I read a piece the other day saying Gen X pop culture (mine) is totally worthless and is disappearing way faster than stuff produced during the Boomer years (translation: I needed an opening for this review, so I’m lying as usual). So…is the most repeated sitcom of my Gen X childhood, The Brady Bunch, still in syndication (I could look it up, but my hand is unsteady with drink)?
By Paul Mavis
Is it being repeated everywhere, or anywhere? Like say…are there future terrorists in the Middle East, sitting down in front of their TVs with a bowl of Captain Crunch…Crunch…Ka-BOOM cereal, watching an episode like, Today, I Am a Freshman, saying to themselves, “If doofus Peter can blow up a mere papier-mâché volcano, I can certainly strike at the hearts of the infidels, too!”? I hope so.
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Aside from the original show itself, which ran on ABC from 1969 to 1974 (and which continues to generate millions for everyone involved except the actors who actually brought the series to life), there have been more iterations of its core format than just about any other sitcom in American TV history (Star Trek, in the sci-fi genre, probably beats it), from failed backdoor pilots and an animated series, to a variety series, TV movies, a spin-off sitcom, a dramatic spin-off, big screen parodies, books, records, theatrical spoofs and musicals, and of course, a Christmas TV movie reunion: 1988’s A Very Brady Christmas.
Southern California, 1988, where Reaganomics is so strong that even in overtaxed, overregulated CA, upper-middle class families like the Bradys are living large. So large, in fact, that realtor Carol Brady (Florence Henderson) and architect Mike Brady (Robert Reed) have a surprise Christmas present problem most of us would kill for: do they go to Japan or Greece? Both want the other spouse to not know what’s going on, so for almost a half hour, we go through some moldy farce complications as Mike and Carol try to keep their secret from each other.
This entirely unfunny misunderstanding gives the screenwriters time to have first Mom and then Dad call their six grown kids and tell them the final resolution: Japan and Greece are out, and an old-fashioned blended family Christmas is in, with everyone getting flown out to their old digs at 4222 Clinton Way, in sunny Hell-A.
Too bad, though, that Mike and Carol’s grown kids are such miserable gits. USDA Prime trim Marcia Brady (Maureen McCormick, in post-coke whore preppy perfection), still happily married to lovable toy salesman/schmuck Wally Logan (Jerry Houser), unfortunately is saddled with one of the most obnoxious little pricks ever to grace the small screen: little ginger nut, Mickey (G.W. Lee).
A clear psychopath-in-training who obviously gains gratification torturing his nice, sweet sister, Jessica (Jaclyn Bernstein), he’ll be a big hit at Grampa Brady’s house. If that’s not bad enough, schmo Wally lost his job in a buy-out (trickle down on that, Wally!), and he’s ashamed to tell everyone at Christmas.
Former poon hound Greg “Johnny Bravo” Brady (Barry Williams), appropriately now an OB-GYN, sexually assaults his hot wife/nurse Nora (Caryn Richman), inbetween heated negotiations with her to make a holiday appearance at his parents’ house. He loses. Big time. Greg’s kid, the fey, obviously disturbed Kevin (Zachary Bostrom), who hisses he doesn’t like his hair “mussed,” is Californey-bound, while Nora is secretly meeting Greg’s hotter brother Peter to sleep with him (at least that’s how I read the scene in my head).
Speaking of porn, businessman Peter Brady (Christopher Knight) is living his own porno scenario: he’s a low-level flunkey sleeping with his hot boss, Valerie Thomas (Carol Huston). Distressingly, he’s not man enough to commit to her because…she makes more money than he does (oh god why him and not me)? To Peter, she’s more potent, more commanding, more powerful, more…just more than him, and he’s not admitting that back home.
