The Brady Bunch

[Gray Bunny]

I used to LOVE this show! Watched the reruns religiously. When I was growing up, a local station always ran a 2-hour block of Brady Bunch from 11am-1pm on Sundays so that was my treat for suffering through church and Sunday school all morning

Lots of favorite episodes. I do agree that I actually liked it even moreso as the kids got older (and Mike's hair got bigger!). I always loved seeing Marcia all grown up. She was definitely my favorite. And yes, I loved that emotional Romeo & Juliet episode too.... I think my least favorite was Jan, but sometimes I rooted for her as she was the underdog, but she came off as such an entitled brat....

I think my favorites that stick out are the Silver Platters, Greg being "Johnny Bravo" where they end up doing that song "Good Time Music" where the girls are wearing nightgowns, the Hawaii episodes, the Grand Canyon episodes, Alice leaving because the kids shun her, when they did the Snow White play in their backyard, the episode where the boys spook the girls with a fake ghost in the attic and then the girls do it right back to them, when Marcia and Jan work at the icecream parlor,.... I of course like their one and only Christmas episode with Carol's laryngitis.... I could go on, I know there are plenty others.

Loved A Very Brady Christmas. I remember like 10 years ago I think ABC Family or something of that nature reran the whole series of the short-lived The Bradys. I didn't get a chance to see them all, but the rapid pace of the show was ridiculous (Bobby's in race car accident! Bobby is paralyzed! Bobby is depressed! Bobby has renewed confidence! Bobby is walking again! All in one hour!).... I think they also reran The Brady Brides series and got the chance to see a little bit of it. Wasn't interested in the storyline much, but liked watching for when Florence Henderson would pop up.... Never saw The Brady Girls Get Married.

[Gray Bunny]

Jan and Peter sure had some greasy faces during the 4th season opening. Always remembered that, haha

[dragonflies]

The Brady girls get married is soooo good

[cct]

This theme park is twenty minutes from my house. Used to love watching this ep. Many of the rides in though, have since been torn down. I remember many of them.

[MissLlanviewPA]

I can't believe I haven't posted this yet! Barry said in his book that there was one day where he thought he had the day off, so he got high on pot with his friends. Then he got a call from the studio to do one scene--which leads us to this gem, "Greg Brady Stoned."

"You didn't say ANYTHING about getting a BOAT!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=764MzeWYn8k

[Max]

I'm sure that this video will be taken down soon, but someone posted the entire "A Very Brady Christmas" television movie on YouTube:

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/vQIVEOANrcI?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

This movie was pretty enjoyable, although it contained a scene that I thought was pretty intense by Brady standards:

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Early in the movie, a greedy contractor does business with both Mike and Carol. The contractor (who has already met all the legal building code requirements) is upset at Mike because he wants additional safety structures put into place. Mike (and Carol) and the contractor end the business relationship when the contractor refuses to go along with what Mike wants.

On Christmas Day, two security guards become trapped in the building. The contractor calls Mike to help (since the replacement architect was on vacation). Mike is able to save the two security guards, but is then trapped in the building himself for quite some time.

Anyway, this movie (which aired on CBS in 1988) was a huge ratings success, and because of that "The Bradys" (1990) dramedy (which MissLlanviewPA mentioned earlier) was born. Here is where things start to become really depressing: Bobby gets paralyzed in an auto racing accident, the Brady house is physically moved (because a new freeway was going to run through the existing lot), and Marcia becomes an alcoholic. Aside from these out-of-place (by Brady standards) storylines, a laugh track is placed in later episodes in an (unsuccessful) attempt to boost terrible ratings; unfortunately, oftentimes the laugh track came during inappropriate times. I absolutely despise that series, which thankfully only ran for six episodes.

[Gray Bunny]

They added a laugh track? Dear God...

Those episodes... oy, I wish I could see them again. They were a trainwreck. They would compile a whole season's worth of storyline into one episode. All the ups and downs of Bobby's recovery in ONE episode? Ha!

[Max]

 

You're in luck, since two (out of the six) episodes are posted on YouTube!

