode of , "Double Dead" (both shows were produced by Paramount Pictures Television). The set was redressed with tropical plants and the staircase removed. All of the Brady furniture, including the television, remained in its usual place in the Mission: Impossible episode.
The address of the house in the series was given as 4222 Clinton Way. (As read aloud by Carol from an arriving package in the first season episode entitled "Lost Locket, Found Locket".) Although no city was ever specified, it was presumed from references to the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Los Angeles Rams, and a Hollywood movie studio, among many others, that the Bradys lived in Southern California, most likely Los Angeles or one of its suburbs. In the 2002 TV movie The Brady Bunch in the White House, Cindy's map and Mike's speech state that the family lived in Santa Monica, California. The police officers depicted in the final act of The Brady Bunch Movie wore Los Angeles Police Department badges and their squad cars bore LAPD markings.
In the years since the show first aired, those who have owned the house have had problems with visitors who trespassed on the property to peep into the windows, or who came to the front door asking to see the fictional Bradys. As a result, the property has been extensively re-landscaped, so someone casually driving by most likely would not recognize it as the house shown in the TV show.
Contemporary establishing shots of the house were filmed with the owner's permission for the 1990 TV series The Bradys. The owner refused to restore the property to its 1969 look for The Brady Bunch Movie in 1995, so a façade resembling the original home was built around an existing house.
Robert Reed vs. the producers
Robert Reed became increasingly jaded about appearing in the series, as he felt that his Shakespearean training would mean nothing if he became typecast in the "Mr. Brady" role. He frequently fought with producers to make changes in the show's scripts in order to remove what he felt were unbelievable scenes or dialogue. Despite his battles, he was allowed to direct several episodes, "The Winner" and "The Big Little Man" (1971), "How To Succeed In Business" and "Getting Greg's Goat" (1973).
Reed did not appear in a 1972 episode, "Goodbye, Alice, Hello," and his absence from this episode has never been explained. By the final season, his arguments with the producers led to his absence from the series finale, "The Hair-Brained Scheme", because he believed a key plot point – Bobby selling hair tonic from a disreputable supplier that turns Greg's hair orange – was too implausible to be believed. In addition to "The Hair-Brained Scheme," Barry Williams' autobiography, Growing Up Brady, contains two of Reed's negative critiques of the episodes "The Impractical Joker" and "And Now a Word From Our Sponsor" (1971). Williams cited in his autobiography the likelihood that Reed's character would have been killed off, or at least have his absence explained as being away on an "extended project", had The Brady Bunch been renewed for a sixth season.
Despite these tensions, Reed went on to appear in all of the subsequent Brady reunion vehicles, including the critically panned variety series.
Reception
U.S. television ratings
The Brady Bunch never achieved high ratings during its primetime run (never placing in the top 30 during the five years it aired) and was canceled in 1974 after five seasons and 117 episodes. At that point in the story Greg graduated from high school and was about to enroll in college. Despite its less-than-stellar primetime ratings and having won no awards, the show would become a true cultural phenomenon, enduring in the minds of Americans and in syndication for decades. The series has spawned several sequel series on
the "Big 3" U.S. networks, made-for-TV movies, and parody theatrical releases, as well as a touring stage show and countless specials and documentaries on both network and cable TV.
Critical reception
When the episodes were repeated in
syndication, they usually appeared every weekday in late-afternoon or
early-evening slots on local stations. This enabled children to watch the episodes when they came home from school, making the program widely popular and giving it iconic status among those who were too young to have seen the series during its prime time run. The show's longevity in the public mind largely owes to that phenomenon, which was a unique aberration from the traditional norm of a previously-run network program being sold to stations as schedule filler between network programming blocks.
According to Schwartz, the reason the show has become a part of Americana despite the fact that there have been other shows that ran longer, rated higher and were critically acclaimed is that the episodes were written from the standpoint of the children and addressed situations that children could understand (such as girl trouble, sibling rivalry and meeting famous people such as a rock star or baseball players). The Bradys also comprised a harmonious family (in contrast to the likes of the Bunkers, the Bundys, the Simpsons, etc.), though they did run into problems occasionally when one of the children did not cooperate with his or her parents or the other children. In fact, anticipating the likelihood that some children might "act out" some plotlines, the producers had a form letter they sent to children who wrote stating their desires to run away from their own families and live with the Bradys.
In a 2010 issue of TV Guide, the show’s opening title sequence ranked #8 on a list of TV's top 10 credits sequences, as selected by readers.