Total high-riding bitch Jan Brady (Eve Plumb, perfectly cast…), an architect like her Daddy, has had enough of her college professor schlub husband, Phillip Covington III (Ron Kuhlman). He’s moving out, and it’s finally time for Jan to fully explore all the kinky intricacies of her sexuality (at least that’s how I read the scene in my head). Despite Jan’s reputation as a rebel straight shooter, she goes ahead with the subterfuge of having Phillip come along with her for a “happy” family Christmas.
College senior Fake Cindy Brady (newcomer Jennifer Runyon) has a dilemma: no one at home looks at her like an adult (I do, Jennifer. Believe me I do). She has plans to re-enact Winter A-Go-Go with her black lesbian roommate/lover Belinda (Tonya Williams) on a skiing trip.
But oh no, that’s not gonna happen: Daddy Brady just steamrolls over that suggestion like everything else and just expects her to come home–no questions asked. And Fake Cindy is tired of it! Belinda tries to talk her out of it, before they collapse onto the bed together and make love (at least that’s how I read the scene in my head).
When stealth midget race car driver Bobby Brady (Mike Lookinland) gets the call from Mike, he climbs out of his booster seat and lies right through the phone: he’s still safely in business school and he’d be happy to come home. Bobby’s black mechanic/lover Howie (Lenny Garner) just shakes his head sadly at the charade before he and Bobby collapse onto the dirt track and make love (at least that’s how I…oh never mind).
And to complete the checkerboard picture of the whole Brady bunch coming home for Christmas, former Brady maid Alice Nelson (Ann B. Davis), has her heart ripped from her chest when her husband, Sam the Butcher, leaves her for another (younger) woman. Carol and Mike are overjoyed! Now they don’t have to hire non-English speaking help for the holidays!
On top of the children’s personal problems, Mike’s professional career is stressed: his client, Ted Roberts (Phillip Richard Allen), thinks Mike is requesting expensive structural reinforcements to his building that aren’t required by the building code…and Ted is pressuring Carol, from whom he bought the land, to pressure Mike to cut corners. Before you can say, “Two tickets to Earthquake Meets The Towering Inferno, please,” a tragedy happens on Christmas Eve, and it’s up to God and Carol’s voice to save the Brady pater familias.
Right up front, to put A Very Brady Christmas into its proper perspective, when it premiered on CBS on December 18th, 1988, it managed to pull off a 39 share, meaning 4 out of every 10 TVs on that night in America, were tuned in to the continuing story of the Bradys. Everyone, and I mean everyone, was floored at those numbers, particularly since the previous incarnation of the Brady family, 1981’s The Brady Brides sitcom, was such a ratings’ disaster. Clearly, producer/co-screenwriter Sherwood Schwartz was correct in his original pitch to the network: the Bradys and Christmas were two TV hooks that would be a powerhouse if combined.
And as far as meeting the barest minimum requirements of a TV series reunion show–let’s see who’s still living, and how badly they look–A Very Brady Christmas delivers. Almost the whole cast is here (an obvious mistake in the female-centric The Brady Brides); they’re in the same house (sorta, since it’s redecorated), and the structure of the story, although far more dramatic than a usual Brady Bunch episode, is pretty close to the accepted formula: the family is in trouble, and the family, together, will work it out, with a little bit of love and laughs. Corny, sure…but it worked (it no doubt helped, too, that competition was weak that night: a blah Stefanie Powers outing on NBC–She Was Marked for Murder–and a repeat of Dolly Parton’s A Smokey Mountain Christmas on ABC).
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But those are barest minimum requirements, and that’s why A Very Brady Christmas doesn’t bare too many repeat viewings. What they never get right, what these producers and networks and screenwriters never understand, is that we don’t want these classic properties helpfully “updated” for the times. After all, that’s why they’re classics. If you’re going to revisit, revisit it exactly the way it was.
The single most successful reincarnation of the Brady franchise was the big screen parody, The Brady Bunch Movie, precisely because it respected, even revered, what it was lampooning. The house decor was the same, the outfits the same, the music cues the same. Why do we have to have the A Very Brady Christmas house kitted out here in the Sears’ Knots Landing Office Collection, with poofy couches and washed-out pastel colors? Because Mike and Carol would have updated the house in real life? Well this isn’t real life. It’s a sitcom reunion. It’s also a fundamental misunderstanding of the project.
