Brady Bunch, The

▪ American television show

      American television situation comedy that aired for five seasons (1969–74) on the American Broadcasting Co. (ABC) network and became an enduring pop culture phenomenon. Though the show was panned by critics and largely ignored by audiences during its network run, it became wildly popular in reruns, and its namesake family has come to represent the embodiment of the quaint, wholesome, middle-class American family.

      The show was conceived by Sherwood Schwartz (creator of Gilligan's Island, 1964–67) and revolved around the life of a large, complex stepfamily, which comes together when Mike Brady (played by Robert Reed), the father of three sons, marries Carol Martin (Florence Henderson), the mother of three girls. They combine their households in a four-bedroom house in an unnamed suburb of Los Angeles. The main cast included the Brady boys, Greg (Barry Williams), Peter (Christopher Knight), and Bobby (Mike Lookinland); the girls, Marcia (Maureen McCormick), Jan (Eve Plumb), and Cindy (Susan Olsen); and Alice Nelson (Ann B. Davis), the wisecracking live-in housekeeper. While the initial season's stories sometimes touched on the difficulties of adjusting to life in a combined family, the overall focus of the series was on the ordeals of growing up, such as sibling quarrels, parental restrictions, and adolescent love. Evenly divided by gender at three ages, the Brady children represented various stages of the precarious passage from childhood to adulthood. In its third season the show began to feature the singing of the Brady kids, taking its cue from the success of The Partridge Family (1970–74), another popular situation comedy centred on a large family that also happened to be a rock group. The cast went on to record commercial albums and perform live.

      Although it never approached the top of the ratings chart during its network run, The Brady Bunch gathered devoted fans in later years, particularly among new generations of children who encountered the show in syndicated afternoon time slots. In the decades following its cancellation, the show managed to live on in various incarnations and made a mark in the larger culture, spawning other network sitcoms, a cartoon show, numerous television specials, two feature films (The Brady Bunch Movie [1995] and A Very Brady Sequel [1996]), musical recordings, and a stage parody show. The Brady Bunch became both the archetype and parody of the tight-knit American nuclear family.

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