All language subtitles for TV.We.Love.S01E02.1080p.WEB.h264-EDITH_track3_[eng]

[narrator]
The golden age of television.

I Love Lucy didn't just
change American television,

it invented
American television.

[narrator]
Back when one screen

brought everyone together.

Watching television
was a family event.

[narrator]
The shows that shaped us.

[Gary] The Brady Bunch
was part of the American soul.

It's timeless.

[narrator] The familiar faces.

[man] Ralph Kramden
was loved on The Honeymooners.

Pow, right in the kisser!

He was a presence.

[narrator]
The unforgettable moments.

[Jeff]
Dynasty captured the essence

of what the 1980s
were about in America.

[narrator]
These are their stories.

[Jeff]
Cheers is the pinnacle

of how great
the sitcom can be.

[narrator] This is TV We Love.

[narrator] 1969 was a landmark
year in American history.

Life changing events
like the moon landing.

[Armstrong]
That's one small step for man,

one giant leap for mankind.

[Jim] Woodstock, injustices
such as the Vietnam War.

[Eisenhower] If we simply
abandoned our effort in Vietnam,

it would enormously
increase the danger.

[narrator] And then,
the family we all know and love,

the Bradys.

Well, here's the story.

[narrator] Over the course
of several decades,

The Brady Bunch became a part

of the fabric
of American culture.

Porkchops and applesauce.

There were a lot of fans
that wanted every part of us.

30 million households
were watching The Brady Bunch.

[narrator] The Bradys redefined
what a sitcom could be.

Hey, you guys.

Oh, my nose!

Marcia, Marcia, Marcia.

[Jeff] A blended family
hadn't been seen

on American television
before this.

The Brady Bunch saw America
before America saw itself.

[pleasant music playing]

[Hope]
I remember when my dad

first had the idea
for The Brady Bunch.

It was during breakfast
and he was reading a paper.

And there was a little filler
in the newspaper that said,

for every married couple
that gets together

that have had previous
husband and wife,

they bring children
into the marriage.

And he said,
"Wow, that's a series."

It was an immediate show
in my head, immediate.

Sherwood Schwartz
actually understood

what was happening
in America.

Divorce was
much more prevalent.

So, he immediately ran
to the Writers Guild

and registered
the idea for The Brady Bunch.

My fear was that
everybody, every writer

would look at that
little article and realize

that a sociological phenomenon

was occurring
in the United States.

Sherwood Schwartz had done this
show called Gilligan's Island.

Very successful show.

And so did he expect
The Brady Bunch to sell? Yes.

[Hope] And he took it
to all the networks

and they all said, "No."

The idea of a blended family

hadn't been seen
on American television

in any real way before this.

And I think that's what scared
a lot of networks away.

Divorce, even as late
as the mid-60s,

was still kind of
a verboten thing on TV.

Because the conventional
wisdom was that

the audience
wouldn't accept divorcees.

And there certainly
was a conservative element

who wanted to see things
more wholesome

and family-oriented
and more hearkening back

to the '50s and to simpler times
as they thought.

But then
Yours, Mine, and Ours came out.

[Helen]
I have eight children.

Eight children?

I have ten children.

[Helen] Ten?

Yours, Mine, and Ours
was a movie

with Lucille Ball
and Henry Fonda.

And it also
combined families.

That was a true story
of somebody

with eight kids and ten kids
marrying each other

so they had 18 kids,
which is nuts.

[Hope] It was
a very successful movie.

My dad's version at that point
was called Yours and Mine.

And that was something
that everybody thought

Dad was going to be
upset about.

And he ended up thinking, "Nope,
I think this is going to help."

The network said, "We have that
show that Sherwood pitched us."

There seems to be an audience
for this kind of fare.

He was waiting for the phone
to start ringing and it did.

[Sherwood] The movie had done
my pilot for me.

So ABC called me and said,

"Hey, okay,
we'll do it your way."

[upbeat music playing]

Because the two titles
are so similar,

ABC executives
were worried about that as well.

And so Yours and Mine
or any form of that title

is not going to work,
so he retitled it.

The Brady Bunch
wasn't the original title.

It's hard to believe.

When I first heard
about this show,

it wasn't called
The Brady Bunch.

When I got the first script,
I believe

"Bradleys"
was on the cover page.

It might have been
Bradley at one point.

But as I recall,
it was Brady

and Brady Brood,
which just seemed heavy.

He originally wanted
to call it The Brady Bunch.

But the network said
at that time,

"bunch" was used for war movies,
it was used for westerns.