Where are the fun original segue music cues? Where are the saturated primary colors of the original cinematography? More to the point: where are all the laughs?
I don’t care if A Very Brady Christmas wants to wander off at times into dramatic territory. The scene where Bobby sincerely asks his older brother Peter to listen to his troubles, was simply yet effectively–and believably–written and performed, and I liked that silent moment where all the kids are down in the kitchen, at night, eating pie, alone within their own thoughts and worries.
Still…can’t A Very Brady Christmas sell a few jokes along the way? The original series was quite funny and energetic and bouncy; why is this so often stale and quiet and morose (and screw the snobs who sniff at a laugh track. I love laugh tracks and one could have only helped A Very Brady Christmas)?
Story elements that had a chance of mining o.g. series aspects are either mishandled (the grandkids’ conflict goes nowhere, mainly because the child actors cast are so wretched), or dropped entirely (Mike’s client pressuring Carol was structured similarly to the classic “love triangle” Quarterback Sneak outing, but that element is dropped rather quickly).
Perhaps what’s most distressing about A Very Brady Christmas is how ill-used are the adult Brady kids, whether through poor scripting, or poor performing…or both. Headliner McCormick–a lovely actress who had real star quality in the original series–is a cipher here, tasked with doing…nothing much at all, as Mike solves Wally’s problems (did they back off on her character because they didn’t want a repeat of McCormick’s druggy behavior on The Brady Brides?). Jerry Hauser’s a funny actor, but the script makes the mistake of making him a depressive lump, so she has nothing to bounce off of there, either.
Barry Williams, another talented performer with a real flair for comedy, fares no better. His subplot makes no sense (his wife isn’t showing up why again? And he’s not putting his foot down?), while his unfortunate styling (with that bad dye job and porn ‘stache he looks like a cross between a malnourished Colombian pimp and Mario) is quite distracting. He, too, is given a good partner in the pert, amusing Caryn Richman (she was adorable as the New Gidget), but she’s only on screen for a matter of minutes.
Eve Plumb, who somehow has gained a p.r. rep for being the most “talented” of the Brady thespians (in this post-traditional world, the Jan character’s awkward, unpleasant outsider status is vaunted, while “perfect” Marcia is now despised), is acting like she’s in another movie here. We all have heard how much she hates this franchise (she keeps sticking her hand out for the goodies associated with it, though…), but can’t she summon up some positive vibes?
She’s a total crank in A Very Brady Christmas, bitching and complaining about a husband who seems, at worst, a bit boring and absent-minded while working his ass off at his job (you’re telling me Jan didn’t lay in long hours as an architect?). Being coiffed and dressed like an angry middle-school librarian doesn’t exactly help, either (remarkable to realize Plumb’s only 30 here–she comes over like a pissed-off post-menopausal shrew).
Everyone also knows that Christopher Knight was never comfortable acting in The Brady Bunch, and while he won’t win any awards in A Very Brady Christmas, at least he’s trying to inject a little energy into his harried, insecure businessman Peter.
And the same goes for Mike Lookinland; he walks off with the acting awards in A Very Brady Christmas simply by reading his lines with unaffected, straightforward sincerity. He’s not an actor, and that only helps–he just comes off as a young man caught in a tough situation, and you buy it.
Unusual for recasting in a legacy franchise, beautiful Jennifer Runyon is a total upgrade for the Cindy character. A more “polished” surface actor, she’s definitely in the 1% bracket of model/centerfold type of fictional college seniors, but she brings a positive, upbeat energy to her earnest scenes, and it’s a welcome contrast to the dour, grumpy Williams, McCormick, and Plumb, and more naturalistic Knight and Lookinland.
