The idea that "The Brady Bunch" portrayed a "realistic" suburban family has its roots in TV fantasy-land, similar to the silliness of "Happy Days" and "Leave It to Beaver". Most of the situations in this show were ridiculous contrivances that had little basis in reality whatsoever. The seed of the show was conceived from a newspaper article stating that something like 40% of families had children from other marriages. I guess if you can take a statistic and make it into a TV show, you can do anything. You can also throw spaghetti against the wall and hope it sticks.
The shortcoming of the entire show was that the writer-producers did not seem to base any of the episodes upon real-life incidences, which is where the real human drama resides, and where some of the funniest material comes from. I have always believed the best story material can't be made up; it comes from seeing real people doing ridiculous things you could never imagine. That's why shows like the Dick Van Dyke Show are so well-written and ultimately hilarious because it was based on the writers' experiences. Even the Partridge Family was based on a real-life singing family. Not the Brady Bunch whose scripts were strictly drummed out of thin air, which is always the least effective way to write if the intention is to be "realistic".
The contrived situations seemed at odds with the issues with which young people were facing in the late 1960's and early 1970's. For a time resplendent with social issues and social change, the Brady Bunch relied on the banal. (In fact, the father of the show played by Robert Reed was an in-closet gay man. Wouldn't that have made the show interesting?) But no, the Brady's situations were mainly trivial. Playing ball in the house. Bobby is falsely accused of doll-napping. Cindy makes it a habit to tattle-tale. Rather silly stuff. They never dealt with death, prejudice, love, hate, race relations, or politics.
I was slightly younger than the Brady Bunch kids (I grew up in the SF Bay Area suburbs in the 1970's and 1980's), and yet I never knew anyone who had the kinds of "situations" that the Brady's did. I'll confess that I did watch the show in reruns, but there were a lot of episodes that, even as a kid, I thought were rather stupid. One of the kids having an "identity crisis" was a recurring theme throughout the show. I never knew anyone, among my family or my friends, who engaged in this kind of behavior. In one episode, Peter Brady adopts the personality of Humphrey Bogart. In another Jan Brady wears a wig. In yet another, Bobby tries to make himself tall by hanging from a swing set. Or when Marcia becomes stuck on herself as a "star".
Maybe one of the few episodes that had a spark of realism was when Jan was jealous over Marcia's success at school. Of course, Marcia wins every award you could imagine. And when Marcia enters an essay contest in which she describes her relationship with her father, of course she wins first prize. It would have been far more interesting and real if she hadn't won but still felt the same way about her father. The fact that she wins somehow loses any modicum of interest the episode might of had. But of course, this is American television, 1970's style. She HAS to win.
Probably the stand-out of the show was Eve Aline Plumb as Jan. Despite a lot of the mediocre writing, Plumb brought a sensibility to her character that was lacking in a lot of the rest of the cast, including the parents, who were probably the least-interesting of the whole family. The parents, Mike and Carol seemed like know-it-all busy bodies who were near-perfect but lacked any real emotions, not to mention any shortcomings. I would have like to have seen a little more blood-feuding between them. That's what happens in real families. But again, not the Brady Bunch. Even the cook-housekeeper Alice was a bit more interesting than the parents.
Overall, a mediocre show at best and a contrived somewhat intelligence-insulting program at worst. I think the Brady Bunch tells us more about perceived sensibilities and prescriptive norms of Americans in the 1970's than being a realistic portrayal of the 1970's, much the same as "Leave It to Beaver" in the late 1950's to early 1960's. And maybe that's the problem. The Brady Bunch never showed what it was really like but instead tried to show us what we were supposed to be like.
The shortcoming of the entire show was that the writer-producers did not seem to base any of the episodes upon real-life incidences, which is where the real human drama resides, and where some of the funniest material comes from. I have always believed the best story material can't be made up; it comes from seeing real people doing ridiculous things you could never imagine. That's why shows like the Dick Van Dyke Show are so well-written and ultimately hilarious because it was based on the writers' experiences. Even the Partridge Family was based on a real-life singing family. Not the Brady Bunch whose scripts were strictly drummed out of thin air, which is always the least effective way to write if the intention is to be "realistic".
The contrived situations seemed at odds with the issues with which young people were facing in the late 1960's and early 1970's. For a time resplendent with social issues and social change, the Brady Bunch relied on the banal. (In fact, the father of the show played by Robert Reed was an in-closet gay man. Wouldn't that have made the show interesting?) But no, the Brady's situations were mainly trivial. Playing ball in the house. Bobby is falsely accused of doll-napping. Cindy makes it a habit to tattle-tale. Rather silly stuff. They never dealt with death, prejudice, love, hate, race relations, or politics.
I was slightly younger than the Brady Bunch kids (I grew up in the SF Bay Area suburbs in the 1970's and 1980's), and yet I never knew anyone who had the kinds of "situations" that the Brady's did. I'll confess that I did watch the show in reruns, but there were a lot of episodes that, even as a kid, I thought were rather stupid. One of the kids having an "identity crisis" was a recurring theme throughout the show. I never knew anyone, among my family or my friends, who engaged in this kind of behavior. In one episode, Peter Brady adopts the personality of Humphrey Bogart. In another Jan Brady wears a wig. In yet another, Bobby tries to make himself tall by hanging from a swing set. Or when Marcia becomes stuck on herself as a "star".
Maybe one of the few episodes that had a spark of realism was when Jan was jealous over Marcia's success at school. Of course, Marcia wins every award you could imagine. And when Marcia enters an essay contest in which she describes her relationship with her father, of course she wins first prize. It would have been far more interesting and real if she hadn't won but still felt the same way about her father. The fact that she wins somehow loses any modicum of interest the episode might of had. But of course, this is American television, 1970's style. She HAS to win.
Probably the stand-out of the show was Eve Aline Plumb as Jan. Despite a lot of the mediocre writing, Plumb brought a sensibility to her character that was lacking in a lot of the rest of the cast, including the parents, who were probably the least-interesting of the whole family. The parents, Mike and Carol seemed like know-it-all busy bodies who were near-perfect but lacked any real emotions, not to mention any shortcomings. I would have like to have seen a little more blood-feuding between them. That's what happens in real families. But again, not the Brady Bunch. Even the cook-housekeeper Alice was a bit more interesting than the parents.
Overall, a mediocre show at best and a contrived somewhat intelligence-insulting program at worst. I think the Brady Bunch tells us more about perceived sensibilities and prescriptive norms of Americans in the 1970's than being a realistic portrayal of the 1970's, much the same as "Leave It to Beaver" in the late 1950's to early 1960's. And maybe that's the problem. The Brady Bunch never showed what it was really like but instead tried to show us what we were supposed to be like.