The Bradys is a six-episode
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
televisionTelevision is a widely used telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images, either monochromatic or color, usually accompanied by sound. "Television" may also refer specifically to a television set, television programming or television transmission...
dramaDrama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a collective...
that aired on
CBSCBS Broadcasting Inc. is an American television network, one of television's original "big three", which also include NBC and ABC. Like NBC, CBS started out as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System...
in 1990. It was a revival of the early 1970s sitcom,
The Brady BunchThe Brady Bunch is an American television sitcom. starring Robert Reed, Florence Henderson, and Ann B. Davis, which revolves around a large blended family...
(1969–1974), and was about the trials and tribulations of the extended Brady family some 15 years after the end of the earlier series. It followed two earlier short-lived spin-off/continuation series: the 1977 effort
The Brady Bunch HourThe Brady Bunch Variety Hour was a television series produced by Sid and Marty Krofft in association with Paramount Television, which aired on ABC between 1976 to 1977....
and 1981's
The Brady Brides.
The Bradys series came about as the result of the ratings and critical success of the
1988The year 1988 in television involved some significant events.Below is a list of television-related events in 1988.For the American TV schedule, see: 1988-89 United States network television schedule.-Events:...
television movieA television movie is a feature film that is produced for and originally distributed by a...
A Very Brady ChristmasA Very Brady Christmas is a 1988 television movie based on the television series The Brady Bunch, featuring all of the original actors who appeared in the series except Susan Olsen , who was on her honeymoon when the film was being made....
.
The Bradys is a six-episode
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
televisionTelevision is a widely used telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images, either monochromatic or color, usually accompanied by sound. "Television" may also refer specifically to a television set, television programming or television transmission...
dramaDrama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a collective...
that aired on
CBSCBS Broadcasting Inc. is an American television network, one of television's original "big three", which also include NBC and ABC. Like NBC, CBS started out as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System...
in 1990. It was a revival of the early 1970s sitcom,
The Brady BunchThe Brady Bunch is an American television sitcom. starring Robert Reed, Florence Henderson, and Ann B. Davis, which revolves around a large blended family...
(1969–1974), and was about the trials and tribulations of the extended Brady family some 15 years after the end of the earlier series. It followed two earlier short-lived spin-off/continuation series: the 1977 effort
The Brady Bunch HourThe Brady Bunch Variety Hour was a television series produced by Sid and Marty Krofft in association with Paramount Television, which aired on ABC between 1976 to 1977....
and 1981's
The Brady Brides.
Influence and casting
The Bradys series came about as the result of the ratings and critical success of the
1988The year 1988 in television involved some significant events.Below is a list of television-related events in 1988.For the American TV schedule, see: 1988-89 United States network television schedule.-Events:...
television movieA television movie is a feature film that is produced for and originally distributed by a...
A Very Brady ChristmasA Very Brady Christmas is a 1988 television movie based on the television series The Brady Bunch, featuring all of the original actors who appeared in the series except Susan Olsen , who was on her honeymoon when the film was being made....
. All of the original cast members of the
1969The year 1969 in television involved some significant events.Below is a list of television-related events in 1969.For the American TV schedule, see: 1969-70 American network television schedule.-Events:...
-
1974The year 1974 in television involved some significant events.Below is a list of television-related events in 1974.For the American TV schedule, see: 1974-75 American network television schedule.-Events:...
series returned except for
Maureen McCormickMaureen Denise McCormick is an American actress, celebrity and recording artist. She is most widely known as a child actor who played Marcia Brady in the television series The Brady Bunch from 1969 to 1974.-Early life and career:...
, who declined to reprise the role of Marcia Brady due to her real-life pregnancy and was replaced by
Leah AyresLeah Ayres is an American actress who played Valerie Bryson on the daytime serial, The Edge of Night, in the early 1980s. She also played Marcia Brady in the six episode drama series The Bradys, one of the many spin offs to the Brady Bunch. It was produced in 1989 and premiered on February 6, 1990...