As for the old pros, Florence Henderson delivers just exactly as you would expect she would. Her Carol Brady is confident, flirty (to no avail…), and seemingly game for anything…if only the script would actually give her something fun to do (they never let the Carol character be as delightfully naughty as Henderson was in real life).
The Alice character is rightfully remembered as the comic highlight of most Brady Bunch episodes, but in A Very Brady Christmas it’s hard to see that legacy in action. Her opening scene is dire (only Lucy could pull off that kind of comedic howling/crying), and doesn’t have any kind of significant interaction with the kids (another critical mistake).
As for Reed…A Very Brady Christmas could very well have been titled, Mr. Brady’s Gay ‘Ol Times Christmas Special. Having expertly hidden even the most minuscule indication of his sexuality during the 5 seasons of the original series, in A Very Brady Christmas he’s letting his inner queen come out, and it definitely puts a strange spin on the movie.
Reed’s first scene with Henderson finds him shimmying back and forth on his exercise bike, wearing that fem scooped neck T and pastel-colored exercise togs, and sporting Bea Arthur’s exact hairdo from seasons 1 through 3 of The Golden Girls, and you start to wonder if he’s morphed into Henderson’s bitchy gay friend from the gym, rather than her husband and romantic partner of 20 years.
“Wonder” turns into “certainty,” though, when, during her persistent pestering to find out what he bought her for Christmas (she even suggests the ultimate sacrifice: she’ll have sex with her disinterested husband), he alternately looks over his shoulder at her in mock disgust (classic Joan Crawford), before Henderson is careful to throw up a “hands off” acknowledgment when she rear-ends him in the kitchen doorway (she’s clearly had to reassure him of non-contact on many occasions).
However, when Reed puts his hand on his hip and whines, “Where’s my checkbook?” while Henderson looks on in genuine shock, the effect is the same as when Liz does her Bette Davis imitation (“What a dump!”) in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. It’s so clearly an “out” gay moment you have to wonder if scripters/producers Sherwood and Lloyd Schwartz looked at each other on the set that day and muttered, “We should have recast him at the end of Season 4.”
Reed’s a fine actor who may not have had the career he deserved, and I would have loved to see him turn A Very Brady Christmas‘s Mike Brady into someone out of The Boys in the Band (can AI do that, please?). However, there’s no question that his performance affects how we see Carol and Mike’s relationship here; they come across not as passionate lovers married for 20 years, but rather comfy friends…one of whom happens to be gay. It’s an unexpected element of A Very Brady Christmas, to be sure, and one that doesn’t work except as camp.
As erratic as the performances are in A Very Brady Christmas, the storyline is equally choppy, with moments of bizarre humor that somehow aren’t commented on by the moviemakers (guest Alice immediately donning her uniform and performing maid duties could be right out of The Brady Bunch Movie…but they do nothing with it). Stupid plot points like Alice having to go to the airport to get all the kids (how does that work? All the various planes are coming in at once? They can’t remember their old home address and get a taxi?), or the family spontaneously singing carols while bringing in the tree and cooking dinner, at least bring unintentional laughs to the proceedings (my favorite is uber-WASP Carol saying, “Race car driver??” with a disgust akin to hearing Bobby had the poor taste to marry a Catholic).
Nothing can compare, though, to the silliness of the A Very Brady Christmas finale, where Carol’s carol singing guides a trapped Mike out of his closet collapsed building and into the light. It’s so poorly staged and acted (the phony earnestness of the actors is only matched by Eve Plumb clearly not singing with everyone else), it’s hard not to laugh–a reaction I’m sure the Schwartzes weren’t going for here.
That is…until Santa shows up (I’m not kidding), and it’s Sam the Butcher and he offers up a lame apology which everyone seems to accept without a moment’s hesitation, despite the obvious agony Alice is suffering (Davis seems to be silently asking all the oblivious Bradys if this is a nightmare). It’s a bizarre “happy ending” coda that somehow seems exactly right for the weirdly miscalculated A Very Brady Christmas.
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