Everybody I knew
voted for "bunch."

They thought
it was a funnier word.

It was a better word.

And it's funny now
because "bunch,"

because of Brady Bunch,
is warm.

Everybody thinks of, you know,

a "bunch,"
how cute that is.

So Sherwood Schwartz
had his pilot script.

The first thing he did
was set about casting the kids.

[Barry] Everybody who had
ever thought about

being on television was being
considered for this thing.

Sherwood spent hours
and hours and hours

and saw hundreds of kids
for these roles.

[Eve] And they essentially
had a sound stage

and they had tons of children
grouped into age groups

and hair color groups.

He actually cast
two sets of kids.

He cast blonde boys
and blonde girls

and brunette boys
and brunette girls

because he wanted
the hair colors of the girls

to match the mother
and he wanted the hair colors

of the boys
to match the father.

There are three blonde boys
who could have been

and three dark-haired girls
who could have been.

There was one kid
that was on both lists

and that was
Mike Lookinland.

Well, I just
walked in the other room

to toot my kazoo

because I like to walk
when I toot.

I do know for a fact
that Bobby Brady

was not
a dark-haired little boy

and they actually
dyed his hair

because they
wanted him so badly.

Some seasons his hair
looked darker than others.

Season one,
it was a little Dracula,

but that's only
in hindsight.

I bought it hook, line,
and sinker for years.

He's too good
a selection to dismiss

because his hair
wasn't the right color.

What's wrong
with the hair of red?

Most importantly,
he wanted kids

that were real kids.

They're not
show business kids.

He didn't want kid actors.

He wanted kids who could act.

That's very different.

He got that kid because
I wasn't an actor at all.

I mean, I barely
could speak, so...

My dad was extremely
enthusiastic about Susan Olsen.

When Susan Olsen came in
and was laser-focused on Dad,

she talked about a show
that she had just done

where she got
to ride a horse.

It just charmed my dad.

She said that, "I was
on an episode of Gunsmoke."

I didn't have to go any further.

I've been practicing.
Now, I speak really swell.

I mean,
Cindy, you just look

and you just
fall in love with her.

Please, Daddy,
don't interrupt my hersel.

Hersel?

That's actor talk.

Sherwood wanted
the older boy to be a guy

who had a take-charge attitude,

a leader, and that's
what led to Barry Williams.

I can remember when I heard
about getting to part.

It was a Friday,
it was my 14th birthday.

September 30th.
I was just thrilled.

That's why I think
you should elect me

President
of the Student Body.

Thank you.

My favorite
character on the show,

gotta go with Alice.

I just adored her.

Alice, the housekeeper,
is a really important element

of The Brady Bunch,
she's really the comic relief.

[Kate]
Alice was my favorite.

She said, "Oh,
that's my two-way stretch.

I think
it just went three ways."

That's my two-way stretch.
I think it just went three ways.

Ann B. Davis and Alice
were certainly

willing to be
the brunt of the joke.

-Now be careful.
-I've done this a lot.

-Where?
-At YWCA.

[Ann]
I wish I had an Alice.

Everybody I've ever met
wished they had an Alice,

including Alice.

The original choice
for Carol Brady

was a very great comedic actress
named Joyce Bulifant.

I went in with the children,
and they would put them

next to me to see
if the girls looked like me.

[Hope] But the network wanted
Florence Henderson,

and my dad actually
wanted her, too,

because she was wonderful.

What's wrong?

Oh, nothing,
nothing at all.

Aha, that's the
kind of nothing

that bothers me the most.

[Florence] I became sort of
the stability of the show,

and I think Sherwood saw that,

that I could be very funny,
but I could also

bring the empathy necessary
for a show like that to make it.

Jan, you're not
in anybody's shadow.

Marcia's three years
older than you.

She should have more
to show for herself.

I've heard Gene Hackman

was a definite possibility
for Mike Brady.

Talk about a missed opportunity,
Gene Hackman.

And can you imagine
being the network executive

when Gene Hackman suddenly
becomes a huge movie star,

has to say, "I turned him
down to be a Brady."

The studio and the network
had Robert Reed,

who had just come off
The Defenders

and had a very nice
following from that show.

Judy, I think
you better call my father.

Tell him
I'm at the DA's office

and tell him
I'm in a bit of trouble.

They wanted him
to be Mr. Brady.

I remember the screen tests,
and I watched all of them,

and I thought that
Robert Reed was a little stiff.

Even though he's only been
my dad for a short time,

no father could be a realer
father than Michael Brady.

