The Bradys: One Hour Drama

Someone needed to tell Florence to dial it back during the recording of the theme song!

Is that the series where Bobby is a racecar driver, wrecks and maybe paralyzed? Talk about terrible.

The Bradys Christmas special three years earlier garnered huge ratings. Plus the reruns were still really popular at this point. I think there was a kernel of good idea in this, but the writing wasn’t great. Plus having just about the most popular Brady kid (Maureen) not taking part in it didn’t help.

They should have done it with the same dark tone and storylines as “Six Feet Under”.

DL icon Mary Cadorette guest starred on one episode.

Fuck you, r5!

Who played the fake Marcia?

The should have had the disagreeing one like stuck in snow and trying to get to the Air Port or something in cut aways - with the very final scene being they open that iconic door. Gee - don't the writers THINK - ?

A shitshow from hell, to be sure. Loved it, for all the wrong reasons.

“Baby talk, baby talk” @ r8!

One of the sisters became an alcoholic. I can't remember which one. It was awesomely bad!!!

Leah Ayres played Marcia. There was the ep where Marcia forgets to pick her kids up from school because she's in some sleazy motel with a Mexican bricklayer. Cindy was a radio dj and Jan was feuding professionally with her husband. I think Jan followed Mike's lead and had become an architect?

Martha Quinn played Bobby's gf and later wife.

It lasted only a month!

It was awful, and I say that as one of the biggest BB fans in the world.

Oh My Jesus, how did I miss this? and Thank God I missed this!

A friend worked on "The Bradys" and said the idea was to introduce "thirtysomething" themes into the Brady family and Sherwood Schwartz thought it was making him relevant in the new era. Apparently Robert Reed was so difficult the plan was to kill off his character in a major storyline that would make Carol Brady a widow.

My friend hung out with Susan Olsen between takes (before Susan went alt-right crazy) and said she was cool. Susan had a day job and said philosophically, "Every couple of years they call and write a check and I come back."

Oh, and the redecoration of the house into faux-Santa Fe pinks and purples was HIDEOUS.

That theme song though. Blech.

It's true, you know. They wanted more adult themes for a grown-up Brady fan.

It was decided in pre-production that the rigors of portraying an alcoholic in a crumbling marriage was far beyond Maureen's "skills."

So they went with someone else.

Ron Kuhlman, who played Jan's husband, Phillip Covington, was in the original cast of A Chorus Line. He is the tall one on the far left in the famous logo. His Chorus Line character, Don, is rejected at the end and he is little heard from on the OBC album.

I want to see it, is it on DVD?

You have to remember CBS was at its all time low. They had spend the prior five years fighting off a take over bid by Ted Turner and were basically broke and at the bottom, so they'd try anything. It would take almost the entire 90s for CBS to recover.

The unaired ep of the Bradys where Alice was mourning Sam and went into a depression that involved the Bradys wanting to put her in a home was heart wrenching.

I saw the unaired episode which had Ann B Davis in a spin-off. It was found that Jan, Marcia and Cindy could't bear children, so they donated two eggs each and Alice agreed to carry them for the girls. Then a terrorist flew a plane into the Brady home killing the girls.

So Alice not only gave birth to six children (conveniently three brown haired boys and three blonde girls) but she had to raise them.

I saw that too but had completely forgotten about it. The one thing I found unbelievable was that the plane killed only the three girls when it hit the house - not the three boys, Bobby in a wheelchair even, not Alice, not Mike and Carol.

Surely Jonathan Taylor Thomas' finest work.

Was the plane crash and the deaths of the girls what pushed Alice into the depression? or was it having to raise six babies at her advancing age?

Rip Taylor returned as Alice's true lost love after the plane crash. He sprinkled confetti all over the remains of the house then jumped into Mike Brady's arms.

The episode where Alice pines about all the snatch she lost out on while she was married to Sam, was heart-wrenching. Then she became fully Lesbian and transformed like Wonder Woman.

It was a sweet moment at the end when guest stars Vicki Lawrence, Rue McClanahan, and Marilu Henner arrive, as the mothers of the terrorists, on the Brady house’s charred doorstep to apologize for their son’s actions.

Are you guys making shit up?

The episode where the girls sit around and discuss going Lesbian over Alice's Special Scones was very well-done! I almost believed little Cindy knew what it meant to eat box!

I can't get over that credit sequence -- it looks like "Attitudes" with Linda Dano and sounds like Sherwood Schwartz dashed off the lyrics while he was on the toilet.

What the FUCK is that theme song?

It's how the Brady Bunch became the Bradys!

That theme is cringe-inducing. Love the pornstache on Barry Williams.

Lol at the fake little girl version of Marcia.

[quote] The episode where the girls sit around and discuss going Lesbian over Alice's Special Scones was very well-done!

I did NOT participate in that episode and will sue whomever claims otherwise.

The vocals were not in the original theme song when it first aired, if I remember correctly.

Yes, R30, they are making that shit up. But nothing they invent can top the horror that was The Brady Bunch Variety Hour.

r38 is correct. This was the theme, no bad vocals or horrible lyrics.

I love Eve’s haircut.

