The Brady Bunch is a ViacomCBS franchise originally created as a late 1960's American sitcom tv series of the same name made by Sheerwood Schwartz for the CBS family (Thoroughly it was the only ViacomCBS brand label that was syndicated on different television company programs for years since it's debut).
The Brady Bunch's success in syndication led to several television reunion films and spin-off series: The Brady Bunch Hour (1976–77), The Brady Girls Get Married (1981), The Brady Brides (1981), A Very Brady Christmas (1988), and The Bradys (1990). In 1995, the series was adapted into a satirical comedy theatrical film titled The Brady Bunch Movie, followed by A Very Brady Sequel in 1996. A second sequel, The Brady Bunch in the White House, aired on Fox in November 2002 as a made-for-television film.
In 1997, "Getting Davy Jones" (season three, episode 12) was ranked number 37 on TV Guide's 100 Greatest Episodes of All-Time. The show's enduring popularity has resulted in its widespread recognition as an American cultural icon.
Series' Premise[]
Mike Brady (Robert Reed), a widowed architect with three sons—Greg (Barry Williams), Peter (Christopher Knight), and Bobby (Mike Lookinland)—marries Carol Martin (Florence Henderson), who herself has three daughters: Marcia (Maureen McCormick), Jan (Eve Plumb), and Cindy (Susan Olsen). Carol and her daughters take the Brady surname. Included in the blended family are Mike's live-in housekeeper, Alice Nelson (Ann B. Davis), and the boys' dog, Tiger. (In the pilot episode, the girls also have a pet: a cat named Fluffy. Fluffy never appears in any other episodes.) The setting is a large two-story house designed by Mike, located in a Los Angeles suburb.
In the first season, awkward adjustments, accommodations, gender rivalries, and resentments inherent in blended families dominate the storylines. In an early episode, Carol tells Bobby that the only "steps" in their household lead to the second floor (in other words, that the family contains no "stepchildren", only "children"). Thereafter, episodes focus on typical teen and preteen concerns like sibling rivalry, puppy love, self-image, character building, and responsibility. Noticeably absent is any political commentary, especially regarding the Vietnam War, which was being waged at its largest extent during the height of the series.
Pilot[]
:Main article: The Honeymoon
The pilot episode was released on September 26th, 1969. The pilot's plot follows Michael Paul Brady, an architect and widower with three sons (Greg, Peter and Bobby) marries Carol Ann Martin, a mother with three daughters (Marcia, Jan and Cindy) who is also a widow. Mike and Carol's backyard wedding turns to chaos when the boys' dog, Tiger, chases the girls' cat, Fluffy. Mike and Carol yell at their children to catch their pets. The newlywed couple goes on a honeymoon later that day, while the children sit at home thinking that their parents took sides. While on their honeymoon, Mike and Carol can't enjoy themselves, and decide to make it up to the children by bringing them on their honeymoon. Alice the housekeeper, and their pets join them. This was the pilot episode for The Brady Bunch. The episode's only goof is When Tiger pushes the power window button the window crank is visible.
TV Shows[]
Original[]
- Main article: The Brady Bunch
After finishing the first episode and pilot The Honeymoon, the crew decided to start a second episode of the series, "Dear Libby". and didn't stop running the series until the show's cancellation in 1974, went into syndication in September 1975.
The Animated series[]
- Main article: The Brady Kids
A 22-episode animated Saturday morning cartoon series, produced by Filmation and airing on ABC from September 1972 to August 1974, is 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) which 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, Maureen McCormick, and Christopher Knight were replaced for the last five episodes due to a contract dispute.
Film adaptations[]
Twenty years following the conclusion of the original series, a film adaptation, The Brady Bunch Movie, went into production and was released in 1995 from Paramount Pictures. The film is set in the present day (1990s) and the Bradys, still living their lives as if it were the 1970s, are unfamiliar with their surroundings. It stars Gary Cole and Shelley Long as Mike and Carol Brady, with Christopher Daniel Barnes (Greg), Christine Taylor (Marcia), Paul Sutera (Peter), Jennifer Elise Cox (Jan), Jesse Lee (Bobby), Olivia Hack (Cindy), Henriette Mantel (Alice), and cameo appearances from Ann B. Davis as a long-haul truck driver, Barry Williams as a record label executive, Christopher Knight as a Westdale High gym teacher, Rupaul as a Guidance Councelor, and Florence Henderson as Carol's mother. Mike Lookinland, Susan Olsen and Maureen McCormick appear in deleted scenes.
A sequel, A Very Brady Sequel, was released in 1996. The cast of the first film returned for the sequel. Another sequel, The Brady Bunch in the White House, was made-for-television and aired on Fox in 2002. Gary Cole and Shelley Long returned for the third film, while the Brady kids and Alice were recast.
