A Very Brady Christmas

All right folks, like Howard Beale said in Network, I am mad as hell and want to speak my mind. WHAT DO SO MANY PEOPLE HAVE AGAINST THE BRADY BUNCH!!!!! I have never in my life seen a tv show so unjustly maligned and ridiculed. All right, it didn't show life the way it was...but it showed life the way we wished it could be. Haven't all of us wished that we could be like the Bradys? Haven't all of us wished that we could live in a better world where families were warm and loving and kind to each other and stuck together and solved their problems thru the power of love? Haven't all of us wished in today's troubled times that there was a better world beyond this one? Where the worst problems were Marcia hogging the bathroom or Greg's hair turning green or Jan worrying her braces made her look silly. When this tv film came out in the Christmas of 1988, a tv guide reviewer said that it was a good reason to spend Christmas overseas! You SOB how dare you say that! I say thank God for The Brady Bunch. I watched that wonderful show as a child and I say with no shame whatsoever that I still enjoy it as an adult! Its like watching old friends! This is a wonderful film that is as fine as Its A Wonderful Life to me. I love seeing them all together again and I enjoyed when they used clips of the old show. It brought back so many wonderful memories as I am sure it did for so many.

Christmastime just isn't complete for me without watching this movie. The Brady family reuniting for the holidays always produces warm fuzzies for me. The original show was cheesy and so is this reunion movie, but it is also surprisingly well acted by every member of the ensemble cast and hits upon some real truths about family togetherness. Jennifer Runyon seamlessly fills the shoes of Susan Olsen in this yuletide gathering, Maureen McCormick is as beautiful as ever, and Florence Henderson is still the sunniest and most perky television mom around. A TV movie can get away with being sappy if it's focused around Christmas, and this movie succeeds on every level as a feel-good holiday reunion film.

My family used to look forward to "The Brady Bunch" kicking off every Friday night (along with the rest of the ABC lineup; Must See TV, early 70s-style). Hundreds of thousands wished they could be part of this family. Who wouldn't want to be able to neatly solve their problems in 30 minutes with such understanding parents? Not to mention the memorable Hawaiian vacation episodes (a few Hawaii episodes were de rigueur for sitcoms of the era). While series star Robert Reed always chafed at the simplistic comic situations, it did manage to endear itself to the Me generation. After the original show left primetime, there were several abortive attempts to bring them back.

Of the numerous variations on the Brady theme, this reunion was the most true to form. The "Brady Kids" cartoon was too, well, cartoonish, with a magical, talking crow and no parents to be seen. "The Brady Bunch Variety Hour" was a short-lived flop. "The Brady Brides" had its moments, but couldn't capture the spirit of the original, since it didn't include the entire cast. 1990's "The Bradys" became too serious, moving the house, paralyzing Bobby, turning Marcia into an alcoholic and Mike into a politician, not to mention losing Maureen McCormick. Those changes resulted in a 6 episode run, besting the 10 episodes of the Brides and the 8 of the Variety Hour to become the shortest-lived Brady show. The Brady Bunch theatrical films were a travesty, choosing to mock the original clan as inexplicably Munster-ish outcasts blissfully ignorant of their retrofreakishness.

In my household, watching this is a holiday season tradition, the way "Miracle on 34th Street," "It's a Wonderful Life," "A Christmas Story" or "Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer" is for others. After all, Christmas is the warm and fuzzy season and the Brady Bunch was nothing if not warm and fuzzy. When this was first broadcast, it was like seeing old friends again after a very long time, not unlike Schwartz' first successful TV show reunion, "Rescue from Gilligan's Island." Everybody had grown older, but nothing had really changed. Greg had married offscreen and both he and Marcia had kids, but that's about it. The house with its cavernous interior was thoroughly familiar and painstakingly recreated and updated. Only the driveway and backyard was missing. And the situations were classic. With roughly 100 minutes to fill, everybody got to have their own secrets and problems. True, the reunion sometimes verged on mawkishness, especially with the caroling, but that's part of the Brady charm. Only in the last 15 minutes did it drag, with Mike trapped in a construction site collapse.

All of the original cast members were at just the right age. Robert Reed never seemed more paternal. The kids were still young, but no longer the cloying youngsters of endless reruns. The production also teemed with pretty ladies. Aside from Marcia, Marcia, Marcia, there was Greg's wife Nora, Peter's girlfriend Valerie, and Jennifer Runyon as a prettier, if blander, Cindy. Susan Olsen, the original Cindy, was on her honeymoon (she should have done the reunion, since that marriage ended in divorce). Also missing was Allan Melvin, the original Sam the butcher. Only Florence Henderson was a distraction, with almost Tammy Fay Bakkerish makeup and overplucked eyebrows.

Now Schwartz is working on yet another Brady project where Mike is elected President. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Thanks, but I'll stick with this, the last vestige of old school Brady.

This is a movie that is really only going to be tolerated by true "Brady" fans. We never really took them seriously as a family, but we loved watching them. The Brady's are, in deed, a non-existent family, but that makes them even more fun to watch- Escapism !!

And now, the whole family (minus the original Cindy) is back together again in a less-groovy, updated surroundings, for a Christmas gathering, in Brady fashion. The whole house is full of Brady's and more Brady's (they've multiplied). Alice doesn't live here anymore, but she's got problems of her own and shows up at just the right moment- to help with Christmas dinner.

A Very Brady Christmas is less than average t.v. fare if you were not a Brady fan. To those who watched faithfully every Friday night, you're gonna love seeing 'em in all their unbelievable camp, once again.

The lack of a laugh track on this, even though it's a feature length movie, made it a LOT less enjoyable. As most here, I've seen every episode of the Brady Bunch and loved it! It was nice to see almost the entire cast back in action, but the plot and some characters **cough** Marcia's little butt hole kid, Mickey **cough** left a lot to be desired. Part of what made the Brady Bunch sitcom special was its lighthearted and comical approach to more complex problems in life, but the tone of this movie is kind of a downer. Sure, the ending ties everything together, but it has little of the charm that made the sitcom so enjoyable. I realize that the kids are adults and now have adult problems, but it was a jarring change of style and pace from what we are used to seeing.

Back to the lack of a laugh track; The movie relied heavily on quirky expressions by Alice and one liners from Carol and Mike that would normally result in thunderous laughter from the laugh track. Instead, we are treated with awkward silence and pause from the other cast members. This could be forgiven if it was once or twice, but it happened a lot. Definitely questioning Sherwood Schwarz' decision making on nixing the laugh track and making it so dramatic.

One final complaint. If you are going to make the movie dramatic, at least take the time to roll out the problems and allow for a little conflict to occur to spice it up. The films spends the first 30-45 minutes unloading all the problems of each kid and their respective spouse, which are interesting. The problem is that the problems are quickly and neatly solved with hardly any conflict, which was a bit boring. I think this could have been pretty good as a limited TV series so that the problems could be given a little more depth and character development.

I am more than likely over analyzing a made for TV movie which serves as nothing more than a reunion episode, BUT I really enjoyed the sitcom and was hoping for more from this.