The Brady Bunch

The Brady Bunch
'Brady Bunch title screen feat. cast from the final season
Producer/Creator	Sherwood Schwartz
Company	Redwood Productions Paramount Television
Distributor	CBS Television Distribution
Starring	Robert Reed Florence Henderson Ann B. Davis Barry Williams Maureen McCormick Christopher Knight Eve Plumb Mike Lookinland Susan Olsen
Network/Country	ABC/United States
First/Last Network airing	First aired 26 September 1969 Last aired 8 March 1974
Number of seasons/Episodes	5 seasons/ 117 episodes
Followed by	The Brady Brides A Very Brady Christmas The Bradys
Related shows	The Brady Kids The Brady Bunch Hour

The Brady Bunch TV series was created by Sherwood Schwartz and starred Robert Reed, Florence Henderson, and Ann B. Davis. The series revolved around a large blended step-family. The show originally aired from 26 September 1969 to 8 March 1974 on ABC and was subsequently syndicated internationally. A compromise was reached whereby no mention was made of the circumstances in which Carol's first marriage ended. Included in the blended family are Mike's live-in housekeeper, Alice Nelson (Ann B. Davis), and the boys' dog, Tiger. The setting is a large, suburban, two-story house designed by Mike, in a Los Angeles suburb.

Themes

The theme song, penned by Schwartz and originally arranged, sung, and performed by the Peppermint Trolley Company in the first season and then by the Brady Bunch Kids in Seasons Two through Five, quickly describes the blended situation of the family. In the first season, this blending figures prominently in the stories. These episodes chronicle 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 focus more on issues related to the kids growing up, such as dating, self-image, responsibility, and puberty.

From season two on, the family carries on as if they had long since adjusted to life as a blended family, and the stories no longer showed such tensions and adjustments. The fact that they are a blended family is only mentioned a few more times. Two episodes from season three, "Not So Rose Colored Glasses" and "Jan's Aunt Jenny," mention that Mike and Carol had been married for just three years. And, "Kelly's Kids" from the final season explicitly recalls Mike and Carol's adoptions when their neighbors, the Kellys, adopted three boys of different races.

The Brady Bunch was not the first TV series about a blended family. Two series which debuted in the 1950s, The Danny Thomas Show/Make Room for Daddy and Bonanza, had step-siblings and half-siblings respectively. Nor was it the only network series to start the 1969 season showing life in a blended family: My Three Sons (CBS) brought a new wife and daughter into the Douglas family (which also had an Alice-equivalent, Uncle Charley). At a time when remarriage was becoming more prevalent, these shows reflected a new lifestyle in America.

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 Jan's club, the Sunflower Girls, to make a point.

Cast and Characters

Main article: Characters

Main

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 No. 8 on a list of TV's top 10 credits sequences, as selected by readers.

Although many actors who become type-cast into the roles they played on a particular series resent this, the cast of The Brady Bunch express a contrary attitude. On a TV Land documentary, the actors revealed that they all remain close friends, and most have remained in regular contact with one another. On several episodes of Christopher Knight's reality show series, My Fair Brady, Florence Henderson made guest appearances, and gave advice on Knight's ongoing relationship issues. Knight also invited Barry Williams, Susan Olsen, and Mike Lookinland to a wedding party, during which most of his time was spent hanging out with them, away from the party. He said it was important his betrothed accept that his Brady Bunch friends are an important part of his life. During the Brady Bunch special edition of TV game Weakest Link in 2001, Mike Lookinland expressed the thought that after having been friends with his co-stars for thirty years, it was hard for him to vote anyone off the game.

While Barry Williams, Christopher Knight, Mike Lookinland and Susan Olsen have remained close friends with their co-stars, Eve Plumb has been distancing herself from the Brady years, and Maureen McCormick, while good friends with Williams, Knight, Lookinland and Olsen, had a falling out with Plumb with a meant-to-be-a-joke remark which Plumb took seriously.

Even though Robert Reed did not always get along with Sherwood Schwartz and had resented the Brady Bunch years, he was still close to his co-stars, especially Florence Henderson. He even took the Brady kids on a trip to London aboard QEII in 1971 at his own expense. Florence Henderson had also mentioned that the Brady Bunch cast were the only ones to know Robert Reed's secret homosexuality, and that she felt much compassion for him. When Reed was dying, Henderson herself called all six Brady kids to inform them of it.