The casting of Robert Reed
was easier for the studio

because the studio
had a deal with Robert Reed.

They were paying him.

He was a New York-trained actor.

He was a wonderful
classical actor

and had done
a lot of theater.

So this was,
you know, somebody that,

you know,
had done serious work.

He really considered himself
a serious actor

and didn't really think
that this show

would be right for him.

Sherwood gave me the plot of it,
and it sounded wonderful.

He put it together with
statistics of broken families,

and so I said,
it's going to be comedic,

but not, you know,
it's going to be lifelike.

Then I got
the script of it,

and it was
one gag line to another.

I thought, "This is,

well, I don't think
this has much of a chance."

But it did,
and he ended up

fighting with my dad
for the next six years.

♪ Here's the story ♪

[ The Brady Bunch
theme song playing]

♪ Here's the story ♪

♪ Of a lovely lady ♪

♪ Who was bringing up
three very lovely girls ♪

The '60s went out
with such a roar,

and here come
the Bradys in '69.

♪ It's the story
of a man named Brady ♪

♪ Who was busy
with three boys of his own ♪

[Hope]
My dad put together the lyrics,

and not that long ago,

when we got the piano
from my parents' house,

we opened the piano bench,
and there were handwritten

original lyrics
to The Brady Bunch.

Sherwood Schwartz was a real
proponent of the TV theme song,

and I think he had learned that
lesson with Gilligan's Island.

When he was trying to sell
Gilligan's Island to CBS,

the network executives were
worried people are going to

tune in to say to him,
"Who are these seven people?"

So he came up with this
sea chanty that he wrote.

♪ Just sit right back
and you'll hear a tale ♪

♪ A tale of a fateful trip ♪

♪ That started
from this tropic port ♪

♪ Aboard this tiny ship ♪

And it did what I said
had to be done

to avoid
the kind of exposition

that CBS felt would be necessary
to explain

why those seven people
were on the island.

[thunder rumbling]

♪ The weather started
getting rough ♪

♪ The tiny ship was tossed ♪

He knows how to tell
a story in a song,

and that's a skill.

♪ Here on Gilligan's Isle ♪

He applied that same lesson
to The Brady Bunch.

♪ All of them
had hair of gold ♪

♪ Like their mother ♪

♪ The youngest one in curls ♪

Except the last season
she had braids,

and so they had to curl
the bottom of the braids.

[laughing]

It's fantastic.

♪ They were four men ♪

♪ Living all together ♪

♪ Yet they were all alone ♪

Back then, you would be
hard-pressed to find somebody

who could not sing
the entire song

from start to finish.

It's a perfect encapsulation
of what the show is.

It's a story, and you know
exactly what the show's about.

♪ 'Til the one day
when the lady met this fellow ♪

♪ And they knew it was
much more than a hunch ♪

And he rhymed "bunch"
with "hunch."

"They knew that it was much
more than a hunch."

I said, "Why did you
put that in there?"

He said, "Well,
I needed a rhyme for 'bunch.'"

♪ That's the way we all became
The Brady Bunch ♪

I said, "But you can't
put that in there just because

you wanted
to put that in there.

He says,
"When you write a song

that's as successful as that,
talk to me about it."

♪ The Brady Bunch
The Brady Bunch ♪

As the show was starting
to go on,

it became that the kids
who became the stories

and the parents
overlooked them.

So in the second year,

we had the kids
sing the song.

"That's the way
we became The Brady Bunch."

♪ That's the way we all became
The Brady Bunch ♪

♪ The Brady Bunch
The Brady Bunch ♪

Boy, if I didn't know you were
gonna give me a free record,

I'd offer to pay for one.

♪ That's the way we became ♪

♪ The Brady Bunch ♪

But then how that song
was visually manifest,

the way they animated,
actual pictures of the actors,

and then the two
come together with the lyrics,

absolutely brilliantly done.

One day,
I came into the living room,

and Dad
was at the bridge table

drawing a diagram
of how he could get nine people

into boxes at the beginning
and could see their faces.

There was something about
the symmetry of The Brady Bunch

that was very
satisfying as a child.

Three blonde girls
with three brunette boys,

Mom and Dad
both blonde and brunette.

And then there was Alice,

you know,
balancing out the 9th square.

Fantastic, right?

Filming those credits
was probably

one of the most
uncomfortable things of all

that we had to do because
there's really nothing to do

but be on a chair
and look around.

Insidiously difficult.

You don't know
what you're doing.