Awards and honors
{| border="2" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" style="margin: 1em 1em 1em 0; background: #f9f9f9; border: 1px #aaa solid; border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 90%;"
|- bgcolor="#B0C4DE" align="center"
! style="background-color: #BCBCBC"|Award
! style="background-color: #BCBCBC"|Year
! style="background-color: #BCBCBC"|Category
! style="background-color: #BCBCBC"|Result
! style="background-color: #BCBCBC"|Recipient
|-
|
Young Artist Award || 1989 || Former Child Star Lifetime Achievement Award || || rowspan=2|
Barry Williams
|-
| rowspan=17|
TV Land Awards ||rowspan=5| 2003 || Hippest Fashion Plate - Male ||
|-
| Favorite Dual-Role Character || ||
Christopher Knight For Peter Brady and Arthur.
|-
| Funniest Food Fight The Brady Pie Fight on the Paramount Lot.|| ||
|-
| Favorite Guest Performance by a Musician on a TV Show || ||
Davy Jones
|-
| Most Memorable Male Guest Star in a Comedy as Himself || ||
Joe Namath
|-
| rowspan=3| 2004 || Favorite Fashion Plate - Male || ||
Barry Williams
|-
| Most Memorable Mane || ||
Susan Olsen
|-
| Favorite Made for TV Maid || ||
Ann B. Davis
|-
| rowspan=4| 2005 || Theme Song You Just Cannot Get out of Your Head ||
|-
| Best Dream Sequence For episode "Love and the Older Man," in which Marcia has a crush on her dentist.||
|-
| Favorite Two-Parter/Cliffhanger For the Greg Brady surfboard accident.||
|-
| Favorite Singing Siblings || ||
Barry Williams,
Maureen McCormick,
Christopher Knight,
Eve Plumb,
Mike Lookinland,
Susan Olsen
|-
| rowspan=3| 2006 || Best Dream Sequence For episode "Love and the Older Man"||
|-
| Favorite Made for TV Maid || ||
Ann B. Davis
|-
|Favorite TV Food Pork chops and applesauce. ||
|-
| rowspan=3| 2007 || Most Beautiful Braces || ||
Maureen McCormick
|-
| || ||
Barry Williams,
Maureen McCormick,
Christopher Knight,
Eve Plumb,
Mike Lookinland,
Susan Olsen,
Ann B. Davis,
Florence Henderson,
Lloyd J. Schwartz (producer)
|}
Syndication and distribution
Since its first airing in
syndication in September 1975, an episode of the show has been broadcast somewhere in the United States and abroad every single day of every single year through at least 2008. Reruns were also shown on ABC daytime from July 9, 1973 to August 29, 1975, at 11:30 a.m. Eastern/10:30 Central. The run was interrupted only once, between April 21 and June 27, 1975, when ABC ran a short-lived game show,
Blankety Blanks, in that time slot.
The Brady Bunch has been a popular staple in syndication for decades. The show was aired on TBS starting in the 1980s until 1997, on Nick at Nite from 1998 to 2003, TeenNick (under the channel's former name The-N) from March to April 2004 and on TV Land from 2002 to 2010. In the United States the show can still be seen on many independent and Christian-based local stations.
DVD releases
CBS DVD (distributed by
Paramount) released all five seasons (and a complete collection of the series) of
The Brady Bunch on DVD in
Region 1 from 2005 to 2007, as well as in other countries.
A Complete Series box set was released in 2007, which includes the TV movies A Very Brady Christmas and The Brady 500, as well as two episodes of The Brady Kids animated series. The box art for the set features shag carpeting.
The first two seasons are also available on Region 2 DVD for the Nordic countries, with audio in English and subtitle choices in Norwegian, Swedish, Danish or Finnish.
Seasons 1 and 2 have also been released in the UK.
Spin-offs, sequels, and other treatments
Several
spin-offs and
sequels to the original series were made, featuring all or most of the original cast.
Kelly's Kids
A final-season
Brady Bunch episode, "Kelly's Kids", was intended as a pilot for a prospective spinoff series of the same name.
Ken Berry starred as Ken Kelly, a friend and neighbor of the Bradys', who with his wife Kathy (
Brooke Bundy) adopted three orphaned boys of different racial backgrounds. One of the adopted sons was played by Todd Lookinland, the younger brother of Mike Lookinland. While
Kelly's Kids was not subsequently picked up as a full series, producer Sherwood Schwartz would rework the basic premise for the short-lived 1980s sitcom
Together We Stand starring
Elliot Gould and
Dee Wallace.