The Brady kids even had on-set romances with each other. First ones were Mike Lookinland and Susan Olsen, who used to make out in Tiger's doghouse that was still on the set, despite Tiger being written off from the show. Maureen McCormick even acted as a wedding minister for them once, asking Mike Lookinland if he took Susan Olsen as his "awfully wedded wife". However, their "romance" was short-lived when Lookinland started taking interest in McCormick and Plumb during the filming of later seasons.

Recurring Characters

Sam Franklin (Allan Melvin), Alice's boyfriend, is a recurring character. He is the owner of a local butcher shop. Sam appears in only eight episodes, but they span all of the show's five seasons. He is also frequently mentioned in dialogue, and Alice occasionally goes on dates with him off-screen. By the time of the 1981 made-for-TV movie The Brady Girls Get Married, Alice and Sam are married.

Tiger the dog – The original dog that played Tiger was hit by a florist truck and killed early in the first season. 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. Tiger seemingly vanished without an explanation and was not shown again after "The Impractical Joker" (1971) (in a parallel, the Partridge Family's dog, Simone, disappeared during their second season). According to Barry Williams, the doghouse was retained as a prop to cover holes in the artificial turf caused by a falling stage light.

Cousin Oliver (Robbie Rist) – 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 to fill the age gap left by the maturing Brady children—the youngest (Susan Olsen) was 12 during the show's final season. Robbie appeared in the final six episodes of the series.

Special Guests

• Herbert Anderson (known for playing Dennis' father in the 1960s sitcom Dennis the Menace) appears as a doctor who comes to treat the boys' measles in "Is There a Doctor in the House?" (season one)
• Desi Arnaz, Jr. (teen heartthrob son of Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball) meets Marcia, who had written about him in her diary in "The Possible Dream" (season one)
• Jim Backus (known for playing Mr. Thurston Howell, III in Gilligan's Island) appears three times in the series, twice in two of the three Grand Canyon episodes, "Ghost Town U.S.A." and "Grand Canyon or Bust", playing Zaccariah T. Brown who mistakenly thinks the Bradys are jumping his gold claim and locks them in a ghost-town jail, and in "The Hustler" (season 5) playing Mike's second boss, Mr. Harry Matthews
• Imogene Coca (known for starring in Your Show of Shows) plays the Brady girls' Great Aunt Jenny, whom Jan fears she will grow up to resemble after seeing a childhood photo of her in "Jan's Aunt Jenny" (season three)
• Don Drysdale (pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers) tries to inject reality into Greg's dreams of being a professional baseball player in "The Dropout" (season two)
• Don Ho (Hawaiian singer) meets Cindy and Bobby and serenaded Cindy in Honolulu in "Hawaii Bound" (part one of a three-part season four episode, filmed on location in Hawaii)
• Davy Jones (former member of The Monkees) performs at a music studio and then takes Marcia to her school dance in "Getting Davy Jones" (season three) (he also satirized his cameo decades later in The Brady Bunch Movie)
• Deacon Jones (defensive end for the Los Angeles Rams) encourages Peter's singing in "The Drummer Boy" (season two)
• E.G. Marshall (known for playing Lawrence Preston in The Defenders with Robert Reed, 1961–1965 — making this a reunion of the two) plays Mr. J. P. Randolph, Marcia's school principal in "The Slumber Caper" (season two)
• Brigadier General James McDivitt (NASA astronaut) signs autographs for Peter and Bobby after appearing on a talk show in "Out of This World" (season five).
• Joe Namath (New York Jets quarterback) visits Bobby because he thought that Bobby had a terminal illness in "Mail Order Hero" (season five)
• Wes Parker (first baseman for the Los Angeles Dodgers) meets 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), Parker's fiancée in "The Undergraduate" (season one)
• Vincent Price (horror film actor) appears twice in the series in two of the three Hawaii episodes, "Pass the Tabu", and "The Tiki Caves" from season four, playing the villainous Professor Hubert Whitehead, who holds the Brady boys hostage
• Natalie Schafer (known for playing Mrs. Lovey Howell in Gilligan's Island) is Mike's fussy client, Penelope Fletcher, who is charmed by Cindy's impromptu 'Shirley Temple' routine in "The Snooperstar" (season five)
• Paul Winchell (ventriloquist and actor, known for his 1960s show Winchell-Mahoney Time, and the voice of "Tigger" in Winnie-The-Pooh) appears as Skip Farnum, the TV commercial director in "And Now a Word From Our Sponsor" (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 ABC-TV 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 Martin), 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, 4 October 1968 and lasted eight days. The original show last aired 8 March 1974.