Nobody's really
describing to you

clearly what you're doing.

So someone would say,
"And down."

And you'd go, down.

"Look up."
Okay, don't look that far up.

"Bottom right." And you go...

and pretend to be making,
you know, contact with Cindy.

And then I'd look over here,
and they'd go,

"No, no,
Alice is not in there yet.

Okay, right. [chuckling]

They weren't really even sure

where we were gonna be
in those boxes.

I think the first season,
we were both looking this way,

Ann, I mean, like Peter...

looks right,
I believe, right?

To the successful launch
of Project Brady Bunch.

Here, here.

In the premiere episode
of The Brady Bunch,

we get to see the family
actually come together.

Now it's just the beginning.
For both of us.

Uh-uh. For all of us.

The whole blooming
Brady Bunch.

[Jim]
And then we see the wedding

of Carol Martin and Mike Brady.

Looks like it would have been
a lovely affair

had Fluffy the Cat
and Tiger the Dog

not triggered a chase
that culminated

in the wedding cake
sliding off the table.

Oh, Mike, thank goodness
you saved the cake!

-Oh!
-Oh, Mike!

So it underscores
the theme of the show,

that this is a family
that's only complete

when they're together,
because Carol and Mike

then schlep all the way home
and pick up the kids

and Alice to go
on their honeymoon.

It's a honeymoon for eight.

You mean a honeymoon
for nine, Mommy.

-You mean a honeymoon for ten.
-[cat meows]

-Fluffy!
-[dog barking]

-Tiger!
-Eleven.

-Don't forget Alice!
-That makes 12!

In a sense, The Brady Bunch
was the original modern family.

It is sort of a nuclear family,

but it's a nuclear
blended family.

And it's really one
of the first blended families

that we all got
comfortable with.

You know, the only negative
thing about the show

really was the fact that Bob
and Sherwood did not get along.

Robert Reed tried to get fired
several times in the first year.

He fought with my dad
about every little detail.

He was very picky
and very insistent

that if it didn't match
what he felt was logical,

he was going to make
a scene about it.

I remember
the strawberry jam instance.

-Hey, what's cooking?
-Oh, hi, honey.

Alice and I are making

strawberry preserves
for the charity auction.

[Hope] Robert Reed was supposed
to walk into the room

and say, "Smells like
strawberry heaven in here."

Let me put it this way.

Yes?

"Strawberries, when
they're cooking, have no odor,

so I refuse
to do that line."

They had to rewrite the line.

I do believe I've died
and gone to strawberry heaven.

You have Sherwood Schwartz
is a joke writer

and a television sitcom writer,

and Robert Reed coming from
classically trained acting,

and it's oil water.

Robert Reed was a stickler
for accuracy about everything,

which sometimes
gets in the way of comedy.

I can see both sides of it,
because, you know,

when you go into a show,

you don't know that
it's going to become iconic.

All you know is
this is the job you have.

He wasn't trying
to be obnoxious.

It wasn't in him to not find
the core of the reality.

You know,
I'd have to go every so often,

"Bob, this is comedy.

This is not Shakespeare."

You know, it's a situation
comedy for television.

[Christopher]
But he was a loving dad.

That's how he treated us.

There might have been issues
with him and Sherwood.

That all happened sort of
out of earshot from us.

It's not
a silly show, really.

There are silly
moments in it,

but there are real
family connections,

which, you know,
he took seriously.

I sympathize with him,
because here he is,

the father of America,

and he can't come
out of the closet.

[Florence] He's a very proud
man, a wonderful actor,

and a wonderful human being,
and who happened to be gay.

And none of us ever cared.

It was not an issue.

It was just not--
Wasn't important.

Well, you have a soft heart.
Lips to match.

My goodness,
aren't we affectionate tonight?

Not just tonight, every night.

Because I love you, darling.

[laughter]

Robert Reed, I think,
was in a tough position.

He was playing this more
wholesome than wholesome guy

in an era where being gay

was considered
a shameful secret.

Then to go to the fame
of being America's perfect dad,

that everybody thought
he had all the answers,

I think there's a growing
dissonance between the actor

and the character
that makes it tough.

Our show was slow
to find its audience.

Brady Bunch was reviewed
as the worst show of the year.

The show was okay,
but that's all it was.

And then
there was a question about

a pickup for a second year.

And it was never
a critical hit,

because it was considered
so juvenile.

Of course,
the nature of our show

was bigger than life,
it was exaggerated.

The situations were comedic.

Hence, sitcom.

Looks like I'm the one
who's the goat wreck, Al.