The third episode of the Disney+ miniseries WandaVision, "Now in Color", pays homage to 1970s sitcoms, including The Brady Bunch, and uses a similar intro for the virtual WandaVision in-show program.
TV films and TV Specials[]
Several spin-offs and sequels and reality series, to the original series have been made, featuring all or most of the original cast. These include another sitcom, an animated series, a variety show, television movies, a dramatic series, a stage play, theatrical movies, and a reality series:
Kelly's Kids[]
A final-season Brady Bunch episode, "Kelly's Kids", was intended as a pilot for a prospective spin-off 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 reworked the basic premise for the short-lived 1980s sitcom Together We Stand starring Elliott Gould and Dee Wallace.
The Brady Bunch Variety Hour[]
- Main article: The Brady Bunch Hour
On November 28, 1976, a one-hour television special entitled The Brady Bunch Variety Hour aired on ABC. 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 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.
The Brady Girls Get Married / The Brady Brides[]
A TV reunion movie called The Brady Girls Get Married was produced in 1981. Although scheduled to be shown in its original full-length movie format, NBC at the last minute 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 proved to be the only time the entire cast worked together on a single project following the cancellation of the original series (the complete surviving cast also appeared in these official projects together: Brady Bunch Home Movies from 1995, The Brady Bunch 35th Anniversary Reunion Special: Still Brady After All These Years from 2004, as well as various reunion programs in 2019 for the 50th anniversary). 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 characters had been doing since the original series ended: Mike is still an architect, Carol is a real-estate agent, Greg is a doctor, Marcia is a fashion designer, Peter is in the Air Force, Jan is also an architect, Bobby and Cindy are in college, and Alice has married Sam. Eventually, they all reunite for Marcia and Jan's double wedding.
The Brady Brides features Maureen McCormick and Eve Plumb reprising their respective roles as Marcia and Jan Brady. The series begins with Marcia and Jan and their new husbands buying a house and living together. The clashes between Jan's uptight and conservative husband, Philip Covington III (a college professor in science who is several years older than Jan, played by Ron Kuhlman) and Marcia's slovenly and more bohemian 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. Florence Henderson and Ann B. Davis also appeared regularly. 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.
Throughout the late 1980s and 1990s, The Brady Girls Get Married was rerun on various networks in its original full-length movie format.
In 2019, the series was released on DVD for the first time as a part of The Brady-est Brady Bunch TV & Movie Collection.
A Very Brady Christmas[]
- Main article: A Very Brady Christmas
A second TV reunion movie, A Very Brady Christmas, aired in December 1988 on CBS and features most of the regular cast (except Susan Olsen, who was on her honeymoon at the time of filming; 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). The Nielsen ratings for A Very Brady Christmas were the highest of any television movie that season for CBS.
The Bradys[]
- Main article: The Bradys
Due to the success of A Very Brady Christmas, CBS asked Brady Bunch creator Sherwood Schwartz and son Lloyd to create a new series for the network. According to Lloyd Schwartz, he and his father initially balked at the idea because they felt a new series would harm the Brady franchise. They finally relented because CBS was "desperate for programming". A new series featuring the Brady clan was created entitled The Bradys. All original Brady Bunch cast members returned for the series, except for Maureen McCormick (Marcia), who was replaced with Leah Ayres.
As with A Very Brady Christmas, The Bradys also balanced elements of comedy and drama and featured storylines of a more serious nature than the original series and subsequent spin-offs. Lloyd Schwartz later said he compared The Bradys to another dramedy of the time, thirtysomething. The two-hour series premiere episode aired on February 9, 1990, at 9 pm on CBS and initially drew respectable ratings. Subsequent episodes were moved to 8 pm, where ratings quickly declined. Due to the decline, CBS cancelled the series after six episodes.
Bradymania: A Very Brady Special[]
A one-hour TV special retrospective of The Brady Bunch hosted by Florence Henderson who introduces a montage of various episodes of the original series, and also examines the show's phenomenal after-life, illustrated by clips from spin-offs and other incarnations of the series. Also, cast members Christopher Knight, Susan Olsen, Mike Lookinland, Barry Williams, Ann B. Davis, and creator Sherwood Schwartz reflect on the impact of the show on their lives. Directed by Malcolm Leo, the special was originally broadcast on ABC on May 19, 1993.
Day by Day: "A Very Brady Episode"[]
The Day by Day episode titled "A Very Brady Episode" (February 5, 1989), on NBC, reunited six of the original Brady Bunch cast members: Robert Reed, Florence Henderson, Ann B. Davis, Christopher Knight, Mike Lookinland and Maureen McCormick.