Thanks r40 but all versions are heaps of shit and make me want to empty my veins

Oh I LOVE those intros! They were produced and recorded right at a crucial revolution in modern American music: live orchestral musicians struggling to imitate/compete with synthesizers. For about a half decade or so, we had dozens upon dozens of musicians sitting in a studio trying to create the wet, loud walls of excess sound that synths were becoming known for in pop music. Producers did this because live musicians sounded better, but synths were becoming more and more popular in pop music. Eventually, because of cost, the live musicians went the way of the dinosaur, and synths and smaller ensembles became the norm.

When was the last time you heard a cheesy sitcom them played by a 64 piece orchestra?

CHEESY?! It was ART!

The best episode was when Peter decided to stop at the adult bookstore to rent some porn to spice up his love life with the missus. That's when he decided he'd try a glory hole.

We are the definitive

R45 I remember that episode! Wasn't the perky dildo salesman played by Abe Vigoda?

R40. I hope this elevator Muzak version of the theme is playing on a loop in Hell when Susan Oleson arrives.

R45 You left out the best part. There was a guy on the other side of the glory hole, it was his dad, Mike, played by Robert Reed. The scene he'd been waiting many years to play.

And then hilarity ensued, r49, when Pete's member got stuck in the hole and all those people showed up after it was on the five o'clock news!

Great ep, r49/50. I teared up at the end, when Carol showed up at the adult bookstore and sang a beautiful cover of Duran Duran's "Union of the Snake."

Mom always told us not to play with each other’s balls in the house, r49!

I was 13 when this show originally ran and got really embarrassed when Mr. Brady got photographed with the topless woman to try and derail his political campaign by his rival.

I didn't know Reed was gay and thought how awful that must be.

"One Hour Drama"

An hour is hardly enough time for me to berate and cenSURE, JAN!

They really were trying to imitate thirtysomething. Lloyd Schwartz even referred to it in the press as "bradysomething." Dramedies (Frank's Place, Hooperman, The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd) were all the rage circa 1990, and this was Sherwood's attempt to cut a piece of that pie for himself.

A few years later, completely different people who accurately assessed the Brady's continuing popularity as being a love of its cheesy tropes and goofy characters produced the first Brady Bunch movie, and made oodles of dollars.(Yes, the Schwartzes got a credit, but they had zero to do with it creatively.)

Christ! That song!

R40 They get progressively worse. God, what would have version four and five sounded like?

[quote]Dramedies (Frank's Place, Hooperman, The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd) were all the rage circa 1990

And yet none of those shows listed was a commercial success.

The Brady Bunch spoof movies were the best. Without it we might never have had such classic memes like Sure, Jan and Nice try, Jan!

Yeah, the spoof movies were great and I'll watch them any time they are on cable.

I remembered this show, but had forgotten that Martha Quinn played Bobby's wife. I saw some recent pictures of Martha and she looks great for being close to 60.

I remember watching it with my grandmother (who was a hilarious gin-soaked wit) and her saying "Well, that gal was an alcoholic for all of ten minutes."

That was the problem with the show right there, they never let anything develop. Bobby was in a coma until the third act. Marsha was an alcoholic for an afternoon. Jan's adopted daughter didn't fit in for an hour.

I think they had an eye on syndication instead of plotting things out in some soap opera way.

Why do I remember so much of that crap show???

Mike was running for Mayor of Los Angeles or something. Marcia showed up drunk at a rally and Carol pulled her aside, slapped her and sent her home in the limo. Carol was wearing Nancy Reagan red.

In the industry it was referred to at the time as "bradysomething."

Actually the real storylines were as insane as the plotlines people are pretending were real here. Marcia had become an alcoholic, and at a public ceremony of some kind with her architect sister Jan honoring her father, Marcia appeared drunk and screamed to the crowd about what a failure she had become (she was the only one of the kids without a career). And Jan would cry hysterically over her inability to conceive with Philip (which is why they adopted a Korean child).

I also seem to remember Bobby was in some sort of car accident and was paralyzed but they weren't sure whether or not it was permanent. And Cindy had become a DJ since that's what Susan Olsen had been (inexplicably) in real life; but Olsen had never outgrown her lisp, so one episode had her siblings listening to her on the radio announcing, "And that wath the Talking Headth thinging 'Burning Down the Houthe.'" (I am not making that up.)

It was hard to imagine:

a) Greg as a doctor (he never seemed smart enough)

b) perfect student and perennially most-likely-to-succeed Marcia as an alcoholic stay-at-home mom

c) Jan as professionally successful and Marcia envying her

Bobby was a race car driver.

and Cindy with a lisp was a radio DJ.

R66 nice little twist with Jan more successful than Marcia. IMDb said Maureen didn’t want to commit to a series after just having her baby. It might’ve worked if the writing had been better and Maureen on set. At least for one or two seasons before Reeds death.

Peter was fucking hot. I’d fuck that Brady.

R66:

Marcia: SAHM who co-founded Etsy

Jan: SAHM who got banned from the local Kroger for abusing coupons

Cindy: stripper

Greg: barista

Peter: CEO of a crooked charity

Bobby: Kroger bag-boy who narced on Jan; lives with Cindy

R57, are you referring to the kazoo version Carol attempts to sing after her stroke, or the bagpipe rendition Alice sings at the girls' funeral?

I remember laughing at Jan's ridiculous adoption storyline.

I would have watched r71’s show.

They released The Brady Kids (animated series) on DVD, but not this?!