[goat bleating]

You can say that again.

[goat bleating]

This is television
back when we used to call it

the boob tube
and the idiot box.

And I'm not saying these shows
were idiotic or whatever.

They did what they did
brilliantly.

This is the sitcom
at its absolute sitcom-iest.

Alice.

I know, I know,
I forgot one little thing.

-I don't know how to drive.
-[laughter]

My father really didn't care
what the critics said

as long as the people
loved it.

During their original run,
they weren't a ratings hit.

That doesn't mean that there
weren't millions of people,

particularly kids,
who were rabid for the show.

A lot of people ended up
seeing themselves

in this blended family
in a way that probably

network executives
never expected.

We first became aware
of the kind of impact

and the enormous
viewership that we had

when we would go
outside the soundstage.

30 million households
were watching The Brady Bunch.

All of a sudden it's like
you're being stared at.

[Barry] When we went
to Cincinnati's Kings Island,

we really got a taste
of what was going on.

That is the heartland
of America.

They're the people
that were keeping us on the air

There were a lot of fans
that wanted every part of us.

I mean, hair can get pulled,
costumes can get ripped.

[Christopher]
And then all of a sudden,

there becomes
this need for security.

We're just staying in a hotel,
and if fans wanted to come

into the hotel and knock
on your door, they could.

[kids chanting]
One, two, three, kick!

Hey, you kids,
what are you doing there?

[boy] Uh, cleaning the garage!

-[girl] Yeah!
-[laughter]

In that period
of time as well,

there became
this desire to make us

into a singing
and dancing group.

♪ I think
I'll go for a walk outside ♪

♪ Now the summer sun's
calling my name ♪

When the Brady kids
started to sing,

we were so excited.

♪ Everybody's smiling,
sunshine day ♪

And the songs were weird
and wonderful and catchy.

♪ Sha na na na na na na na na ♪

♪ Sha na na na na ♪

♪ When it's time to change ♪

-♪ It's time to change ♪
-Yep?

You got the choreography down!

I'm a super fan!

[cheering and applause]

Terrific!

The house was as much
a character as the people in it.

It's very famous.

Dad himself found
the outside of the house,

just driving around,
and he said, "That's the house."

[Barry] We call the house
the tenth character

because it was
so significant.

But it was not
where they shot the show.

They only used
the exteriors.

We shot at Paramount Studios,
stage five.

A couple of years ago,
HGTV renovated the house

to look inside the way

everybody in America
remembered it.

It's surreal.

You're just walking
straight into an episode.

I was lucky enough
to see it in person,

and I kind of lost my mind.

It's kind of the best
experience of my life.

When I first
walked through that door,

I felt like
I was coming home.

[jittery music playing]

The Brady staircase is iconic.

You saw the staircase,

you know exactly what show
you're watching.

Come on, you guys! Hurry up.

You're going
to be late for school!

Greg was hogging the bathroom
all morning!

There are six kids
in two bedrooms.

Why the hell were six children
crammed into two small rooms?

That's the big
burning question we all have.

Don't get me started,
Mike was an architect,

and this is the house.

And one bathroom.

[Kate] The girls would fight
with the boys

for space in the bathroom.

The focus really was on the kids
and their lives.

This is too
a part of the genius

of Lloyd Schwartz
and Sherwood Schwartz both.

The way to keep us connected

to what we were doing here
was to let us be kids.

Any of you monsters
want a hot dog?

-Thanks, Alice.
-Thanks, Alice.

-Hm-mm.
-Thanks, Alice.

[Lloyd] And Dad said,
"I want you to be

in charge of those kids."

I basically
would look at the show

from the kid's point of view,

and Dad would have
the point of view

of the adult's point of view.

I mean, I love Lloyd,
he was like an older brother.

He was a big kid himself.

You know where Marge is?

She's the girl
at the football booth

who's filling in
for her brother.

Oh, yeah, she's inside
the employees' area.

I just treated it
a little bit like summer camp.

I just wanted them
to be kids,

which caused problems later on
for me and for them.

You know,
there's a lot of waiting around,

and, you know,
what do you do?

Well, adventure, right?

I mean,
it's Paramount Studios.

[chuckles] Let's go!

♪

I got a call
from the president

of the studio,
"What's the deal?"

"Well, the kids
were all running around."

And he said, "You know,
you can't have them do this.

They're very
expensive property."

And that just put
my hackles up, and I said,

"They're not property,
they're kids.

That's what kids do."

And he said, "You're not
going to change that?"

