The best of the Bunch
Greg, Marcia (Marcia! Marcia!), Jan, Peter, Bobby & Cindy talkin’ Brady
HERE’S the story:
On Friday, Sept. 26, 1969, “The Brady Bunch” premiered at 8 p.m. on perennial also-ran ABC. The family sitcom, starring Florence Henderson and Robert Reed as a couple on their second marriages who combine their families (her three blond daughters, his three darkhaired sons), was up against Western series “The High Chaparral” on NBC and “The Good Guys,” a second-season CBS comedy starring Bob Denver — whose previous show, “Gilligan’s Island,” was created by “The Brady Bunch” mastermind Sherwood Schwartz.
Both “The Good Guys” and “The High Chaparral” bit the dust shortly thereafter, but “The Brady Bunch” kept rolling through 117 episodes and five seasons until its March 1974 finale. Yet despite its obsessively catchy theme song and “Hollywood Squares”-style opening credits, the series didn’t really hit a pop-culture nerve until it was launched into syndication in the fall of 1975, finding a rabid new audience and TV immortality.
Fifty years after its debut, “The Brady Bunch” is at turns admired, maligned, beloved, imitated, mocked and praised for its kitschy, anachronistic portrayal of a California family in the turbulent 1970s navigating a sunny, wholesome, safe world in which the Vietnam War, the generation gap, drug use and cult murders were supplanted by the narrative arc of six step-siblings (Greg, Marcia, Jan, Peter, Bobby and Cindy) dealing with the ups and downs of their newly blended family and the challenges of oncoming puberty — under the watchful eyes of their loving parents, architect Mike Brady (Reed, who died in 1992) and his wife, Carol (Henderson, who died in 2016). The family’s brassy live-in housekeeper, Alice Nelson (Ann B. Davis, who died in 2014), chipped in for moral and comic support.
“It was a very nice, safe, fun show, knowing that nothing scary was going to happen and that problems would be solved in 20 minutes,” says Eve Plumb, who played middle daughter Jan. “It was familiar — like a chocolate-chip cookie.”
“I believe that people are far more psychic than they realize, and they knew that the love they saw on our show was real,” says Susan Olsen, who played lisping youngest daughter Cindy. “That’s what’s given the show eternal life. It was written from the perspective of a child; it’s totally unrealistic for the whole family to go nuts because Cindy has lost her doll, but if you’re 8 years old and you’ve lost your doll, you want to see a TV show where the whole family goes nuts. Psychiatrists were using ‘The Brady Bunch’ too help abused children . . . because it gave them hope.”
To celebrate the show’s 50th anniversary, The Post spoke to Barry Williams (Greg), Maureen McCormick (Marcia), Christopher Knight (Peter), Eve Plumb (Jan), Mike Lookinland (Bobby) and Susan Olsen (Cindy), who shared their memories of working on the original series.
Favorite moments from the show:
Olsen: Going to Hawaii [for the trilogy episode “Hawaii Bound”]. Robert Reed actually showed up at the airport when we arrived, and when we got to the hotel, I said, “Oh, no, it’s raining” — I wanted to go swimming — and he said, “Don’t worry about it, Susan, everybody here swims in the rain.” I didn’t swim very well and my mom was fine letting Bob take care of me, and I’m on his shoulders in the ocean and all rest of the Bradys are there and we’re watching people go, “Is that Bobby? Is that Cindy? It’s Mike and Carol!”
Soon, we had all these people around us going, “They must be a real family” and I felt very proud that they thought that.
Lookinland: Bobby was the last of the nine regulars cast. They had trouble finding Bobby. One thing I do recall, after I had been cast . . . I was led into a room full of people and someone, most likely Sherwood [Schwartz], said, “Mike, this is your new family.” All the other cast members, including Ann B. Davis, were present in that room and it was kind of a strange situation for a child to hear. My new family, huh? Whatever that means. But it certainly came to mean something over the years, that’s for sure.
Who were you closest to during the show’s run?
Knight: It was Mike [Lookinland]. I’m a little Huck Finn-ish and was looking to explore, and he was my little explorer buddy, although he always fashioned himself to be an adult. Only later in the show, or even after, did we become closer and closer friends. He always cracked me up and was always great company. I would consider him my closest buddy. If I got into a little bit of trouble, it’s probably because I was trying to drag him into a little bit of trouble. I teased Maureen [McCormick] mercilessly. She couldn’t be more different from me — she was so prissy and nice and clean and I needed to dirty her up.
Olsen: It was Mike. He’s my favorite. I named my son after him. And also Eve, because I looked up to her and I already had a sister who was the same age as Maureen, so that was covered. Eve was closer to my age so it was easier for me to look up to her and I did — because she was very, very cool.
