The Brady Bunch

Stories

“Brady Bunch”: silly fun, simmering anger

Bright and bouncy, “The Brady Bunch” just wanted to have fun.
It had cute kids, pretty parents and lots of sight gags. So what was it like making the show?
Rough, Lloyd Schwartz says in “TV We Love,” at 8 p.m. Monday (Oct. 20) on CW. Robert Reed (shown here, alongside his TV wife Florence Henderson and two of their daughters) “fought constantly” about scripts.
Reed — who died of cancer in 1992, at 59 — was outspoken about his anger, especially toward the “Brady” creator.
“It was a well-known fact in Hollywood that Sherwood Schwartz was absolutely the worst writer working in television,” he once said. “But that all changed one day (with) one writer who was even worse. It was Lloyd, Sherwood’s son.” Read more…

By Mike Hughes / October 17, 2025

News and Quick Comments

From Bradys to Bunkers: TV transformed

A half-century ago, the fictional Carol Brady was living TV’s version of don’t ask, don’t tell.
he married Mike Brady and merged their families as “The Brady Bunch” (shown here with Alice, the housekeeper). He had three sons and was widowed; she had three daughters and, well … ???
The plan was for her to be divorced, said Lloyd Schwartz, a “Brady Bunch” producer and the son of creator Sherwood Schwartz. ABC said no. “Divorce was a taboo topic on television, so they said, ‘Let’s just leave it so you don’t know.’”
Schwartz relates that in “History of the Sitcom,” which CNN airs at 9 p.m. Sundays. Its two-hour opener (July 11) offered a quick, slick ride through depictions of family and sexuality. Read more…

By Mike Hughes / July 12, 2021