. The show also incorporated cast members from
The Brady Brides who reprised their roles from the earlier series. This show marks the only time that the cast of a sitcom has been reunited playing the same characters in an hour long drama series solely featuring the original sitcom cast.
Style
Produced at the height of the dramedy trend in American television, epitomized by such shows as
Frank's PlaceFrank's Place is a CBS comedy-drama series which aired for 22 episodes in 1987 and 1988. The series was created by Hugh Wilson and executive-produced by Wilson and starred Tim Reid.-Plot:...
and
HoopermanHooperman is a U.S. television series starring John Ritter. It ran for two seasons on ABC, from 1987 to 1989. A comedy-drama, the series was created by Steven Bochco and Terry Louise Fisher who were the team responsible for creating L.A. Law....
,
The Bradys aimed to change direction towards more dramatic storytelling than viewers had been used to in the previous
Brady series. This led to the series being nicknamed
Bradysomething, a reference to the introspective
Thirtysomethingthirtysomething is an American television drama about a group of baby boomers in their thirties. It was created by Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick for United Artists Television and Bedford Falls Productions, and distributed for ABC by MGM/UA Television Group. It premiered in the U.S. on...
, a water-cooler show at the time.
Failure
The show was actually never officially canceled but put on hiatus with plans to continue sometime later in the year. Poor reviews and low
ratingsNielsen ratings are audience measurement systems developed by Nielsen Media Research, in an effort to determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States...
led to the hiatus and quiet cancellation of the series after six episodes. At the time, it was thought that the audience was simply unwilling to accept the sitcom characters in a more dramatic setting. In his book
Growing Up Brady, Barry Williams stated that when the initial two-hour episode aired, ratings were poor for the first hour, but when the second hour aired, the show won its time slot. Attempts to convince CBS to move the show to the 9:00 p.m. time slot were to no avail.
Episodes
| Episode |
Title |
Airdate |
| 01 |
Start Your Engines |
February 9, 1990 |
| 02 |
Here We Grow Again |
February 9, 1990 |
| 03 |
A Moving Experience |
February 16, 1990 |
| 04 |
Hat in the Ring |
February 23, 1990 |
| 05 |
Bottoms Up |
March 2, 1990 |
| 06 |
The Party Girls |
March 9, 1990 |
- Note: In syndication on channels such as ABC Family
ABC Family is an American cable television network currently owned by ABC Family Worldwide Inc., a division of The Walt Disney Company. ABC Family offers contemporary and inclusive programming, including series, movies, events, and enhanced ABC encore presentations...
(formerly FOX FamilyFox Family may refer to:* The Fox Family, a 2006 South Korean film* Fox Family, a former name of American television cable network ABC Family...
), episodes are bundled into two-hour blocks and retitled.
- Episodes 1 and 2 sometimes are known as The Brady 500
- Episodes 3 and 4 sometimes are known as Bradys on the Move
- Episodes 5 and 6 sometimes are known as Big Kids, Big Problems
Cast
- Florence Henderson
Florence Agnes Henderson is an American actress and singer, best known for playing the role of Carol Brady in the television program The Brady Bunch, which ran from 1969 to 1974.-Early life:...
as Carol Brady
- Robert Reed
Robert Reed was an American stage and television actor.-Early life:Reed was born John Robert Rietz, in Highland Park, Illinois, the son of Helen and John R. Rietz. Reed spent much of his childhood in Muskogee, Oklahoma, and later studied Shakespeare in college...
as Mike Brady
- Leah Ayres
Leah Ayres is an American actress who played Valerie Bryson on the daytime serial, The Edge of Night, in the early 1980s. She also played Marcia Brady in the six episode drama series The Bradys, one of the many spin offs to the Brady Bunch. It was produced in 1989 and premiered on February 6, 1990...
