Growing Up Brady: I Was a Teenage Greg, Special Collector's Edition (3 page)

s "The Brady Bunch" reached its landmark Thirtieth
anniversary and moved into a whole new millennium, I
was struck yet again by the lasting power of our little
show. So much has happened in the world since that
fateful five-year run from 1969 through 1974: Cable TV, satellites,
personal computers, cell phones, the Internet, and five-cent-aminute phone calls are all commonplace. Everything is specialized,
endlessly test-marketed, and the subject of focus-group studies.
Time and technology march on at an ever-increasing rate. Yet,
somehow, through all these evolutions, one constant remains:
"The Brady Bunch" simply refuses to die.

The whole
bloomin' Brady
Bunch, circa
1974
((D Paramount
Pictures)

Since its premiere on September 26, 1969, "The Brady Bunch"
has never ever been off the air. It's played on all seven continents,
and in literally dozens of countries. It's been estimated that each of
our original 117 episodes has now aired over 100,000 times, in
every imaginable market from Bangor to Bangkok. Even with that,
the show became the highest rated program ever on cable TV's
Nick at Nite network when it joined their classic TV line-up.

Since the release of Growing Up Brady in 1992, I've noticed a
new phenomenon: When I'm recognized in airports, restaurants,
grocery stores, or malls, young girls are asking me for an autograph... for their mothers! Other times, parents ask for an autograph for their kids. What this tells me is that, while kids are discovering "The Brady Bunch" for the first time, their parents are
right there watching it with them. I think that's great, because
there are so few things today that can be shared and enjoyed by
families as a whole.

When my parents were growing up, television hadn't been
invented yet, so entertainment revolved around the radio, movies,
big-band dances and mastodon hunting. When I was a kid, I don't
recall ever sitting down with Mom and Dad to listen to a Tommy
Dorsey album. Nor do I remember them joining me on my bean
bag chairs to groove with Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Somehow, "The Brady Bunch" has helped to bridge the generation gap, and I'm proud of that. The Bradys stand for something.
They stand for family, communication, getting along and fairness,
not to mention a sense of fashion that could only exist in a certain
time and place. While bell-bottoms and platform shoes may come
in and out of style, those Brady values always remain.

So why update Growing Up Brady, and why now? Mostly
because so much has happened in Bradyland since the first edition. And because, everywhere I go, people want to know what's
up with me and my fellow Bradys. I get so many requests asking
where they can get this book, that the time seemed right for an
updated edition. I hope that I have, in this book and its new chapters, recaptured just exactly how groovy it was "growing up Brady."

The authors wish to thank the following people for their support and assistance in the writing of this book: Sherwood
Schwartz; Howard Barton; Robert Reed; Florence Henderson;
Karen Lipscomb; Ann B. Davis; Maureen McCormick;
Christopher Knight; Eve Plumb; Michael Lookinland; Susan
Olsen; Frances Whitfield; Lloyd Schwartz; Craig Blenkhorn; Scott
Blenkhorn; Vanessa Vassar; Patrick Netter; Jack Rosenberg;
Beverly Kitaen-Morse; Craig Nelson; Hubert Fryman Jr.; Anthony
Anzaldo; Terry Anzaldo; Lisa Sutton; Wendy Winans; Greg Sutter
and with love to Eila M.

pring 1990. Somewhere over Texas.

The DC10's first-class cabin is crammed full of unruly
passengers, and the stewardess is frazzled, near tears.

A young woman in the second row loudly orders her
third Jack Daniel's. The young man sitting beside her is matching
her drink for drink with his Jim Beam. With rowdy enthusiasm,
they laugh as they sip, comparing and extolling the virtues of their
respective brands along the way.

Word comes up from the back of the plane that a young, expectant mother, traveling alone, is going into what appears to be premature labor. Frantic, several passengers tug on a man they recognize from television as an ob-gyn, asking if he might be of some
assistance. He declines, explaining that he's not a doctor, but he plays one on TV. Luckily, the labor turned out to be false.

TV doctor
meets real-life
Mom-to-be.
(Barry Williams)

On the "doctor's" left, an attractive middle-aged woman is having a terrific time, entertaining, and signing autographs for a raucous posse of enamored fans.

Then a delicate situation arises. That young woman from the
second row, still animatedly defending the superiority of Mr.
Daniel, lights up a cigarette. Quickly, the put-upon stewardess with
the "type A" personality makes her move to head off this transgression by approaching a familiar-looking older woman, sitting by herself in the last row of the cabin quietly working on needlepoint.

"Excuse me, Alice," the flight attendant inquires, "would you
mind asking Cindy to extinguish her cigarette? This is a nonsmoking flight."

Looking up from her in-flight stitchery with a furrowed brow,
the woman replies, "First, my name is not Alice, it is Ann B. Davis.
Second, I'm not their maid. And third, their behavior is not my
responsibility, it's yours."

Finally the light dawns upon the unsuspecting attendant, and
she realizes that this woman is not really the loyal "Brady Bunch"
housekeeper that she's known, loved, and watched on TV hundreds of times. Having watched us file onto the plane together,
she's made the very common mistake of simply assuming that this
group of familiar faces do indeed somehow belong to a biologically
entwined family.

After all, there's Cindy settled into the second row with Bobby
beside her. Carol Brady and Dr. Greg fill the opposite row, with Jan
and Peter just behind. With that in mind, the stewardess came to
the perfectly natural assumption that Alice might be of some assistance in this situation.

Slapping her forehead in belated recognition, the stewardess
walks over to Susan Olsen (as opposed to Cindy) and says, "Excuse
me, you'll have to put that cigarette out right away, or be arrested
upon our arrival in Los Angeles." Susan, who by now is nearly finished anyway, frowns, takes a long last drag on her Marlboro, and
grudgingly crushes the butt.

The kind of confusion our flight attendant experienced is not at
all uncommon around the "Bradys." That's because since 1969 our
fantasy family has been beamed into living rooms all over the
world. Through the decades, on all three major networks, numerous reunions, and many documentaries and in countless thousands of reruns, the Bradys have woven themselves into the fabric
of Americana. Generations have grown up watching our harmless,
pleasant, moralistic tales. Children have identified with the oldest,
youngest, or middle sibling, and always the question has been
asked: "Why can't our family be more like the Bradys?"

In short, when you're dealing with the public perception of the
Brady Bunch, the blurring of reality should come as no surprise.

Back to the plane. I should explain that we almost never behave
this badly (we are not, after all, the cast of "Diffrent Strokes").
However, on this particular occasion, we were sort of whistling
past the graveyard, and our emotions got carried away. Stated simply, "The Bradys," 1990's horrendous attempt to take the "Brady
Bunch" characters seriously, was dying, waiting pitifully for someone to come along, pull the plug, and put it out of its misery. Our
ratings and our spirits were both abysmally low when CBS, desperate to bail out its quickly sinking ship, came up with a solution to
raise them both: they requested (i.e., demanded) that we all go on
a nationwide promotional spree.