La famiglia Brady

Ok, so it may be predictable and corny. However it is one of the few things that come into our home via that cable in the wall that my wife and I can let our young son watch without worry. He thinks the Bradys are "new" and laughs at every episode. By the way, if you don't like it, don't watch it. That's what remote controls are for.

This is a sitcom from the 1970's that is based on an unlikely premise but nevertheless makes good family viewing...fun, heartwarming, and entertaining escapist drivel. The story revolves around a blended family originating when the widowed California architect, Mike Brady, marries a lovely lady, Carol, who is herself a single mom raising three daughters. Mike's three boys, Greg, Peter, & Bobby, originally range in age from 7 to 13. Carol's girls, Marcia, Jan, & Cindy, vary from age 6 to 12. By the series' end all the kids are basically teenagers. Meanwhile, the six offspring in this new combined family together experience assorted growing up trials, sibling rivalry, school issues, dating woes, and family vacations. Also included in the Brady family is their comical live-in housekeeper named Alice.

Of course it isn't exactly a likely scenario, the blending of so many children (including teenagers) more probably fraught with major serious challenges. Here the family is both relatively affluent and very functional, with any difficulties quite trivial and always amusingly solved within the half hour. Not only do these six kids have a stay at home mom but also the benefit of the affable & amusing Alice to help sort things out for them. Furthermore, the former spouses prove to be no problem. The boys experience no prolonged grief for their birth mother, Mike's first wife. It isn't clear whether Carol is divorced but in any case, her first husband seems conveniently out of the picture. The kids immediately assume all appropriate parental and fraternal bonds with their step people.

However, the show's essential positive values more than compensate for all these inadequacies, with sitcoms generally not intended to be unduly realistic anyway. True, the Bradys live a prosperous California lifestyle in a Los Angeles suburb, the parents are invariably patient and caring, and the kids sometimes even get to choose their own punishments. Nevertheless, these Brady kids are respectful of their parents, who are assumed to know more than their children (not the reverse). They are disciplined when they go astray, taught concepts of right and wrong, and generally expected to live up to them. All in sharp contrast to prevailing modern TV standards.

I haven't really watched the show in re runs though would still tune in now and then, if given the opportunity. Therefore it's been awhile, so I don't recall many specific episodes. The Bradys are definitely an idealized average American middle class family. However, it's a carefree, innocent, and light hearted program, improbable but with good values.

I always wanted to be a Brady. I could see myself flying down

that staircase in the morning to be handed my school lunch in a

brown paper bag by Florence Henderson. I thought the house

could manage 7 kids as easily as 6. That was my dream and my

aspiration. The thing was, I identified very strongly with

that show. I knew it was lame brained, even when I was the

same age as the youngest of the Brady kids. I also knew that

its heart was in the right place and it represented to me,

everything that I did not have. Of course, I was living in the

REAL world, and that is not always easy to take. Nearly 30

years later, I have fond feelings towards this series and

occasionally can be seen watching the inevitable reruns. Many

people feel the same as I do, I'm sure, so they must have done

something right.

Yes, the Bradys are corny, cheesy, tacky, etc. I LOVE them! I always liked Cindy the most out of all of them for some reason. The first few seasons were the best, but the show took a huge dive once Cousin Oliver showed up (he looked exactly like a pint-sized clone of John Denver). My favourite episodes are the Pilgrim episode, the one where Marcia gets hit in the nose with the football ("something suddenly came up"), and where Greg gets a used car. Where would pop culture be without the Bradys?

I love this series! I don't really care that it's hopelessly unrealistic, at least the whole family can watch it and you don't have to be concerned that something's going to crop-up on it that's unfit for your kids to see. Not one swear word, nothing! This was a family that was perfect, where no one ever stayed angry with one another, the parents loved each other and the kids and the kids loved and respected the parents! And of course there was the perfect Maid!

I laugh when people put this down for being "unrealistic." What about ever-popular shows like "The Andy Griffith Show"? Was THAT realistic?!

I love everything about the glory that was the Brady Bunch: the silly situations, the colorful clothes, everything! I wish they made stuff like this now! I watch the reruns whenever I can, and I've bought two of the books about it, too!

I WISH I COULD HAVE BEEN A BRADY BOY!!!