 

Here's Part 1 of 5 of the episode where the Bradys decided to move their house:

 

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/oMMyBp_KXq8?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

Part 2 of 5:

 

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/rXdmlMWwRpQ?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

Part 3 of 5:

 

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/-LZWN8YBl8g?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

Part 5 of 5:

 

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/j6ApJJ-L4cM?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

I'm sure you've noticed that part 4 was left out. (That's the most important part, since that is when the house is moved.) Some other poster shared this part, although note that some of the early scenes overlap with part 3 above:

 

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/aknz1wjqKys?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

This poster also shared a very short video he called part 4b, which contains some scenes that overlap with part 5 above:

 

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/x3JitD9Nujc?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

The other episode of The Bradys that is on YouTube is the final episode of the series. It's not as intense as the other episodes, as it centers around some of the female cast and their desire to start a catering business. However, Greg and Peter become temporary enemies in this episode, and feud is resolved only after a dramatic (but poorly scripted) scene. Unlike the third episode in the series, this episode has that bizarre laugh tack in place.

 

Part 1 of 5:

 

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/QVOwSfU7t0Q?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

Part 2 of 5:

 

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/-Qy1FGNDfEs?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

Part 3 of 5:

 

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/VXUhyGW8n68?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

Part 4 of 5:

 

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/nn1MV3nhvi4?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

Part 5 of 5:

 

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/HuOKZf4hwm8?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[Gray Bunny]

Wow, thanks! I'll be watching these when I'm off work.

Everyone has their own "rules" of what did and did not happen for their favorite shows (i.e. Melrose Place 2.0 did not happen), and just as the Brady Bunch variety show "didn't happen" (never referenced in Brady Brides or Christmas), I don't count this short-lived drama as ever existing.

[Max]

Gray Bunny, I'd like to think that if there ever had been another Brady Bunch reunion (which I think would have happened if not for Robert Reed's death), the depressing events of The Bradys would have totally been ignored as part of Brady history.

Regardless of Reed's bizarre behavior (such as his constant feuds with Sherwood Schwartz), I commend him for never making a public spectacle of himself. The same cannot be said for Florence Henderson or Maureen McCormick. Henderson wrote in a book that she had an affair with NYC mayor John Lindsay, and got crab lice from him. McCormick wrote a very salacious book where she admitted that she essentially became a sex slave in order to get cocaine. She also stated that she and Eve Plumb once kissed each other (though she later claimed she was joking about that). Because of that comment, Plumb refuses to speak to her, and I can understand her disgust in either case (i.e., if the kiss actually happened, or if it didn't happen).

Some things are probably best left private. I understand the claim that they wanted to write the books so others wouldn't make the same mistakes, but I think a more selfish motive (money) was the real reason why those books were written.

[MissLlanviewPA]

I always the theme song of The Bradys:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73BrsCvbLjM

Note the presence of Fake Marcia, Leah Ayres. Maureen McCormick had just had her daughter Natalie, very shortly before production on the show began, and didn't want to work that soon after unless it was on something she really liked, and she hated the script of the show so much, she decided to sit this one out (she talked about it in her book, which I LOVE).

Here's the Day By Day (a two season wonder on NBC from spring 1988-1989--created by Gary David Goldberg, who also created Family Ties) episode about The Brady Bunch, with included a few of the original show's stars, including Maureen McCormick, who was about five months pregnant with her daughter when it was shot--they don't even TRY to hide it!

And of course, Christopher Daniel Barnes, who played Ross Harper on this show, would play Greg Brady in the movies years later.

This aired on February 5th, 1989--I was born a few weeks later on the 28th. My status as a Brady fan was meant to be.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gapSLY5Fxbo

[quartermainefan]

I never saw that before, thans for the treat. It was very funny, and that guy was also good as Greg in the movie.

[Gray Bunny]

Thanks for posting Day By Day! That was pretty funny actually.

Being the obsessed Brady fan that I used to be, I remember back in 1993 when ABC did a special with Florence Henderson where they looked back on the whole Brady phenomenon, and I recall them using clips from that Day By Day episode but I never knew what is was. (For instance, they used that clip when Mike says, "All Brady men have perms! It's to keep the hair out of our eyes when we're fixing our bicycles.")

I love how they used the real set from the original, minus the kitchen which was sectioned off by a big ol' brick wall.

When you think about it, it's funny how by the late 80's when Day By Day did that Brady spoof and poked fun of how outdated it was, it was actually less than 15 years ago since it had gone off the air, yet it was already looked back at as being outdated. I can't imagine doing a spoof in 2013 about a show like Roseanne, which left the airwaves in 1997, and poking fun at it being outdated (maybe other sitcoms that are more dated and have that definite 90's feel would be a better target for ridicule).

[MissLlanviewPA]

Three different interviews/interview clips with Eve Plumb:

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[MissLlanviewPA]

Eve, how could YOU?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eRf9Rlnuns