I said, "No, I'm not
going to change that.

If you want it done
any differently,

you're going to
have to fire me."

Well, he didn't.
It was pretty ballsy.

[Barry] Lloyd, to his credit,
and Sherwood

both made sure
the studio wouldn't intervene,

and they let us go,
and we had a ball.

Robert Reed gave us
all Super 8 movie cameras.

I took it everywhere.

[Lloyd] As they started
getting older, my challenge was,

in some ways,
to keep them off of one another.

This is my room
and I'm not budging.

And I say it's my room,
and I'm not budging.

[Lloyd] The episode I directed
was called "Room at the Top,"

and there was a scene
where Barry

came into Maureen's room,
and she's sitting there,

and he sits down
on the bed next to her.

Hey, uh, wait a minute.
[scoffs]

I didn't mean to make you cry.

I remember this scene.
I remember the day.

Lloyd discovered
that there might have been

a little bit too much attraction
between brother and sister.

Maureen McCormick
was very, very attractive.

I dare to say that
if you find anybody

who grew up
watching the shows,

their first crush
was probably Marcia Brady.

I remember being probably
most interested

in Maureen McCormick
at the time.

Especially as she grew up,

because we were
roughly the same age.

So I was, you know,
gravitated right to her,

and it was coming out
in our scenes together.

[laughs]
I'm sitting a little too close,

leaning in
a little too far.

And we finished the scene,

and it was
kind of like steam there.

[Barry] And he was right.
It's very hard to hide.

That's chemistry.

Lloyd was on the set,
and he pulled me aside

and said, "Good scene.

And I just want you
to keep in mind here

that she is your sister."

There were so many
iconic moments.

Marcia, Marcia, Marcia.

Well, all I hear
all day long at school

is how great
Marcia is at this

or how wonderful
Marcia did that.

Marcia, Marcia, Marcia.

Hey, you guys.
Oh, my nose!

Oh, my nose.

Who could love
the Brady Bunch

and not love
that episode, right?

Hi, Alice.
What's for dinner?

-Pork chops.
-Pork chops, huh?

So I was doing an impersonation
of Humphrey Bogart.

Pork chops and applesauce.

Ain't that swell?

That as a slogan, as,
you know, sort of your...

[laughs]
...the thing you're known by.

But those moments
become important

because the audience
determines that it is.

One of my favorite
Brady episodes

is when Jan
wants to be a cheerleader,

and she's terrible.

And she starts
practicing with the mops.

Down here, they're mops,
but up here, they're pom poms.

When asked,
each one of us,

what her favorite episode was,
we say "Hawaii."

-Where are we going?
-[kids shouting]

-Hawaii!
-Hawaii!

But it's not because
of the content of the episode.

It's just that
we were in Hawaii.

Never been to Hawaii,
so I had an image

of what it would be, and
the only image I had, though,

was of The Brady Bunch
visit to Hawaii.

Smile. Say belly button.

Belly button!

[Barry] We went to Hawaii,
and I got to surf

on Oahu in a restricted area
for those two days

when we were filming.

That was probably
nirvana for me.

The show ended up
being the victim of ratings.

When shows age, they age.

But shows with kids
tend to age faster.

In the fifth season,
the executives at Paramount

felt that the kids
were getting a little older,

and so it was time
to find a way

to bring in
a seventh Brady child.

We're gonna have
an addition to the family.

Greg Brady was about
to graduate high school,

and so we had to get
some youth into the show.

-Here we are.
-[Carol] Oliver!

-[kids] Hey, Oliver.
-[Carol] Oh, hi, honey.

And we knew Robbie Rist,

and we thought
he'd be perfect for this.

[laughter]

[Marcia] Oliver!

Now, I have to
apologize to Robbie

because he's considered
a syndrome,

you know, for shows
when they're in trouble.

It's become kind of
parlance in television that

when a show is getting old
and they start trying

to pull desperate tricks,
they're pulling a Cousin Oliver.

[Oliver] Better not
come near me, Aunt Carol.

Why not?

[Oliver]
Something bad will happen.

I'm a jinx.

[Christopher] By the fourth
and fifth season,

there wasn't really none of that
lesson stuff anymore,

and it got kind of caricaturish,
it got silly.

Are you friend or enemy?

Well, I'm a friend.
Welcome to Earth.

Earth?

Is that what they call
this planet?

What ended up
being our final episode,

Bobby's sent away
for a hair tonic.

-Bobby, not so much.
-It's all right.

Uses Greg as his guinea pig
and turns my hair orange.