The Brady Kids
A 22-episode animated
Saturday morning cartoon series, produced by
Filmation and airing on ABC from 1972–74, about the Brady kids having various adventures. The family's adults were never seen or mentioned, and the "home" scenes were in a very large well-appointed tree house. Several animals were regular characters, including two non-English speaking pandas (Ping and Pong), a talking bird (Marlon) who could do magic, and an ordinary pet dog (Mop Top, not Tiger). The first 17 episodes featured the voices of all six of the original child actors from the show, but Barry Williams and Christopher Knight were replaced for the last five episodes due to a contract dispute.
The Brady Bunch Variety Hour
A variety show called
The Brady Bunch Variety Hour was spun off in 1977. It was canceled after only nine episodes.
Eve Plumb was the only regular cast member from the original show who declined to be in the series and the role of Jan was recast with
Geri Reischl. Produced by
Sid and Marty Krofft, the sibling team behind
H.R. Pufnstuf,
Donny and Marie and other glitzy variety shows and children's series of the era, the show was intended to air every fifth week in the same slot as
The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries, but ended up being scheduled sporadically throughout the season, leading to inconsistent ratings and its inevitable cancellation. In 2009, Susan Olsen published an artsy coffee table book,
Love to Love You Bradys, which dissects and celebrates the
Variety Hour as a cult classic.
The Brady Girls Get Married / The Brady Brides
A TV reunion movie called
The Brady Girls Get Married was produced in 1981. TV Guide indicated the movie would be shown in one evening, but at the last minute NBC divided it into half hour segments and showed one part a week for three weeks, and the fourth week debuted a spin-off sitcom, titled
The Brady Brides. The reunion movie featured the entire original cast; this would prove to be the only time the entire cast worked together on a single project following the cancellation of the original series. The movie's opening credits featured the Season One "Grid" and theme song, with the addition of the "Brady Girls Get Married" title. The movie shows what the kids had been doing since the original series ended (and Alice living elsewhere, finally having married Sam), and eventually they all reunite to see Jan and Marcia both marry in a double wedding.
The Brady Brides series features Maureen McCormick (Marcia) and Eve Plumb (Jan) in regular roles. The series begins with Marcia, Jan and their new husbands buying a house and living together. The clashes between Jan's uptight husband, Phillip Covington III (a college professor in science who is several years older than Jan), and Marcia's slovenly husband, Wally Logan (a fun-loving salesman for a large toy company, played by Jerry Houser), were the pivot on which many of the stories were based, not unlike The Odd Couple. Ten episodes were aired before the sitcom was cancelled. This was the only Brady show in sitcom form to be filmed in front of a live studio audience. Bob Eubanks guest-starred as himself in an episode where the two couples appear on The Newlywed Game.
In the 1990s, The Brady Girls Get Married, including the pilot of The Brady Brides, was rerun as a single two-hour movie on Nick at Nite, to celebrate the release of The Brady Bunch Movie in 1995.
Episode titles
A Very Brady Christmas
A second TV reunion movie,
A Very Brady Christmas, featured all the regular cast (except Susan Olsen; the role of Cindy was played by
Jennifer Runyon), as well as three grandchildren, Peter's girlfriend, Valerie, and the spouses of Greg, Marcia and Jan (Nora, Wally and Phillip, respectively).
Mike is still an architect and Jan has followed in his footsteps to become one herself; Carol is a realtor; Greg is a physician; Marcia is a stay-at-home mom with two kids; Peter works in an office; Cindy is in her last year of college; Bobby was in graduate school studying for business but dropped out to drive race cars.
After a series of pratfalls to get the family together, everyone comes home harboring various secrets (e.g., Jan and Phillip are considering separation; Wally is out of work again, having lost his job in a merger at his toy company; Greg's wife Nora wants to spend Christmas with her family; Cindy felt pressured to come home in lieu of a skiing trip with her college friends; Peter feels inferior to his girlfriend, who is also his boss; and Bobby hasn't revealed his leaving graduate school for a racing career). Alice, meanwhile, temporarily moves back in with Mike and Carol after her husband, Sam, runs off with another woman. (Allan Melvin did not reprise the role; he had retired from acting and was replaced in a single scene by Lewis Arquette.)
