The Brady Bunch Variety Hour

The Brady family that appears in this mangled mess of a variety series is not real. I think that is the creepiest part about it. They are, of course, the actors who appeared on the infamous comedy series "The Brady Bunch", which played from the late 1960's through the early 1970's. Well, it was the late 1970's when this one occurred and I guess "we" are supposed to believe that they are still related and have...gotten famous since then. For here they all are:Mike, Greg, Jan and everybody...referring to each other as "Mike" and "Greg" and "Jan", as opposed to their real names and having occasional cheap looking scenarios(such as Greg wanting to move out)mixed with their singing, dancing and "teasing" one another. Let's just say if the Brady's WERE real, they would make me nauseous, for who wants to watch some family's variety hour, but that fact that they are not is plain bizarre! Why they didn't just appear as themselves and mention their memories of the Brady Bunch is beyond me. Why ever did this last only a year?

The Bradys (for some reason) get a TV variety show to do. The episodes consist of them and guest stars "singing" and "dancing" and doing "comedy". Also every single fashion mistake of the 1970s (and there were LOTS of them) are worn at one time or another in this show. I'm not proud to admit that I saw every single episode of this when it aired but, even at the age of 15, I realized it was terrible but I couldn't stop watching. It was just SO wretched with abysmal comedy (even worse than the original "Brady Bunch" show) and variety acts that had my jaw dropping! Eve Plumb (Jan) had the brains NOT to do this show but the rest of the original cast was there. There were a few (very few) good moments here and there. They could all (more or less) sing and Barry Williams and Florence Henderson were very good on their own but this show was just a train wreck from beginning to end. It boggles the mind to think that ANYONE thought this could work. Even Williams in his book "Growing Up Brady" said it was the worst TV show ever. Well he's wrong. "The Brady Brides" was even WORSE! A 1 all the way.

I caught The Brady Bunch Hour on YouTube and, oh man, they can't sing, they can't dance and those gaudy 1970s fashions just glitter at you like flashes from a nuclear explosion. The bubble gum music just adds to the laughs. I wonder if any of them are embarrassed about it now? I sure would be - especially during the highly glossy number of "Baby Face". Eve Plumb (Jan) was extremely wise in backing out of this one.

I don't mean to bash the wholesome goodness of the Bradys (I loved the Brady Bunch as a kid), but the fallout after wards when the show got canceled in '74 has been pretty funny. Like The Bradys (1990) where Marcia suffers from alcoholism (gasp!), gets treatment for it at the nearest rehab center and then becomes a strong supporter of fighting addiction - all in one episode! Oh yeah, and then there's another scene from The Bradys about Bobby's paralyzed state after getting into a race car crash, but in a climactic finale in one episode, he rises from his wheelchair and walks up the stage where his dad is giving some kind of public presentation and everyone cheers in ecstatic awe! It's like The Partridge Family meets The Young & The Restless!!! Oh man, I love the Bradys - before and after wards! They sure have big egos considering The Brady Girls Get Married (1981) was the only post-Brady Bunch reunion they've all appeared together in (someone always backed out and was replaced by a replica star from then on in). After the humiliating polyester/ bell bottomed glow of the Brady Bunch Hour, I would've thought the egotism would've been humbled by now.

So hilarious were those production numbers I'm dying to think of what Simon Cowell would've thought had they performed on American Idol or Britain's Got Talent - 3 strikes without a doubt!

I'll watch just about anything that Robert Reed appears in. I've always heard that he loathed the Mike Brady role and tried to balance that dreck with meatier roles like his supporting role in MANNIX and a tasting sinister turn as a hit man in HARRY O.

Something must've distracted him along the way because he signed on to this mess, the Brady mob singing and dancing and pretending to be entertainers of some sort. It's just painful. Badly written and endlessly strained, it lasted nine episodes before being put to sleep forever.

Please spare yourself of this mess. Guest stars like Vincent Price (???) in torturous sitcom skits t(avoiding the use of well-known Brady sets) didn't help, nor did the contrived musical numbers. And what's with the canned laughter and extended applause?

Seventies TV was rarely 'great' and there has to be a bottom rung somewhere. Trust me... this is it.

It's a really tough call--is THIS the absolute worst TV show ever created or was another Sid and Marty Kroft show, PINK LADY AND JEFF? It's really hard to tell--they are BOTH that bad! And, they actually share some things in common other than the same producers. Both are variety shows that feature people acting way outside their ranges! While Florence Henderson could sing, the rest of the cast couldn't and there was a strong effort to peddle the Brady kids as a pop group (you've got to hear their albums--they are unintentionally hilarious). So what you have, apart from Ms. Henderson, are some well-meaning but not very talented kids (and this is not just my opinion, but that of the cast when they were interviewed years later) and Robert Reed who just seems totally lost.

Okay, so the songs are a problem (sort of like WWII was a "bit of a tiff")--and that's bad because about half the show is singing and bizarrely choreographed dancing in lots of orange, pink and purple sequined jumpsuits. The rest of the show is "comedy"--something that the Brady family was really not known for--yes, they did a bland little family show, but this was far from the demands they placed on them in The Brady Bunch Hour. Here they were expected to be true comedians at times and do skits that invariably bombed.

And, if all this isn't bad enough, Eve Plumb ("Jan") refused to do the show, so they just picked another person who only had a vague resemblance to her and did it anyways! Despite the fact that almost everyone was totally outside of their element and the show featured a "faux Jan", it only got worse. The Krofts, while described by some as "geniuses", simply couldn't cut it and the show was pure 70s tackiness. It was so loud, so "in your face" and so gaudy, the show literally attacked instead of entertained. It actually reminded me of a high school talent show combined with a Vegas review! Now, you might just assume that I don't want you to ever see this show. Not exactly,...I say see it and see how unintentionally funny and awful it was. I guess I can't blame the cast, as I am sure they got very well paid and they didn't have a lot of other options for acting.

UPDATE--Well, perhaps I spoke too soon. Tonight I saw something from TV from the same time period that was worse, though it was a TV special. The "STAR WARS HOLIDAY SPECIAL" is amazingly bad--so bad that it's a train-wreck bad.