Oh, no.

-[laughter]
-Orange?

Robert Reed did not find
that premise believable.

For some reason,
that of all things

made Robert Reed say,
"That is a line too far."

A tonic that turns hair orange?
I don't believe it.

I felt like,
well, how is this

less believable
than many of the other things?

Robert Reed is furious
at this whole thing

and writes a long
diatribe about this

and why such and such
and such and such.

"It can't happen.
It's got to be realistic."

Robert Reed refused
to do the show, period.

He went to his dressing room
and waited for Dad

to come and beg him
to be in the show.

And Dad didn't do that.

Dad immediately
rewrote the script

and took Robert Reed
out of the whole episode.

Oh, Greg, you made me so proud
of graduating with honors.

Too bad your father was out
of town and had to miss it.

He really threw a stink,
he kind of just stood around

and stuck his tongue out
at people from behind the camera

and distracted the cast
for the rest of the day.

So Paramount said to me,

we will send
two guards down

and carry him off the stage

if that's the only way
to get him off the stage.

I said, no way.

Not in front of those kids.

The whole show
is about getting along

and this was a real good
example of not getting along.

So, it was uncomfortable
and unfamiliar,

really, for us
and I think unfortunate.

And it was said
that should the show come back

for a sixth season,
it would have a new dad.

I mean,
Bob Reed was such a pain

that Paramount recognized it

and ABC recognized it
and authorized me,

if the show were to continue,
to replace him.

I don't know how well America
would have accepted that though

because we love
Robert Reed as Mike Brady.

But we never had to find out

because the show ended up
being canceled.

[Lloyd] I remember
we were at a banquet

and the vice president
of Paramount came over to us

and said, "Well,
we fought the good fight."

And that's how we found out.
It was over.

It was a call
out of the blue.

And it was from a network
executive who explained to me

that he was there
with a bottle of scotch

and he wanted to let me know
that our show had been canceled.

I was completely
blindsided by it.

[Christopher] It was just
inglorious, I mean,

it's not like
there's a party.

It's not like
there's an ending.

It's just all of a sudden,
you break,

you're on hiatus
and you're never coming back.

I drove
to Paramount Studios

and went straight over
to my parking spot

and the nameplate
had been painted over.

[cackling]
My name was no longer there.

It was somebody else's.

That was when it hit me.

And nobody said goodbye
and I took it personally.

When the show was canceled
and a lot of people thought

that's the end of the Bradys.
[chuckles]

Everybody was so wrong.

The Brady Bunch
has been a lot of things,

but over isn't one of them.

The Brady Bunch
did not become a massive hit

until it hit syndication.

It's a rerun.
I'll tell you all about it.

The Brady Bunch
may have debuted on network TV

from 1969 to 1974,

but The Brady Bunch became
the grip on the soul

of a couple of generations
of Americans years after that.

When you go from being a show
that's only on

once a week
on a Friday night

to being a show
that's readily accessible

because when you come home
from school

it's right there
in that half hour,

that just opened up
the audience

to a whole
new generation of kids.

My sister and I,
we used to be able to tell you

what episode it was
before they opened their mouth.

The Brady Bunch
was part of the fabric

of the American soul.

Then, the Bradys continued on

in every possible
shape and form.

[announcer]
Ladies and gentlemen,

The Brady Bunch.

Right after the show ended,
they did this

Brady Bunch Variety Hour.

♪ You've got the cutest
little, baby face ♪

[Jim] Mike and Carol,
having been this normal

American mom and dad,
all of a sudden

they're doing a variety show
around a pool

and they're in sequined
outfits tap dancing.

-What?
-[Kate] It was almost like

somebody did too many drugs

and they made
too many weird decisions.

But that's just me.
I still loved it.

But yeah, it was woo.
It was out there.

So of all the derivations
of The Brady Bunch,

that's the one we never had
anything to do with.

I saw half of one.
Didn't make any sense.

You're a chicken.
I'm a rabbit.

-[scattered laughter]
-Why are we doing this?

And that was as much as I've
had anything to do with that.

I'm blamed for it a lot.

Why'd you do that
Brady Bunch Variety Hour?

I didn't do it.

We followed them
from then on.

We followed them
through the Brady Brides.

[narrator]
But what better beginning

than a double wedding
for two beautiful sisters,

Marcia and Jan.

We followed them through
a Christmas movie in 1988.

20 years ago,
Carol and you three girls

and I and you three boys

came together
and in time became one.

They were then ripe
for parodying

with The Brady Bunch
movies of the '90s.