Even Mike has problems: Contractor Ted Roberts, wanting to save money on a downtown office complex project (at 34th Street and Oak) where Mike is the architect, demands that he redesign the building to omit important safety specifications. Mike advises against it and causes his firm to lose Roberts' services. On Christmas Day, the building crumbles, and Roberts, unable to contact anyone at the new firm he hired, must rely on Mike to find what caused the building's structure to become unstable. While inside, the building continues to crumble, trapping Mike and two security guards inside. Of course, everyone turns out to be okay, and Alice and Sam reunite.
The movie, which aired on CBS in December 1988 to high ratings, renewed interest in the Brady clan and set out the current careers and family situations which were continued in The Bradys.
The fact that this movie aired on CBS gave the Bradys a rare feat: the original show and reunions aired on all of the "Big 3" networks — ABC, CBS and NBC.
The Bradys
The
dramedy series
The Bradys was produced in 1989 and premiered on February 6, 1990.
The theme music used an instrumental version for the (CBS) network run and a lyrical version for reruns. The theme lyrics no longer featured the "That's the way we all became The Brady Bunch" lyrics, and the theme was no longer sung by The Brady Kids — it was performed by the Brady mom Florence Henderson.
Specials, documentaries, and other revivals
,
Christopher Knight and
Mike Lookinland at the
Big Apple Convention in Manhattan, October 1, 2010.]]
The Brady Bunch has met with a remarkable amount of television coverage, although most of this did not happen until the original series had been out of production for more than 20 years.
The Brady Kids, ABC, September 1972 – February 1974 (22 episodes). Details above.
The World of Sid & Marty Krofft at the Hollywood Bowl; it originally aired in syndication on Thanksgiving weekend, 1973. The kids sing in the famous Los Angeles venue, while Robert Reed and Ann B. Davis watch from box seats.
Donny & Marie, ABC, October 1, 1976. Florence Henderson, Maureen McCormick, Mike Lookinland, and Susan Olsen appear as their Brady characters on an episode of Donny and Marie Osmond's variety show, without permission of the Brady Bunch creators. They appear in several comedy sketches, and the kids sing Cole Porter's "We Open in Venice."
The Brady Bunch Variety Hour, ABC, November 28, 1976. From the producers of Donny and Marie comes this special. It leads to The Brady Bunch Hour as a series on ABC.
The Brady Bunch Hour, ABC, January–May 1977 (8 episodes). Details above.
The Brady Girls Get Married, NBC, January–February 1981 (made for TV movie shown in three parts). Details above.
The Brady Brides, NBC, February–April 1981 (7 episodes). Details above.
The Love Boat, ABC, October 29, 1983. Although the name 'Brady' is not mentioned, Robert Reed and Florence Henderson appear in a cameo and talk about how they can take a cruise since the kids are all grown up. Other famous TV couples appear in the episode.
A Very Brady Christmas, CBS, December 18, 1988. The highest-rated TV movie of the 1988–89 television season.
Day by Day: A Very Brady Episode, NBC, February 5, 1989. Robert Reed and Florence Henderson reprise their roles as Mike and Carol in this episode of a short-lived sitcom starring Linda Kelsey and Courtney Thorne-Smith. Other Brady veterans appear, including (a then pregnant) Maureen McCormick. In the episode, a teenage boy in the family (Christopher Daniel Barnes) dreams he's Chuck Brady and escapes to the Bradys' world after he's yelled at for his poor scholastic habits (he was watching a Brady marathon); however, Chuck's dream comes apart when various Bradys begin repeating comments made only a few minutes earlier. Art came to imitate life when Barnes was cast as the new Greg Brady in the theatrical Brady Bunch movies in 1995 and 1996.
Free Spirit: The New Secretary, ABC, December 10, 1989. Although the name Brady is never mentioned, Robert Reed and Florence Henderson play a couple seeking a divorce in an episode of this short-lived sitcom about a witch (Corinne Bohrer) working as a nanny to a widowed lawyer.
The Real Live Brady Bunch stage show in the early 1990s featured re-enactments of series episodes. Andy Richter played Mike Brady, and appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on November 9, 1992 almost a year before becoming the sidekick on Late Night with Conan O' Brien, Jane Lynch played Carol Brady.
The Bradys, CBS, February–March 1990 (six episodes). Details above.
The Brady 500, CBS, February 9, 1990. Bobby is injured in a car race and is paralyzed from the waist down. All original cast except for Maureen McCormick. This is actually the first two episodes of The Bradys and are also known as Start Your Engines. Most of the cast, except Robert Reed, promoted their new series on the Sally Jesse Raphael series. Their live Florida broadcast was interrupted by rain.
