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On this date in 1988, TV's original
Brady Bunch reunited for what would turn out to be their highest-rated, endeavors, and certainly, after the original series (1969-74) one of their most beloved.
Sure, there had been the campy variety show
The Brady Bunch Hour in 1976, and the short-lived sequel series which launched with the double wedding of Marcia and Jan,
The Brady Brides, in 1981. But it was
A Very Brady Christmas that delivered huge ratings (inspiring CBS to bring back the bunch one more time in 1990, for a woefully conceived hourlong drama,
The Bradys.) I remember gathering around the TV with my college hallmates for Christmas, all of us eager to see the Bradys step so far into the '80s.
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| Some Very Worried Bradys |
Recently, I interviewed some of the Bradys for a retrospective story, below, and had fun dissecting why their
Christmas ended up being so popular.
Christopher Knight, who played middle brother Peter and from 2005-08 parlayed that fame on his own reality show
My Fair Brady, had a hilarious perspective on the telefilm. You may remember
A Very Brady Christmas' hilariously cheesy ending, where a building collapses on paterfamilias Mike (
Robert Reed), and yet he somehow survives thanks to his wife Carol's (
Florence Henderson) miraculous singing. "Bob Reed is resurrected in it, if you think about it. There's even the removal of the rock! It's a Christmas movie that ends at Easter, with a resurrection."
The Bradys are no stranger to resurrection, and who knows when will be the next time we see them all come together -- after all, apart from Reed, who died in 1992 at just age 59, the other eight original cast members, including
Ann B. Davis as Alice, are still around and popping up in fun places. (Did you catch Henderson's hilarious cameo on
30 Rock a few weeks back? Priceless!) Here's what Knight, Henderson,
Maureen McCormick (Marcia),
Susan Olsen (Cindy) and even
Geri Reischl ("Fake Jan" from the variety
Hour) had to say about their groovy years growing up Brady.
Marcia Marcia Marcia!
The Brady Bunch Has Captivated Generation After GenerationIt was the story, as
TheBrady Bunch’s theme song famously explained, of a lovely lady, a man namedBrady, and the six kids who came together to form a blended family in groovy1970s California. And it’s also thestory of how, even though the original
BradyBunch was cancelled in 1974 after only five seasons, the show continued to spawnspinoffs, merchandise, and movie and stage adaptations for decades. And that’s how they all became a true popculture phenomenon.
Created by
Gilligan’sIsland impresario Sherwood Schwartz,
TheBrady Bunch was one of the first shows to depict a blended family. In the sitcom’s pilot, divorcee Carol, alongwith her three daughters, moves in with her new husband, the former widowerMike Brady, and his three boys. Schwartzseriously considered some famous names for these leads, including Gene Hackmanand
The Mary Tyler Moore Show’s JoyceBulifant. And for the ninth member ofthe Brady family, matronly housekeeper Alice, Schwartz initially favoredactress Kathleen Freeman.
Incasting the Brady kids, producers narrowed their choices to 3 blonde girls and3 brunet boys -- and then vice versa, so that each set of kids would share thesame coloring as their TV parents yet to be cast. In the end, it was brunetRobert Reed, formerly of the landmark early '60s legal series
The Defenders, and blonde singer/actressFlorence Henderson who landed spots in the Bradys' famous opening credits grid.In the center was Ann B Davis -- already a tv icon for her role as theman-hungry Schultzie on ‘50s sitcom
Lovethat Bob -- as ever-faithful Alice.
“I wasa huge fan of Robert Reed’s from
TheDefenders, and oh my gosh, he’s now my father!” recalls Maureen McCormick,aka eldest Brady daughter Marcia. SusanOlsen, who played the famously curly-haired young Cindy, adds, “And I wasso thrilled that I was going to be working with Schultzie.”
Henderson, too, credits the Bradys’ casting. “There was a chemistry we all had. We all felt very close to each other – and westill do. That was a big part of theshow’s success.”
