“The Brady Bunch Hour”: Keep on Movin’

After the huge success of the Brady Bunch Hour pilot episode, the show would go off the air for almost two months. The rushed nature of the production gave the Kroffts little time to retool things based on ABC not being fully happy with the pilot. An odd choice was made to introduce Rip Taylor to the show as a neighbor, because why not? It was such a random choice, one can only assume he was the only one they called who answered the phone.

Why am I here? The folks at the Bullock’s credit card department threatened to break my legs if I kept missing my payments!

The challenges of keeping the indoor pool running and clear enough for filming made the production a 24/7 slog. The massive budget required cuts elsewhere, so public domain songs were used extensively. ABC also provided cheap guests who either had a contract with the network, were promoting something and thus willing to work for scale or were just desperate for work.

Uh, something tells us that your husband isn’t interested in Charo, Carol. Rip Taylor on the other hand...

Despite the high ratings, critics savaged the show. Many people thought that possibly they had just hallucinated the thing. In the months between the first and second episodes, public sentiment seemed to turn against the show. Some people were upset that Jan was being played by a different actress. Others saw the show as being one tacky mess. The Kroffts had no real time to evaluate the feedback coming in. They were rushing to catch up. It was probably impossible to fix this mess, but the rushed production schedule didn’t really help.

Hey kids, dig those hip and with it guests!

ABC and the Kroffts would soon find out what America really thought about this show. By the time the show returned, the ratings had plummeted and the show was a laughingstock. 

Now we understand why Robert Reed signed up for this show.

The show began getting moved around the schedule and it soon became obvious that it wasn’t working out. While ABC saw the failure as just another show that didn’t work, it was disastrous for the Kroffts. The Atlanta indoor theme park that they had opened in 1976 had shut down and gone bankrupt just weeks before The Brady Bunch Hour premiered. They desperately needed the show to work. When it didn’t, the Kroffts were no longer sought out for big name projects. The final nail in their coffin would be the even worse Pink Lady and Jeff Variety Show. That show would also end the reign of the variety show for decades.

Elizabeth- my career is coming to join you!

After the show was canceled, it seemed like the Brady franchise was essentially dead, though it would be resurrected just three years later on NBC’s The Brady Brides. The Brady Brides pilot film would be the first- and last- time that the entire bunch would be reunited together. The Brady Bunch Hour would become forgotten- a long ago project that might have been a hallucination- until Nick at Nite realized that it had the show in its catalog and did a random airing. The show took off, becoming a cult sensation. The tacky time capsule of 1970’s kitsch had finally found an appreciative audience.

 

“The Brady Bunch Hour”: Time to Change

For better or worse, on November 28, 1976- Thanksgiving Weekend in the United States- The Brady Bunch Hour premiered on ABC.

The show was highly anticipated and heavily hyped. ABC’s promotional machine went into high gear, putting the Bradys on every magazine cover that was willing to have them. The premise of the show was that Mike Brady moved his family out to Hollywood so that they could perform in their very own variety show. A variety show with actors pretending to put on a variety show? Very meta! The premiere featured the Osmonds, repaying their debt to the Bradys for the ratings boost by helping launch their show. A wholesome, Mormon approved 1950’s themed musical sequence takes place, with the Osmonds looking soulful and talented in comparison with the Bradys.

Conformists With A Cause!

The plot of the show (such as it was) centers on how untalented Mike Brady is. He’s so untalented that Bobby decides to hire Tony Randall to play “Mike Brady”. Even more meta! The sad part of this plot is that Robert Reed was indeed not too musically talented or coordinated, though he practiced harder than anyone and wanted to get better as a performer. Hopefully he didn’t take this plot too personally.

An effete, prissy stiff? You’re the perfect person to play ‘Mike Brady’!

ABC wasn’t too impressed with the premiere and ordered changes and retooling of subsequent episodes before this one even aired. Despite its misgivings about the quality of the first episode, ABC got massive ratings for the premiere. America tuned into the tacky spectacle in record numbers- but would it tune in again for episode two? Stay tuned!

“The Brady Bunch Hour”: That’s the Way They All Became The Brady Bunch

ABC wanted to strike while the iron was hot and get its Brady Variety Show on the air as soon as possible. As a result, there was little time to make the pilot. ABC decided to produce the pilot as a special that would run before the end of 1976 with the first season beginning in January of 1977. To stay on schedule, ABC was going to have to pickup the show before it knew how successful the pilot would be or whether it met the network’s quality expectations. 

Despite not having any involvement with the show, The Brady Bunch creator Sherwood Schwartz decided to help out Sid and Marty Krofft by sitting down with them to talk about the cast, its strengths and weaknesses. Schwartz’s biggest warning was about family patriarch Robert Reed. Reed was a constant pain for Schwartz, criticizing the show and rewriting scripts, despite the fact that his rewrites were never used. Reed had been written out of the series finale because of his bad attitude. Schwartz was sure that if anyone on the cast would cause problems on the show it would be him.

Nothing could be further from the truth, however. Robert Reed was the most enthusiastic member of the variety hour cast. In fact, he probably worked harder than anyone else. He resented his lack of music and dance ability and practiced more than the rest of the cast. Apparently Reed enjoyed the singing, dancing and pageantry involved in the production of a variety show. The Kroffts would find challenges elsewhere.

In order to make the show stand out from the rest of the pack, the Kroffts decided to build a huge set, complete with a gigantic pool. The pool would be used by the newly formed ‘Krofftettes’, a water follies group who would perform various tricks and frolic in the pool. This ambitious set piece would cause huge headaches for the production. The only large soundstage in Los Angeles that the Kroffts could afford was at Gene Autry’s Golden West Studios, which was a creaky facility in a shady location. Building the large pool was a nightmare; keeping it clear enough to film in was seemingly impossible. The cold soundstage mixed with overly treated water made life miserable for the Kroftettes.