Development

In 1965, following the success of his TV series Gilligan's Island, Sherwood Schwartz conceived the idea for show after reading in the Los Angeles Times that "30% 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 Brady House

The house used in exterior shots, which bears little relation to the interior layout of the Bradys' home, is located in Studio City, within the city limits of Los Angeles, California. According to a 1994 article in the Los Angeles Times, the San Fernando Valley house was built in 1959 and selected as the Brady residence because series creator Schwartz felt it looked like a home where an architect would live.

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.

In the years since the show first aired, owners of the house have had problems with visitors trespassing to peep into the windows, or coming 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 facade resembling the original home was built around an existing house. In 2019, it was the subject of A Very Brady Renovation, in which substantial work turned it into a two-story house and transformed it to look exactly like the Brady house inside and out.

In the series, the address of the house 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.

During season three, the living room of the Brady home was used as a villain's Hawaiian home in a season six episode of Mission: Impossible, "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. It was also used in the final season six episode of Mannix "The Danford File". In that episode, a wall was put in the living room to cover up the fireplace. And, the brick wall was removed in front of the front doors. Along with filming in the living room, which included the staircase, scenes were also filmed on the patio as well.

Episodes

Main article: List of The Brady Bunch episodes

In 1971, following the success of the 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 season 3, "Amateur Nite" in 4, and "Adios, Johnny Bravo" in 5), the Brady Bunch began to release albums. The LP records featured background vocals by the same session vocalists who were on The Partridge Family records. Though the kids never charted as high as the Partridges, the cast began touring the United States during the show's summer hiatus, headlining as The Kids from the Brady Bunch. Only Barry Williams and Maureen McCormick stayed in the music business as adults. Also, Eve Plumb's father Neely Plumb was a music producer, and with him, Eve Plumb recorded a single ("How Will It Be"/"The Fortune Cookie Song") for RCA Records in 1971, and Mike Lookinland in 1974 ("Love Doesn't Care Who's in It"/"Gum Drop") for Capitol Records (both being 13 at the time of recording).

In May 1975, there had been plans for Eve Plumb, Mike Lookinland and Susan Olsen to form a musical group, called "The Brady Bunch Three". They were planning to record a potential sixth Brady LP, which was to include solo numbers from each group member and also a few group sing-a-longs. The album wasn't completed, but a handful of tracks had made it to tape. While there were costumes made and publicity photos released, the planned tour, now without an album behind it to support it, was also cancelled.

During the Brady Bunch years, while Florence Henderson, Barry Williams, Maureen McCormick and Mike Lookinland were musically talented, Eve Plumb and Susan Olsen were not as good, while Christopher Knight could not sing and recalled having great anxiety about performing on stage with the cast. Ironically, Season 2, episode 16 "The Drummer Boy" featured Peter, Jan and Cindy getting picked for the Clinton Elementary School Glee Club, while Bobby was overlooked for it.

Season	Ep #	First broadcast	Last broadcast
Season 1	25	September 26, 1969	March 20, 1970
Season 2	24	September 27, 1970	March 20, 1971
Season 3	23	September 17, 1971	March 10, 1972
Season 4	23	September 22, 1972	March 23, 1973
Season 5	22	September 14, 1973	March 8, 1974

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; it was canceled shortly after the series crossed the minimum threshold for syndication. 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.

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 are also portrayed as a harmonious family, though they do have times when one of the children does not cooperate with his or her parents or the other children.

In a 2010 issue of TV Guide, the show's opening title sequence was ranked 8 on a list of TV's top 10 credits sequences, as selected by readers.

