The Bradys is an American comedy-drama series that aired on CBS from February 9 to March 9, 1990. The series is a sequel and continuation of the original 1969-1974 sitcom The Brady Bunch, focusing on its main characters as adults, and was the second such continuation after the short-lived 1981 sitcom The Brady Brides.
Airing on Friday nights, The Bradys failed in the ratings against the night-leading TGIF lineup on ABC and was cancelled after one month, with the last of six produced episodes airing on March 9, 1990. In its short run, it went through three different theme songs based on that of The Brady Bunch, the last featuring revised lyrics sung by Florence Henderson.
Video The Bradys
Cast
- Robert Reed as Mike Brady
- Florence Henderson as Carol Brady
- Ann B. Davis as Alice Nelson-Franklin
- Barry Williams as Dr. Greg Brady
- Leah Ayres as Marcia Brady-Logan
- Christopher Knight as Peter Brady
- Eve Plumb as Jan Brady-Covington
- Mike Lookinland as Bobby Brady
- Susan Olsen as Cindy Brady
- Jerry Houser as Wally Logan, Marcia's husband
- Ron Kuhlman as Philip Covington III, Jan's husband
- Caryn Richman as Nora Brady, Greg's wife
- Martha Quinn as Tracy Wagner-Brady, Bobby's wife
- Ken Michelman as Gary Greenberg, Cindy's radio station manager and love interest
- Jonathan Taylor Thomas as Kevin Brady, Greg and Nora's son
- Jaclyn Bernstein as Jessica Logan, Marcia and Wally's daughter
- Michael Melby as Mickey Logan, Marcia and Wally's son
- Valerie Ick as Patty Covington, Jan and Philip's adopted daughter from Korea
Maps The Bradys
Influence and casting
In 1988, CBS commissioned a Brady Bunch reunion telefilm for their Christmas season programming. A Very Brady Christmas premiered on December 18, 1988 and drew a then-season high 25.1 rating and 39 share for a television film. The success of the film convinced series creator Sherwood Schwartz that a new Brady family TV series could be a hit, and work began on the show in December 1989. CBS re-aired A Very Brady Christmas again on December 22, 1989, using it as a promotional tool for the upcoming new show.
Robert Reed, Florence Henderson, Ann B. Davis, Barry Williams, Christopher Knight, Eve Plumb, Mike Lookinland and Susan Olsen all returned in their original Brady Bunch roles, and Jerry Houser and Ron Kuhlman reprised their roles from The Brady Brides. Leah Ayres replaced Maureen McCormick as Marcia because McCormick declined this role.
Style
Produced at the height of the dramedy trend in American television, epitomized by such shows as Frank's Place and Hooperman, The Bradys aimed to change direction toward more dramatic storytelling than viewers had been used to in the previous Brady series.
Format
Unlike the original 30-minute sitcom, The Bradys was an hour long and featured far more serious plot lines. Among them:
- Family patriarch Mike begins a political career.
- 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, and begins dating the abusive daughter of Mike's political rival.
- Jan and Philip, unable to conceive children of their own, adopt a Korean girl named Patty.
- Stay-at-home mother Marcia battles alcoholism while Wally loses yet another in a series of jobs, the latest being as 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 business to support their family.
- Radio host Cindy begins a romance with her boss, a widower more than ten years her senior who has two children.
Despite the more downbeat tone, the show did feature a laugh track at certain moments.
Cancellation
The show was put on hiatus with plans to continue sometime later in the year. Poor reviews and low ratings 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. But it is now clarified that the majority of television viewers of the early 1990s era preferred to watch Full House and Family Matters during the hour on ABC in which the three different shows were aired; ironically, the former show was in the original series' old time slot at the time.
In Barry Williams' autobiography Growing Up Brady: I Was A Teenage Greg, he 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 later time slot failed. The Bradys was the last TV series for Robert Reed prior to his death in 1992.
Episodes
Notes
- "Start Your Engines" and "Here We Grow Again" were later repackaged as a 2-hour movie titled The Brady 500
- "A Moving Experience" and "Hat in the Ring" were later repackaged as a 2-hour movie titled The Bradys on the Move
- "Bottom's Up" and "The Party Girls" were later repackaged as a 2-hour movie titled Big Kids, Big Problems
DVD release
On April 3, 2007, the two-hour pilot episode The Brady 500 (a.k.a. "Start Your Engines/Here We Grow Again") was released as a bonus feature on The Brady Bunch: The Complete Series 21-disc DVD set by CBS and Paramount.
References
External links
- The Bradys on IMDb
- The Bradys at TV.com
- Brady World - episode guide
- History of The Brady Bunch by Wendy Winans
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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