A Very Brady Renovation[]
- Main article: A Very Brady Renovation
In November 2018, it was announced that Christopher Knight, Mike Lookinland, Maureen McCormick, Susan Olsen, Eve Plumb, and Barry Williams were reuniting for the 2019 HGTV series A Very Brady Renovation, which follows a full renovation (interior mostly) of the real house, used for the sitcom's exterior shots, into the fictional Brady house.
Chopped[]
In conjunction with the Renovation series, in the autumn of 2019, The Food Network aired two episodes of their program Chopped with the siblings as guest judges. Season 43, episode 3 - "Brady Bunch Bash" features Williams, Plumb, and Lookinland judging meals made from Hawaiian ingredients. Season 43, episode 4 - "A Very Brady Chopped" features McCormick, Knight, and Olsen judging meals from "groovy" ingredients of the '70s.
A Very Brady Musical[]
In October 2020, Ogunquit Playhouse did a live stream broadcast of A Very Brady Musical, a brand new musical adventure for the stage created by Lloyd J. Schwartz (son of Brady Bunch creator Sherwood Schwartz), Hope Juber (book/lyrics), and Laurence Juber (music/lyrics) and directed by Richard Israel. It was co-produced by Ogunquit Playhouse, Purple Mountain Productions, and Broadway and Beyond Theatricals. More in the vein of the Brady films, this PG-13 story follows the Brady kids’ misadventures when they come to the mistaken conclusion that Mike and Carol are headed for divorce. After consulting Alice, the kids raise money to pay for marriage counseling, learning valuable lessons along the way, as their respective well-intentioned ideas land them in outrageous trouble. Barry Williams and Christopher Knight were on hand for a post-show question and answer session on all things Brady.
Dragging the Classics: The Brady Bunch[]
- Main article: Dragging the Classics: The Brady Bunch
On June 30, 2021, streaming service Paramount Plus celebrated Pride Month with the premiere of a crossover special combining The Brady Bunch and popular reality television series RuPaul's Drag Race. In the crossover event, original Brady cast members and former Drag Race competitors come together to recreate a Brady Bunch episode. Christopher Knight and Mike Lookinland reprise their roles of Peter and Bobby Brady, respectively, while the original Greg Brady, Barry Williams, switches parts to play family patriarch Mike; Greg Brady is portrayed by Drag Race Season 6 and Allstars 3 competitor BenDeLaCreme. Season 6 winner Bianca Del Rio fills the role of mother Carol Brady, and daughters Marcia, Jan, and Cindy are portrayed by Allstars 5 winner Shea Couleé, season 2 and Allstars 6 competitor Kylie Sonique Love, and season 13 runner-up Kandy Muse, respectively. Season 11 Miss Congeniality Nina West appears as housekeeper Alice Nelson.
The special, which recreates the season two episode "Will the Real Jan Brady Please Stand Up?", also contains cameos by Drag Race judges RuPaul and Michelle Visage, who appear as employees of a wig shop that Jan patronizes. The original Jan and Cindy Brady, Eve Plumb and Susan Olsen, also appear as children who are guests at the birthday party.
Books[]
Growing Up Brady: I Was A Teenage Greg[]
In 1992, There's an Autobiography book called Growing Up Brady: I Was A Teenage Greg tells about Barry Williams discussing his childhood, the production of the 1969–1974 ABC sitcom The Brady Bunch, his relationship with co-star Maureen McCormick, disputes between series star Robert Reed and creator-producer Sherwood Schwartz, and various Brady Bunch spin-offs. An episode guide to the series is also included, as well as three negative critiques from Reed of the episodes "The Impractical Joker" and "And Now a Word From Our Sponsor" (both 1971), and "The Hair-Brained Scheme" (the series finale from 1974, in which Reed refused to appear).
Two editions of the book exist: the first edition details his Brady co-stars attending his 1990 wedding to Diane Martin; that marriage ended in divorce two years later; the second edition, published several years later, replaces the references to Martin with his impressions of the feature films The Brady Bunch Movie and A Very Brady Sequel, and reflections on Reed's death in 1992 due to cancer and the subsequent media frenzy over the news that Reed had been diagnosed as HIV positive (misreported as AIDS) prior to his death. A third edition was printed in 2000.
Here's the Story: Surviving Marcia Brady[]
in 2008, The Brady Bunch actress Maureen McCormick published an autobiography book about her history of the franchise called, Here's the Story: Surviving Marcia Brady. During her times, McCormick's most famous role was as eldest daughter Marcia Brady on the classic 1970s sitcom The Brady Bunch.
Love to Love You Bradys: The Bizarre Story of The Brady Bunch Variety Hour[]
a 2009 coffee table book written by The Brady Bunch actress Susan Olsen with co-authors Ted Nichelson and Lisa Sutton, about the 1976–77 spin-off TV variety show The Brady Bunch Hour. The book's release also coincided with the 40th anniversary of the debut of The Brady Bunch.
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