The Bradys

''The Bradys'' is an American comedy-drama television 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 1981 sitcom '' The Brady Brides''.

Airing on Friday nights, ''The Bradys'' failed in the ratings against ''Full House'' and ''Family Matters'' as part of the TGIF lineup on ABC and was canceled after one month; the last of the six episodes produced aired on March 9, 1990. In its short run, the show went through three different theme songs based on that of ''The Brady Bunch'', the last featuring revised lyrics sung by Florence Henderson.

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's and Nora's son
*Michael Melby as Mickey Logan, Marcia's and Wally's son
*Jaclyn Bernstein as Jessica Logan, Marcia's and Wally's daughter
*Valerie Ick as Patty Covington, Jan's and Philip's adopted daughter from Korea

Influence and casting

In 1988, CBS commissioned a ''Brady Bunch'' reunion telefilm for its Christmas season programming. ''A Very Brady Christmas'' premiered on December 18, 1988 and drew a 25.1 rating and 39 share, very high ratings for a television film at the time. 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'' 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 roles from ''The Brady Bunch''. Jerry Houser and Ron Kuhlman, also, reprised their roles from ''The Brady Brides''. While Maureen McCormick had appeared in ''A Very Brady Christmas'', she declined to return for this series, and Leah Ayres assumed the role of Marcia.

Style

''The Bradys'' involved more dramatic storytelling than that which viewers had seen in the previous ''Brady'' series. 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.
* Greg is now an obstetrician, is married to a nurse name Nora, and have a son together, named Kevin (played by Jonathan Taylor Thomas).
* Bobby's budding auto-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.
* Marcia, a stay-at-home mother, battles alcoholism while Wally loses yet another in a series of jobs, the latest being as Mike's campaign manager. Wally and Marcia, who have been forced to move in with Mike and Carol along with their two children, open a 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 dramatic tone, the show did include a laugh track.

Cancellation

The show was put on hiatus with plans to continue sometime later in the year, but production never resumed and ''The Bradys'' was quietly canceled after six episodes had aired. Following the premiere, which had semi-decent ratings, the show was among CBS' lowest-watched each week until its cancellation, only once outperforming another network primetime show, an episode of ''Tour of Duty''. At the time, it was thought that the audience was simply unwilling to accept the sitcom characters in a more dramatic setting. The situation was further complicated by the show's time slot. When ''The Bradys'' launched, CBS placed it in the 8:00 p.m. slot on Friday nights, making it the third show of the season to lead off the network's Friday lineup; the other two, ''Snoops'' and ''Max Monroe: Loose Cannon'', both flopped. At the time CBS’ Friday night lineup also consisted of the serial dramas ''Dallas'' and ''Falcon Crest'', both of which had been on the network for years but had in recent seasons seen a precipitous ratings decline.

The network placed the show against the comedy hits ''Full House'' and ''Family Matters'',
which comprised the first half of ABC's Friday night ''TGIF'' lineup. 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 and the producers believed a change could be beneficial. CBS, however, was not willing to disrupt its schedule to accommodate the producers’ request in spite of the continued struggles of the Friday lineup as a whole; ''Dallas'' would eventually finish outside the Top 30 in the Nielsen ratings for the first time since its first full season while the ratings for ''Falcon Crest'' dropped so low that CBS cancelled the series at the end of the 1989-90 season. Oddly enough, CBS would move ''Dallas'' ahead one hour as the producers for ''The Bradys'' had wished they would; the move, however, was made after the series was cancelled.

This would prove to be Robert Reed's final role of any significance. He fell ill in 1991, suffering from a combination of colon and bladder cancer that was exacerbated by his development of HIV, and died in May 1992.

Episodes

Notes
*"Start Your Engines" and "Here We Grow Again" were later repackaged as a two-hour movie titled ''The Brady 500''.
*"A Moving Experience" and "Hat in the Ring" were later repackaged as a two-hour movie titled ''The Bradys on the Move''.
*"Bottom's Up" and "The Party Girls" were later repackaged as a two-hour movie titled ''Big Kids, Big Problems''.

Home media

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 box set issued by CBS Home Entertainment and Paramount Home Entertainment.

In 2019, the series was released on DVD as a part of ''The Brady-est Brady Bunch TV & Movie Collection''.

References

External links

*

''Brady World'' – episode guide

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bradys, The
The Brady Bunch
1990 American television series debuts
1990 American television series endings
1990s American comedy-drama television series
CBS original programming
English-language television shows
Fictional families
American sequel television series
Television series about families
Television series by CBS Studios
Television series created by Sherwood Schwartz
Television shows set in Los Angeles