Awards and Honors

Award	Year	Category	Result	Recipient
Young Artist Award	1989	Former Child Star Lifetime Achievement Award	Honored	Barry Williams
TV Land Awards	2003	Hippest Fashion Plate - Male	Nominated
		Favorite Dual-Role Character	Nominated	Christopher Knight as Peter Brady and Arthur.
		Funniest Food Fight The Brady Pie Fight on the Paramount Lot.	Nominated
		Favorite Guest Performance by a Musician on a TV Show	Won	Davy Jones
		Most Memorable Male Guest Star in a Comedy as Himself	Won	Joe Namath
	2004	Favorite Fashion Plate - Male	Nominated	Barry Williams
		Most Memorable Mane	Nominated	Susan Olsen
		Favorite Made for TV Maid	Won	Ann B. Davis
	2005	Theme Song You Just Cannot Get out of Your Head	Nominated
		Best Dream Sequence For episode "Love and the Older Man," in which Marcia has a crush on her dentist.	Nominated
		Favorite Two-Parter/Cliffhanger For the Greg Brady surfboard accident.	Nominated
		Favorite Singing Siblings	Nominated	Williams, McCormick, Knight, Plumb, Lookinland, Olsen
	2006	Best Dream Sequence For episode "Love and the Older Man"	Nominated
		Favorite Made for TV Maid	Won	Ann B. Davis
		Favorite TV Food Pork chops and applesauce.	Won
	2007	Most Beautiful Braces	Nominated	Maureen McCormick
		Pop Culture Award	Won	Williams, McCormick, Knight, Plumb, Lookinland, Olsen, Davis, Henderson, Lloyd J. Schwartz (producer)

Syndication

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 9 July 1973 to 29 August 1975 at 11:30 a.m. EST/10:30 CST. The run was interrupted only once, between 21 April and 27 June 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 and on cable for decades. The show was aired on TBS from 1980 through 1997, on Nick at Nite from 1995 through 2003, on Noggin's The N block from March through April 2004, and on TV Land from 2002 through 2015. The show briefly returned to Nick at Nite in Spring 2012.

In syndication, the station broadcasting the series usually cuts out many unneeded parts of the episodes to make more time for station commercial breaks, with the original version of the episodes being 25-26 minutes. However, in the DVD releases by Paramount Home Entertainment, the full, uncut episodes are shown.

Current

As of 2015, the series is being shown on some local stations around the country, while airing nationally on Me-TV Sundays from 11AM-1PM in its own programming block called "The Brady Brunch", Inspiration Network (INSP) weekdays from 5-6PM, and on Hallmark Channel weekdays from 6-8PM.

A modified version of the show airs on Nick Jr.'s programming block NickMom and is called What Was Carol Brady Thinking, which is a standard episode of "The Brady Bunch" with added pop-up "thought bubble" comments from Carol Brady.

DVD Releases

Paramount Home Entertainment released all five seasons on DVD in Region 1 from 2005 to 2006, before CBS DVD took over DVD rights to the Paramount Television library (though CBS DVD releases are still distributed by Paramount). Paramount/CBS has released the series on DVD in other countries as well.

A Complete Series box set was released in 2007 by CBS and Paramount, 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 green shag carpeting and 70s style wood paneling.

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. The series has also been released on VHS, but the VHS tapes have gone out of print.

Seasons one and two have also been released in the UK.

DVD name	Episodes	Release dates
		Region 1	Region 2	Region 4
The Complete First Season	25	1 March 2005	27 August 2007	19 September 2007
The Complete Second Season	24	26 July 2005	24 March 2008	6 March 2008
The Complete Third Season	23	13 September 2005	N/A	4 September 2008
The Complete Fourth Season	23	1 November 2005	N/A	2 April 2009
The Complete Fifth Season	22	7 March 2006	N/A	18 June 2009
The Complete Series	117 (with extras)	3 April 2007	N/A	N/A

Spin-offs and Sequels

Several spin-offs and sequels 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, and theatrical movies:

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 Elliott Gould and Dee Wallace.

The Brady Kids

Main article: 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, Maureen McCormick and Christopher Knight were replaced for the last five episodes due to a contract dispute.

The Brady Bunch Variety Hour

Main article: The Brady Bunch 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 & 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. In 2009, Susan Olsen published a 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

Template:Infobox television 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 characters had been doing since the original series ended: Mike is still an architect, Carol is a real estate agent, Marcia is a fashion designer, Jan is also an architect, Greg is a doctor, Peter is in the Air Force, Bobby and Cindy are in college, and Alice has married Sam. 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, played by Ron Kuhlman), 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.