Williams: I was romantically interested in Maureen. I’d say I was closest to Robert Reed and Florence Henderson, and through the years, I’d say Chris Knight. We’ve probably shared the most mutual experiences — weddings, dates, camping, hanging out. Just being together.
Why does the series resonate 50 years later?
McCormick: The bottom line is that it was about love, coming together, working out innocent problems people had, and a lot of them were basic problems that still exist. We all kind of celebrated working it out together and I think we all really loved each other — there was a genuine love for all the people on the show, and I think that resonates.
Knight: I think it’s now a a nostalgia thing, but initially, it was a child’s show for children to tap into. And then it became
nostalgia as soon as people got old enough to look on what they consumed as a child — we’re doing that right now. Regardless of whatever generation you are . . . it’s the same loop for everyone, regardless of their era. “The Brady Bunch” has never not been around.
Williams: This is Monday-morning quarterbacking, but what is unique about “The Brady Bunch” is that it came along at a time when the entire complexion of TV was changing with the entry of cable. Our show went into strip syndication on the local and major networks before we finished filming . . . and since then, it’s never been off the air, ever — and that’s unique. “The Andy Griffith Show” and “I Love Lucy” are really the only two shows that have had this kind of consistent run.
How did the series impact your life?
Lookinland: Practically the whole theme of the show from the beginning was a blond mother and her three blond daughters and a brunette father and three dark-haired boys. That was the fundamental premise of the show. I had kind of strawberry-blond hair and when they cast me, they told me I’d have to dye my hair. I didn’t like it and I recall it being very weird for me. No one ever really presented the hair-color thing to me in that light and it was very strange for a 9-year old boy to go to school one morning with red hair then show up on Monday with jet-black hair.
Olsen: I was teased mercilessly. I know about bullying. But I had really good parents who gave me a lot of wisdom and at least I knew I wasn’t being bullied because I had club foot, but I was being bullied because [other kids] were jealous. One time, I was riding my bike around the neighborhood and saw a group of kids playing on a big mound of dirt and I wanted to go play with them. I thought, “No, they won’t want me to play with them because I’m Cindy freakin’ Brady.” I thought, “Wait a minute, I’ve lived in this neighborhood longer than any of them have — I have just as much right to that mound of dirt as they do. So I got up my nerve and rode my bike over to them and tried to play with them and they started throwing dirt at me, saying, “Brady brat, go home!” I thought, “Wait a minute, I’m on a TV show and I have so much fun. I don’t blame them for being jealous and I’d rather be on that TV show than playing on a mound of dirt. So let them have their dirt.” This only happened with kids that didn’t know me; my friends at school always defended me and would even get in fights for me.
Any cringe-worthy moments?
Williams: Yes. That stupid episode [“The Driver’s Seat”]. I told the writers at the time that no one would ever believe it. It had to with Marcia and Greg competing in a driving contest with an egg on top of a cone, and then Greg was supposed to lose. Well, c’mon . . . you mean I’m gonna knock the cone off for real? I just hit the accelerator and closed my eyes and cringed. I never apologize for any of the clothing — look at the ’80s hair bands. I felt cool at the time and felt we weren’t the most extreme in terms of fashion.
How do you feel about your “Brady Bunch” catchphrases?
Knight (on Peter’s “Pork chops and applesauce” Humphrey Bogart impersonation): Pork chops and applesauce? Where does that come from? I still don’t have an answer for that. My production [company] is Porkchop Phenomenon, Inc. I have to be the only one on this planet that has a porkchop phenomenon. It’s odd; it’s not like somebody out there on social media said, “This is my favorite line” and then recruited a bunch of people to believe the same way. When I went down to Australia, people there were asking me to say, “Pork chops and applesauce.” Who knows?
Plumb (on Jan’s exasperated “Marcia! Marcia! Marcia!”): Do you know where that came from? It was from “SNL” and [former cast member] Melanie Hutsell did a parody of it. That’s why it’s so popular, thanks to her. Until then, it wasn’t a thing.
Is it weird be-being back on the “set” in “A Very Brady Renovation”? (The new HGTV show where the cable channel bought the real-life Brady house and refurbished it to look exactly as it did.)
Olsen: I just want to spend a night in the [“Very Brady Renovation”] house. I’d love to, but Eve’s totally not into it. She’s always been “The Reluctant Brady.”
Williams: It’s nostalgic, but sentimental. It’s extraordinary what they did. It went from kind of being this silly idea — we’re gonna have this house with this familiar facade but you can’t tour there; it’s zoned residentially so you can’t make a museum of it. You can’t sell tickets. It’s not a ride. HGTV didn’t know exactly where they going with it at first so they consulted with all of us, and what emerged is emotionally packed and relatable to the series. You can sense the presence of Alice cooking dinner.