Bradymania: A Very Brady Special, 1993. Based loosely on Elizabeth Moran's book Bradymania, this special was hosted by Florence Henderson and include clips comparing Brady behavior with that on other sitcoms.
The Brady Bunch Movie, 1995. Theatrical release. A parody of the original series. Several Brady veterans appear in cameos. Scenes with Mike Lookinland and Susan Olsen were shot, but were cut from the final film. This interpretation makes no bones about the fact that the Bradys live in Los Angeles.
A Very Brady Sequel, 1996. Theatrical release. Same cast as previous but with Tim Matheson playing a villain impersonating Carol's first husband.
Brady Bunch Home Movies, May 23, 1995. During the original series run, Robert Reed gave each of the juvenile cast members an 8 mm movie camera. This special includes footage the Brady kids shot in those days and is their tribute to Reed. Susan Olsen was executive producer.
Groovin' with the Bradys, a 1998 special produced by VH1.
Attack of the Bradys, 1998. Another VH1 special.
E! True Hollywood Story: The Brady Bunch, June 6, 1999. Members of the cast retell their anecdotes for the benefit of this E! Network series, including an extensive discussion of Robert Reed's homosexuality.
Unauthorized Brady Bunch: The Final Days, May 16, 2000. A made for TV movie looking at the making of The Brady Bunch focusing on the final season which was marred by dissension among the cast pertaining to their business arrangements and the creative direction of the show.
Growing Up Brady, May 21, 2000. A made-for-TV movie of Barry Williams's hit 1992 .
Pop-Up Brady, VH-1, July 18, 2001. Several episodes of The Brady Bunch with textual commentary added in the form of on-screen balloons.
The Weakest Link, NBC, September 24, 2001. All members of the Brady cast, except Reed and Davis, compete on this game show, including Robbie Rist, who joked during introductions, "I hope I don't kill this show, too!" Topics included Brady trivia.
The Brady Bunch in the White House, November 29, 2002. Made-for-TV movie parody in the mould of The Brady Bunch Movie but with a mostly new cast.
, September 29, 2004. Reunion special featuring entire surviving cast, hosted by Jenny McCarthy.
My Fair Brady, 2005. A reality TV series starring Christopher Knight and Adrianne Curry (The first America's Next Top Model Winner) and their relationship post a stint on VH1's The Surreal Life. Barry Williams, Florence Henderson, Susan Olsen and Mike Looklinland all appear in the series as well.
Coming Together under One Roof, 2005. Sherwood Schwartz narrates this documentary about the creation of The Brady Bunch for the DVD release of the first season.
Biography: The Brady Bunch, A&E; Network, June 24, 2005. A&E;'s popular documentary program, having earlier profiled both Florence Henderson and Robert Reed, devotes an episode to the series.
The Brady Bunch Cast Back in Hawaii, 2005. Florence Henderson, Barry Williams, Christopher Knight, Mike Lookinland, and Susan Olsen go back to Hawaii and meet up with Don Ho.
On June 6, 2008, a stage musical debuted in Los Angeles called
A Very Brady Musical. The show was written by Sherwood Schwartz's son
Lloyd J. Schwartz and daughter Hope Juber (who also appeared in four episodes of the original series as Rachel, Greg's girlfriend). The music was written by Hope and
Laurence Juber. Lloyd Schwartz directed the production.
A Very Brady Reunion August 31, 2008.
Barry Williams,
Susan Olsen, and
Mike Lookinland return to
Kings Island for a 4 show special of song, dance, and Brady Bunch stories.
Merchandise
See also
Tam Spiva, a Brady Bunch script writer
Christmas with The Brady Bunch, an album released by Paramount Records in 1970.
References
Further reading
External links
The Brady Bunch on TV Land
Encyclopedia of Television
Love to Love You Bradys (book by Susan Olsen)
The Brady Bunch Shrine (fan site)
Danielle's Brady Bunch House (fan site)
Bradyworld.com (fan site)
The Unofficial Brady Bunch Home Page (archive of fan site)
Interview with Barry Williams on "The Greg Brady Project"
The Brady Bunch Cast:Where are they now? (2010, carries some editorial errors)
Category:1960s American television series
Category:1969 television series debuts
Category:1970s American television series
Category:1974 television series endings
Category:American Broadcasting Company network shows
Category:American television sitcoms
Category:English-language television series
Category:Fictional families
Category:Television series by CBS Paramount Television
Category:Television shows set in California
Category:Television shows set in Los Angeles, California
Category:The Brady Bunch