The Bradys were also a problem. The only two musically inclined members of the cast were Florence Henderson and Geri Reischl. While the other castmembers had performed in the past on various pop albums, they were out of their league when it came to a weekly variety show. It wasn’t too big of a deal, though it made rehearsals a bit tedious. Some castmembers recall that Mike Lookinland in particular would get punchy and stubborn during some of the long recording sessions. Still, the production lurched forward. As the pilot wrapped, however, Sid and Marty Krofft realized that the show was missing something. Sherwood Schwartz knew what, or rather who, it was- Ann B. Davis. Ann had moved to a religious retreat and it was thought that she wouldn’t want to return. Ann, however, loved her “family” and eagerly signed up for the show. The family was (mostly) reunited. Would their fans and viewers return too?

“The Brady Bunch Hour”: This Crew Would Somehow Re-Form A Family

After the successful “reunion”, Fred Silverman tasked the brothers Krofft with reassembling the Bradys for an all new variety show. Despite the ridiculousness of the concept, the Kroffts went all in on the project, eager to get a project going that would free them from the restrictive Osmonds.

They didn’t know how receptive the family would be. They had only scraped together Florence Henderson, Mike Lookinland, Susan Olsen and Maureen McCormick for the Osmond show. Could they get the rest of the family? And what about Robert Reed? He had been the biggest pain on the set of the original show, often rewriting scripts that particularly irked him, none of which were ever used. The Kroffts were pleasantly surprised; Reed was one of the first to sign on and the most enthusiastic cast member on the set. One by one the other castmembers signed on, with one glaring exception- Eve Plumb.

Contrary to rumor and legend, Eve Plumb didn’t refuse to participate on the show. She was indeed trying to leave “Jan Brady” behind, but she was still willing to revisit her most known role. She just couldn’t fully commit to the show due to her other projects. ABC and the Kroffts, having signed everyone else stood firm. Eve’s participation needed to be all or nothing. She passed. By this time, word had finally reached Sherwood Schwartz and Paramount that ABC was trying to reunite the Bradys. Schwartz was initially upset, since he had control of the rights to the show. Since ABC and the Kroffts had already signed most of the original cast, and the kids desperately needed the money, he gave his blessing to the project. The original show had made him a millionaire several times over while the actual Bradys were no longer making a dime from the show. Perhaps he felt he owed them. In any event, the publicity ABC was sure to drum up for the variety show was certain to bring more attention to his reruns, generating millions more for him.

After a quick casting search, the Kroffts found their new Jan Brady- Geri Reischl, who was embraced by the original cast. The Bradys were reunited- but would Robert Reed’s old habit of objecting to everything rear its ugly head? Could the Kroffts knock this Bunch into shape on the compressed schedule they were given by ABC? It would take a Herculean effort to get this project off the ground- would the Kroffts be able to do it? Stay tuned!

“The Brady Bunch Hour”: Here’s The Story...

Not every television show has a long life; in fact, most shows barely last past one season. Despite the long odds, there are hundreds of new shows produced each year from thousands of submissions. While many of these long forgotten shows live on solely due to their awkward publicity photos, others stand out because of how bizarre they were.

No, we’re not talking about Ferris Bueller, but apparently Jennifer Aniston *can* lose...

One of the most bizarre one and out television shows that ever escaped from Hollywood was The Brady Bunch Hour, a bizarre variety show that was based on the classic ABC sitcom The Brady Bunch. Today, The Brady Bunch is known as a classic, ubiquitous sitcom, it was anything but during its initial run on ABC. The show was in constant fear of being canceled, ABC’s renewal decisions coming in at seemingly the last minute. Most of the show’s side projects, like the soundtrack albums and concert tours, were made to build the show’s visibility, not to take advantage of its success. The show’s biggest success came after it was canceled and entered syndication. The show was given the lucrative afterschool timeslot in most American television markets, and it was here that it became the legendary success that it is known for today.

Unfortunately for the young cast, however, that success translated to few dollars. While reruns were a thing in 1969 when the Brady kids signed their contracts, the idea of perpetual residuals was not. Paramount Television only paid the Brady kids residuals for the first six reruns. After that, they would receive no further remuneration. By 1976, residuals had dried up and most of the kids were unable to find further Hollywood work. The huge success that the show had garnered since its syndication run was definitely noticed by ABC executive Fred Silverman, who suggested that the sagging Donny and Marie variety show host a reunion of sorts for whichever Brady Bunch castmembers were willing to appear. The heavily hyped episode was a huge success. If ABC could mine ratings gold from just four Bradys, what magic might occur from a full fledged Brady spinoff variety show?

Just like formulaic disaster movies dominated the box office in the 1970’s, tacky variety shows dominated television. Featuring tacky, lavish music performances and lame ‘comedy’ sketches, these variety shows were all over television at the time. One of the tackiest, lamest shows was Donny and Marie, a show produced by Sid and Marty Krofft for ABC. Donny and Marie’s strict Mormon parents controlled most every aspect of the show. Sid and Marty Krofft were eager to create their own hit show from scratch, one completely controlled by them. That’s why they were completely receptive when Fred Silverman asked them to quickly setup a new variety show featuring the Bradys. In fact, both ABC and the Kroffts were so excited about getting this new show off the ground, they completely neglected to get permission from either Paramount or original Brady Bunch creator Sherwood Schwartz. Would this prove to be a big problem? Would they get the entire family to come back for this ambitious project? Oddly enough, these would eventually be the least of their worries.