The Bradys

When The Bradys aired in 1990 a lot of people called the short lived series Brady Something a Thirty Something parody which was a drama on ABC at the time. It was an attempt for The Brady Bunch to be taken seriously but failed. The first episode which was a two hour pilot made Bobby Brady a paraplegic and Marcia an alcoholic in another episode. CBS aired The Bradys on Fridays with the hope that Dallas would help draw viewers which didn't cause ABC had the successful TGIF shows at the time and Dallas was waning in popularity.

This show probably ended the notion of people trying to milk the Brady franchise for all its worth. The idea of trying to turn one of the corniest, but memorable, sitcoms in television history into an hour long drama is probably one of the worst ideas in the history of television. To me, the idea of the Brady's finally having real life problems is so absurd after the surrealism of the original series. Just thank God they didn't bring back cousin Oliver.

Mike Brady running for office? Bobby handicapped? True enough, the original Brady Bunch wasn't funny. But why rub it in with this schlock??

I have to admit, when Bobby gazed up like Bambi at Mike and asked if he'll walk again I did get a little choked up. But then I immediately started laughing! God strike me down. I've loved the Bradys since the beginning, so I felt a little torn, but let's be serious, there's nothing dramatic about the Bradys. So why try? This attempt at drama, turning the Brady Bunch into the Colbys was ridiculous!

There was something really wrong-headed about this show. I kept waiting for footballs in the nose and lies about George Glass and arguments about using the toilet and Pork Chops and Applesauce! And if everyone was supposed to be there, then where the hell was Cousin Oliver?

Bless their hearts, they tried. They tried to put a situation comedy family, who is at the cornerstone of American pop culture, in a family drama. But it simply didn't work. It's just like trying to make a Cadillac out of a Volkswagen ... it ain't gonna happen! Assigning major problems to each of the family (e.g., Marcia's alcoholism, Bobby getting paralyzed), along with using a laugh track just didn't work. In hindsight, if the producers had gotten a decent writing staff and flexible directors, "The Bradys" might have worked. Unfortunately, it simply destroyed the Brady franchise. Fortunately, we still have the reruns of the original 1969-1974 ABC series, which will be around for a long time. So will, unfortunately, this show, which is bound to turn up in reruns at some point.

Completely unexpectantly, the two-hour pilot of this uh, series, casually began to play on my television set. For reasons beyond me, it was called "The Brady 500," which was quite cutesy, but I could still tell it was the 'movie' that led to "The Brady's," a very dramatic one hour drama that reunites the they're together so often I'm surprised they're NOT a real family family of the Brady's... you know, Mike, Carol, Greg, Marica (a faux Marcia, not Maureen McCormack)... yes, THOSE Brady's from the corny sitcom "The Brady Bunch," only their lives are not so funny anymore.

In "The Brady 500" Mike and Carol are basically the same, as is Alice, the "goofy" housekeeper, whom I think is either still working for them, or just hangs out at their house too often. Greg is married with child (a young Johnathan Taylor Thomas...which was not thrilling news to discover) and is an Obstitrician; Marcia is still married to Wally (from "The Brady Brides"), who's main talent seems to be losing jobs. His last one cost them their house, so they and their two precious children must move in with Mike and Carol; Peter is some womanizer (of all characters) who's been engaged four times, but can never find the right girl; Jan does not seem to enjoy communicating with her family much (stubborn middle child) unless it involves telling them all of her problems, which involve she and hubby Phillip (also of "The Brady Brides") and their inablity to have children; Cindy is a deejay, who is attracted to her older, widowed boss, and Bobby...well, he WAS a budding race car driver who gets PARALYZED during some big, important race. Oh, the horror. How will the rest of the Brady's cope with this dramatic struggle.

Actually, Bobby's paralysis really seemed to take a back burner as the last forty minutes or so seemed to involve his love life with a jilted fiance, Tracy...whom he ends up marrying; as well as Wally's casually getting a new job (truly, nobody seemed to care when he announced it), and Jan and Phillip deciding to adopt and ending up with not a baby, but a young Korean girl, who seemed to only communicate by whispering in her new mommy's or daddy's ear. I guess other episodes probably dealt with Bobby CONTINUING to deal with his handicap--as well as a new wife; Jan and Phil's adjustments; Wally's new job, etc. I believe other plots also involved Mike running for--and winning--a seat on Congress; Marcia *howl with laughter* being an alcoholic, and many other dramatic, tensing situations. I think the Brady's even had to (oh dear) MOVE!!!!!

Quality-wise, I found "The Brady 500" about on par with "A Very Brady Christmas," which means it passed the time, but wasn't all that great. The thing I had to wonder was, what was the point of reuniting the Brady family for a dramatic series, when everyone knows them as the corny, "comedic" Brady's. It presents a concept too hard to swallow (the three flashbacks to the original series did not help...and Dabs "Reverand Alden" Greer as the minister in Bobby's wedding cornily referring to Mike and Carol's wedding did not do much to help me take it seriously, either), which is probably why it didn't exactly go on to last for YEARS or even one year, I believe.