A Very Brady Christmas

Main article: A Very Brady Christmas

A second TV reunion movie, A Very Brady Christmas, aired in December 1988 and 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 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

Main article: The Bradys

A six-episode dramedy series named The Bradys was produced in 1989 and premiered 6 February 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.

Reboot

It was announced 31 July 2012 that CBS would be producing a reboot to The Brady Bunch, produced by Vince Vaughn. The series would act as a sequel, in which the plot revolves around Bobby Brady, now a divorced father (a teacher) who marries a woman with children of her own. Thus starting a new family.

Specials, Documentaries, and Other Revivals

The Brady Bunch has met with a remarkable amount of television coverage, most of which has capitalized on the show's continuing iconic cult status.

• The World of Sid & Marty Krofft at the Hollywood Bowl; Thanksgiving weekend, 1973; the kids sing at the Los Angeles venue; Robert Reed and Ann B. Davis watch from box seats.
• Donny & Marie (1976 TV series); 1 October 1976; Florence Henderson, Maureen McCormick, Mike Lookinland, and Susan Olsen appear as their Brady characters on an episode the variety show in several comedy sketches
• All Star Anything Goes, 1977-78: on two episodes, Barry Williams, Christopher Knight and Susan Olsen with Geri Reischl (from the variety series), competed twice against four members of the DeFranco family singers, with the DeFrancos winning the first time and the Brady cast the second.
• The Love Boat; 29 October 1983; Robert Reed and Florence Henderson appear in a cameo (though the name "Brady" is not mentioned) and talk about how they can take a cruise since the kids are all grown up (other famous television couples appear in the episode)
• The Family Feud; 1983; Robert Reed, Florence Henderson, Maureen McCormick, Christopher Knight and Susan Olsen played twice against "The Petticoat Junction" and once against "Your Hit Parade".
• Star Games; 1986; All six original child actors compete against contestants from Dynasty, Charlie & Company and The Love Boat.
• Day by Day: "A Very Brady Episode" (NBC) 5 February 1989; Robert Reed and Florence Henderson reprise their roles; other Brady veterans also appear, including a then-pregnant Maureen McCormick, alongside Ann B. Davis, Christopher Knight and Mike Lookinland. In the episode, a teenage boy in the family (Christopher Daniel Barnes) dreams he is Chuck Brady and escapes to the Bradys' world after he is scolded for his poor scholastic habits due to watching a Brady Bunch marathon. Barnes was later cast as "Greg Brady" in the theatrical Brady Bunch movies)
• Remote Control, 23 September 1989; Barry Williams, Eve Plumb and Susan OIsen compete against each other in the first episode of the syndicated game show.
• Free Spirit (TV series): "The New Secretary" (ABC) 10 December 1989; Robert Reed and Florence Henderson play a couple (the name 'Brady' is not mentioned) seeking a divorce
• The Real Live Brady Bunch; stage show featuring re-enactments of series episodes; Andy Richter played Mike, and appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on 9 November 1992 almost a year before becoming the sidekick on Late Night with Conan O'Brien; Jane Lynch played Carol Brady
• Bradymania: A Very Brady Special, 1993; based loosely on Elizabeth Moran's book Bradymania; hosted by Florence Henderson and includes clips comparing Brady behavior with that on other sitcoms. In the end, features cameos from Ann B. Davis, Sherwood Schwartz, Mike Lookinland, Christopher Knight and Susan Olsen.
• The Brady Bunch Movie, 1995; theatrical release; a tongue-in-cheek parody to the original series; some Brady veterans appear in cameos (scenes with Maureen McCormick, Mike Lookinland and Susan Olsen were filmed, but were cut from the final film)
• A Very Brady Sequel, 1996; theatrical release; same cast as The Brady Bunch Movie with Tim Matheson playing a villain impersonating Carol's first husband
• Brady Bunch Home Movies, 23 May 1995; Tribute special to Robert Reed using 8mm movie camera footage filmed by the cast using cameras given to them as a gift from Reed; Susan Olsen was executive producer
• Groovin' with the Bradys, a 1998 VH1 special
• Attack of the Bradys, a second 1998 VH1 special
• E! True Hollywood Story: The Brady Bunch, 6 June 1999; members of the cast retell their anecdotes
• Unauthorized Brady Bunch: The Final Days, 16 May 2000; television movie focusing on the final season, which was marred by dissension among the cast pertaining to their business arrangements and creative direction of the show
• Growing Up Brady, 21 May 2000; television movie inspired by Barry Williams's 1992 book book of the same name
• Pop-Up Brady (VH-1) 18 July 2001; several episodes of series with textual commentary added in the form of on-screen balloons modeled after Pop-Up Video
• A Very Brady Weakest Link (NBC) 24 September 2001; all surviving cast members including Robbie Rist (sans Davis) appeared; Rist later joked "I hope I don't kill this show, too!"
• The Brady Bunch in the White House, 29 November 2002; television movie sequel of A Very Brady Sequel with Gary Cole and Shelly Long reprising their roles; Brady kids are recast
• The Brady Bunch 35th Anniversary Reunion Special: Still Brady after All These Years, 29 September 2004; reunion special featuring all surviving cast members; hosted by Jenny McCarthy
• My Fair Brady, 2005; reality television series about 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 Lookinland make appearances)
• Coming Together Under One Roof, 2005; Sherwood Schwartz narrates this documentary about the creation of the original series for the DVD release of the first season
• Biography: The Brady Bunch, (A&E) 24 June 2005
• The Brady Bunch Cast Back in Hawaii, 2005; Florence Henderson, Barry Williams, Christopher Knight, Mike Lookinland and Susan Olsen return to Hawaii; Don Ho appears as himself, as he did in the September 1972 episode "Hawaii Bound"
• A Very Brady Musical 6 June 2008; a stage musical which debuted in Los Angeles written by Lloyd J. Schwartz and sister Hope Juber; music written by Hope and Laurence Juber, directed by Lloyd Schwartz
• A Very Brady Reunion 31 August 2008; Barry Williams, Susan Olsen, and Mike Lookinland return to Kings Island (where the November 1973 episode "The Cincinnati Kids" was filmed) for a four-show special of song, dance, and Brady Bunch stories
• Trivial Pursuit: America Plays; 10-14 November 2008; Barry Williams, Eve Plumb, Mike Lookinland and Susan Olsen guest-star on the special "Brady Week" of the game show hosted by Christopher Knight. The first four episodes featured the four guest stars as the America's Team's captains, and on the final episode, Eve Plumb, Mike Lookinland and Susan Olsen compete for charity with Barry Williams as America's Team's captain.
• Rachael Ray; 5 March 2009; Barry Williams, Maureen McCormick, Christopher Knight, Mike Lookinland and Susan Olsen guest-star on the talk show.

