Forty years in the past at this time—Friday, February 6, 1981—all the forged of The Brady Bunch quietly got here collectively for one final full-family reunion. It was a second that might show to be each an ending and a starting for tv’s most well-known blended clan.
That reunion arrived within the type of The Brady Women Get Married, a made-for-TV undertaking that aired over three Friday nights in 1981. Whereas it’s usually remembered as a curiosity within the sprawling Brady canon, the particular holds a novel distinction: it stays the one time all 9 unique forged members appeared collectively in a single undertaking after the unique sequence resulted in 1974.
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The undertaking was conceived as a two-hour NBC tv film centered on the double wedding ceremony of eldest daughters Marcia (Maureen McCormick) and Jan (Eve Plumb). However because the Related Press reported on the time, the community’s plans shifted repeatedly and dramatically. NBC govt Fred Silverman finally determined to not air the movie as a single film in any respect, as a substitute dividing it into weekly half-hour installments. What started as a standalone occasion all of a sudden turned a three-week tv experiment—and, by the fourth week, a backdoor pilot.
That pilot turned The Brady Brides, a short-lived spin-off targeted on the newly married {couples} performed by McCormick, Plumb, Jerry Houser and Ron Kuhlman. Ann B. Davis returned as housekeeper Alice, whereas Florence Henderson appeared prominently through the wedding ceremony episodes earlier than transitioning to occasional visitor appearances.
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Behind the scenes, nevertheless, the reunion was far much less celebratory than it appeared onscreen. In his memoir “Rising Up Brady,”Barry Williams recalled that most of the former little one actors initially resisted returning to Bradyland in any respect. By the early Eighties, the healthful picture that when made the present a success had develop into knowledgeable burden.
“All of us children had spent years attempting to maneuver ahead in our careers and reside down the entire ‘Brady Bunch’ stigma,” Williams wrote, describing a second when being a Brady was “now not thought of cool — it had now develop into downright embarrassing.”
Nonetheless, monetary realities and studio strain gained out. “When Paramount selected to get ‘persuasive’ ($$$), each one in every of us caved and re-enlisted,” Williams admitted. The end result was a reunion that, in hindsight, stands as a closing chapter for the unique forged.
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Williams famous that a number of different Brady revivals have been incomplete: Plumb skipped The Brady Bunch Selection Hour, Susan Olsen missed A Very Brady Christmas, and McCormick would later exit The Bradys. The Brady Women Get Married marked the one time all 9 returned collectively—together with Robert Reed, who reportedly insisted throughout contract negotiations that “no person goes to offer my Brady women away however me.”
The particular aired over three consecutive Friday nights, carried out strongly in early rankings, and shortly advanced right into a weekly sequence. However The Brady Brides would final simply 13 episodes earlier than cancellation, one other transient rise and fall within the Brady household saga.
4 many years later, The Brady Women Get Married stands as the ultimate second of unity for one in every of tv’s most enduring casts.
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