Dad and I got together
and we realized

there's not really a movie there
unless we do it as a satire.

And I give Dad
a huge amount of credit

because we would be the first
people to satirize ourselves.

And so we wrote a satire
and it got a green light.

And then as what happens
in studios and things

and a new president came in
and she immediately

threw out our script.

[Lloyd] The new president
from Paramount came in.

She thought The Brady Bunch
was gonna be a hit

so she brought in
two other writers

who wrote it
as a vicious kind of satire.

Ours was an affectionate satire
and we resented that

and we got attorneys involved

and they said,
Paramount has the copyright.

They can do whatever they want,

except my clients
are individuals

and who plan on
going on every talk show

telling people
not to see this movie.

Which that got Paramount upset

and so they took
all of our notes

and turned it in basically
into the movie you saw.

If we don't raise $20,000
in one week we'll have to move.

Go to a new school.

Make new friends.

But Jan,
you don't have any friends.

When I read the script
I was kind of delighted to see

that they had put in
this twist on it

which was to leave
the Bradys trapped

in the '70s and everybody else
had moved forward.

I thought they were fun.
They were so well cast.

Shelley Long
was really great.

[Shelley] I knew about the show
but I didn't know the show

so I had to really learn
her character,

her movements, her voice.

-[laughter]
-Oh, Alice,

what would we do
without you?

There's two different versions
of Mike: mine and Robert Reed.

Mine is a total with love

and with the tip of the cap,
a total satire.

[Kate] Christine Taylor
was an amazing Marcia Brady.

Dinner's ready!
Oh, my nose!

Now, I'll never be
a teen model!

Everybody in that cast,
they were really great.

Sure, Jan.

Do you know who'd love
to hear about this?

-[Bradys] Grandma!
-Hey!

[overlapping shouting]

We knew that
Mike was widowed.

Carol Brady
was Carol Martin,

we knew that
before she got married

but we never really heard
what had happened

to Mr. Martin,
the girl's father.

This is a big question.

Was she divorced?
Was she widowed?

Well, it turns out
we find out from the movies

that Carol
was indeed a divorcee

and that her husband,
Roy Martin, was still alive.

I'm looking for Carol Brady.
My name's Roy Martin.

I'm her husband.

And when he came
into the movies,

he was played by Tim Matheson,
who ironically

was one of the actors
from Yours, Mine, and Ours.

Back in 1990 in Chicago,

two sisters
put Brady episodes on stage

and they had a bunch
of Second City actors

do the show with the music
and not change a thing.

♪ 'Til the one day
when the lady met this fellow ♪

♪ And they knew that
it was much more than a hunch ♪

It was a huge hit immediately.

I mean, people were
lining up down the street.

I'm ready to tell you
a damn joke.

-A telegram?
-[laughter]

The first Greg Brady when we did
the show was Steve Carell.

Mrs. Brady was Jane Lynch.

Oh Martha, I've got to go.

Yeah, Mike just called me.
I think something's burning.

So I was Jane's understudy,
Mrs. Brady's understudy,

and then eventually
I got to take over as Alice

for almost a year, and we would
change episodes every week.

It was kind of a way
to share something together

that had not really
happened in that way.

[cheering and applause]

There are phrases
that went into our lexicon

that come from that show,
and certainly moments.

So, many visuals and phrases

that really are stuck
in our minds for decades,

and I think
will continue to be,

and are still parodied today
in pop culture.

♪ Here's the story
of a man named Brady ♪

Marcia, Marcia, Marcia.

-Jan, this isn't about you.
-It never is!

♪ That's the way we all
became The Marvel Bunch ♪

There are literally
chemical changes that happen

when that nostalgic vibe
is touched.

We started all those
years ago, more than 50,

and the heart light
still goes on.

This show
has a life of its own.

The Brady family
is a part of Americana.

The ideas and the themes
that were explored

on The Brady Bunch
are timeless,

and the morality
of the show is timeless.

There's a good message
in this Brady thing,

and apparently a lot of America
and the world

needed it as well, and that was
their attraction to it.

But I think the legacy is more
one of childhood memories

of spending time with people
who saw our problems

and solved them and made us feel
like ours were solvable.

The Brady Bunch saw America
before America saw itself.

It had so many of the great
themes we all live with.

Sibling rivalry,
blended families,

loving mom and dad
at the center.

It was so relatable.

If I happen to be
flipping channels

and it's on, I'll probably
watch the whole thing.

I can't help it.
It's like an old friend.

♪