  

  Left to right: Mike Lookinland, Maureen McCormick, Christopher Knight, Susan Olsen and Barry Williams on Rachael Ray, 2009

• The Talk; 11 February 2014; for Florence Henderson's 80th birthday, Barry Williams, Christopher Knight, Mike Lookinland and Susan Olsen join her on the talk show.

Vehicles

The vehicles for Brady Bunch were provided by the Chrysler Corporation, and from season 4 on also by General Motors Corporation.

In the pilot episode, Mike Brady drove a blue 1968 Dodge Polara 500 convertible.

In seasons 1 and 2, he drove a blue 1969/1970 model year Plymouth Fury III convertible.

For season 3, Mike switched to a blue 1971 Plymouth Barracuda convertible.

In season 4, Mike switched to a blue 1972 model year Chevrolet Impala convertible, and for season 5 to a red 1973/1974 model year Chevrolet Caprice Classic convertible.

Carol drove a brown Plymouth Satellite wagon throughout the series, with again different model year for different seasons.

In season 3, episode 4 "The Wheeler-Dealer", after getting his driver's license, Greg bought his first car, a very much abused blue 1956 Chevrolet Bel Air convertible for $100 from his friend Eddie, but even after all the cosmetic restoration, it couldn't be restored fully, so he ended up selling it to scrapyard for $50 later in the episode.

During the Bradys' trip to Hawaii in Season 4, the family was driven around in a 1971 Dodge Coronet wagon provided by Kipula (Mike Brady's business partners) construction firm. Mike and Carol later used it to go looking for Greg, Peter and Bobby, when they went to take the cursed tiki idol back to the ancient kings' burial ground.

In "A Very Brady Christmas", Mike's car is a Chrysler LeBaron convertible.

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)