Groovy and SqueakyCleanPremiering in September of 1969,
The Brady Bunch spanned from the Summer of Love through Watergateand Vietnam, and yet its characters remained unabashedly square. The worst thing a Brady kid ever kid was getcaught with a pack of cigarettes in his varsity jacket; and even then, itturned out they truly did belong to Greg’s friend. The show’s storylines revolved aroundsanitized preteen traumas like first dates, invitations to school dances, andgeneral acts of sibling rivalry. In itslater seasons, to promote the cast’s own
PartridgeFamily-like touring musical act, the Bradys even competed in wholesomelocal talent competitions.
“The show was a throwback,” remembers Christopher Knight,who played middle Brady boy Peter. “Wewere right in the middle of the disaster of Vietnam, and the country was comingapart. In three years, I was going toget drafted. And in the middle of all thistumult, we were doing
The Brady Bunch.”
But as Henderson recalls, in its troubled times, the show’sgentle nature was a big key to its appeal. “I always felt that
The BradyBunch was like a wonderful children’s story, that you could read over andover, because it was so loving.”
A Little Variety In 1974, after five seasons, ABC called it quits on theoriginal
Bunch – and some teenagemembers of its cast, wary of going through more puberty on camera, were secretlyrelieved. But two years later, NBC reunitedthe family with a special, then a series, called
The Brady Bunch Hour. Thistrippy sequel of sorts – in which patriarch Mike Brady has ditched hisarchitecture practice and moved his clan to the beach, to put onfeathers-and-sequins variety numbers around a pool stocked with synchronizeddancers – capitalized on the Brady kids’ earlier musical popularity, andHenderson’s rich career on TV variety shows and on Broadway.
But for the first of what would be several times in laterrevivals, a Brady opted out. Producerssearched worldwide, auditioning over 3,000 girls – including Paris Hilton’smother Kathy Richards – to replace Eve Plumb as Jan. They chose the appropriately teenage blonde singer and actress GeriReischl -- who to this day is lovingly referred to by Brady-ologists as “FakeJan.”
“I loved doing the disco numbers,” Reischl remembers, “andworking with the famous Brady family was like going to Disneyland everyday. I never saw it as going towork.” Even someone more jaded about theshort-lived variety
Hour, like theadmittedly disco-hating Olsen, had to admit it was enjoyable – to perform. “I was begging my friends at school not towatch it,” Olsen admits. “Because the outcome was embarrassing,. But actuallymaking the show was loads of fun.”
Forever BradyThe
Hour lastedonly a dozen or so weeks, as did the NBC’s 1981
The Brady Brides, which saw Marcia and middle sibling Jan bothmarry, with the couples now cohabitating. In 1988, the Bradys reunited for a Christmas TV movie (this time, sans Olsen), the ratingssuccess of which inspired the development of
The Bradys, a 1990 hour-long dramatic reincarnation, this time onCBS. This time, for drama’s sake, theBradys had uncharacteristic problems. Bobby was in a wheelchair. Marciadrank – although as Olsen jokingly points out, “of course that was solved in anhour.” Only Paramount Studios’ two 1990sbig-screen
Brady adaptations, albeitwith a new cast, proved to be a hit with Brady-craving fans.

Such fans still come up today, Knight says, and hope he’llutter Peter’s inadvertent catchphrase, “Pork chops and applesauce.” McCormick, too, is often reminded of Marcia’slines “Oh, my nose!” and “Something suddenly came up.”
The messages fans relay to her, McCormick says, "have alwaysbeen so good and so positive.” And Olsenhas a theory as to why new generations of fans continue to approach. “
TheBrady Bunch is something you could grow up with. A girl could start out identifying withCindy, and end up identifying with Carol.”
Fans, Henderson says, like the show because “it was sohonest and so sincere. We reallybelieved in it, and worked so hard.” Shecontinues to receive fan letters from as far away as Russia, India and China,and says the most common request she gets in person is simple: just a hug. “It’s wonderful to have been a part of something that people love,” sheenthuses. “And so I have hugged peoplearound the world, and it’s a lovely feeling.”