as Marcia Brady Logan
- Eve Plumb
Eve Aline Plumb is an American actress and painter. Plumb is best known for her portrayal of Jan Brady in the television sitcom The Brady Bunch.-Jan Brady, the middle sister:...
as Jan Brady Covington
- Susan Olsen
Susan Marie Olsen is an American television actress. She was born in Santa Monica, California, the youngest of four children, with two older brothers Larry and Christopher and a sister Diane. Her brother Christopher was also a child actor, perhaps best known for his role in The Man Who Knew Too...
as Cindy Brady
- Barry Williams
Barry William Blenkhorn , known professionally as Barry Williams, is an American actor best known for his role as Greg Brady in the ABC television series The Brady Bunch.-History:...
as Dr. Greg Brady
- Christopher Knight
Christopher Anton Knight is an American actor best known for playing Peter Brady on the 1970s series, The Brady Bunch. He has since gone on to become a successful businessman and has enjoyed a semi-resurgence in the public eye with recent TV appearances. His father, Edward Knight, is also an actor...
as Peter Brady
- Mike Lookinland
Michael Paul "Mike" Lookinland is an American actor. He is best known for his role as youngest brother Bobby Brady on The Brady Bunch from 1969 until 1974.-Biography:...
as Bobby Brady
- Ann B. Davis
Ann Bradford Davis is an American television actress.Davis achieved prominence for her role in The Bob Cummings Show for which she twice won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series...
as Alice Nelson-Franklin
- Jerry Houser
Jerry Houser is an American character actor and voice actor in film and television.Houser was born in Los Angeles, California. Since 1971, he has appeared in countless films, TV series, animated series, and commercials...
as Wally Logan
- Ron Kuhlman as Philip Covington III
- Caryn Richman
Caryn Richman is an actress who primarily appeared in television series in the 1980s and early 1990s. Her roles include Elena Dekker on the soap opera Texas, Gidget on the television series The New Gidget, and Nora Brady in A Very Brady Christmas and The Bradys.-External links:*...
as Nora Brady
- Martha Quinn
Martha Quinn is best known as one of the original video jockeys on MTV .-Early life:...
as Tracy Brady
- Ken Michelman
Ken Michelman is an American actor primarily known for his role as Abner Goldstein on the TV series The White Shadow. He also played Gary Greenberg, Cindy Brady's love interest on the short-lived Brady Bunch spinoff, The Bradys....
as Gary Greenberg
- Jaclyn Bernstein as Jessica Logan
- Jonathan Taylor Thomas
Jonathan Taylor Thomas is an American actor, former child star, and teen idol. He is well known for his role of middle child Randy Taylor on the sitcom Home Improvement and as the voice of the young Simba in Disney's The Lion King.-Early life:Thomas was born Jonathan Taylor Weiss in Bethlehem,...
as Kevin Brady
Format
Unlike the original thirty-minute sitcom,
The Bradys was an hour long and featured far more serious plotlines. Among them:
- Bobby's budding car-racing career ends abruptly in the first episode after an accident leaves him a paraplegic. As he recovers, he marries his college girlfriend.
- Peter breaks up with his fiancée, to whom he became engaged in A Very Brady Christmas.
- Jan and Phillip, unable to conceive children of their own, adopt a Korean girl.
- Stay-at-home mother Marcia battles alcoholism while Wally loses yet another in a series of jobs, the latest being Mike's campaign manager. Wally and Marcia, who along with their two children have been forced to move in with Mike and Carol, eventually decide to open their own catering
Catering is the business of providing foodservice at a remote site.-Mobile catering:A mobile caterer serves food directly from a vehicle or cart that is designed for the purpose. Mobile catering is common at outdoor events , workplaces, and downtown business districts.-Event catering:Event ranges...
business to support their family.
- Radio host Cindy begins a romantic interest with her boss, a widower more than 10 years her senior who has two children.
Despite the more downbeat tone, the show did feature a laugh track at certain moments.
External links