If you didn't know it already, on this day 42 years ago, September 26, 1969, the very first episode of “THE BRADY BUNCH” took to the airwaves and that crazy, silly, charming family that over time we got to know pretty well made their appearance in our homes and minds. With the passage of time the Bradys became an iconic representation of the (a)typical “American Family,” or perhaps they were simply a typical American family, if there ever really COULD be such a thing. I view the Brady’s as carrying on the torch which in an earlier era had been carried by – who else – the Cleaver family. I may be wrong but I don’t see how you could help but love “Leave It To Beaver,” and “The Brady Bunch,” too. The Beav and Wally’s antics spanned the years from 1957 to ’63 and Cindy, Marsha, Jan, Bobby, Greg, Peter, Mike, Carol and Alice (not to be confused with Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice!) – “the group that somehow formed a family” continued being a family until 1974 when the series ended.
As I am writing this I think of the wonderful 60s – well, wonderful, and horrible – all at the same time. We had the madness of the Vietnam war, JFK’s murder, as well as that of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, not to mention the pain, suffering and struggle connected with the birth of the Civil Rights Era. Surely more than enough insanity and horror for one decade the 60s were, for those of us who lived through it all, yet on the flip side you can’t separate the awful and extremely difficult to comprehend things which occurred – the things which if you were keeping a scorecard might have convinced you that evil was trumping good and that in the long run hate would win the race, leaving love lonely and lost, broken and crying by the side of the road. Excuse me for being dramatic, but truly there was a very large amount of drama during that time and anyone who watched television, as I did, could not avoid being exposed to it daily.
But on the flip side of madness, sadness, hatred and sorrow that we saw in the “real” world, and also on television when we turned on the news, the TV also brought us things we were glad to have as opposed to the many things which is showed us that we wished we'd never seen. Through the air and into the glass "cathode ray tube" (or CRT) emerged pictures and words, people and things, sometimes even animals that could talk and weekly we watched shows that are still some of the most delightful, loopy, endearing and memorable weekly programs that have been seen since the medium was created. Hold my hand and walk beside me as we go to the stable where lived that terrific talking horse known as “Mr. Ed.” And surely you recall a time when the great humanitarian who built a children’s hospital in Memphis known as “St. Jude” – Danny Thomas – came into our homes each week, and we even ANTICIPATED, and looked forward to his visits every week. We must have felt comfortable with the intimacy of having him there, as the consensus back then surely was that “Father Knows Best.” Oh, gosh! I CANNOT forgot to introduce you again to someone amazing, adorable, sweet, funny and sensitive and without a doubt completely unforgettable. This old friend who I think you might already know was a maid who was employed by ANOTHER “typical American family,” the name of this family, like the Bradys, also began with a B," but I'm talking about the family we knew as the "Baxters." And this woman I still love, this maid, well, she had this cute nickname for her employer, and she like to call him "Mr. B." The actress who live inside this maid had another name starting with "B." She was the late, great, Shirley Booth. Ms. Booth became Hazel after already being established in the theater, winning awards for her portrayal of one sad woman with a sad life, in the play and later the film called “Come Back Little Sheba.” This woman, this maid who worked for the Baxters was and is, I think, one of my all time favorite people who only lived on TV. I loved her like I loved the horse who could talk, the "famous Mr. Ed." I haven't said it yet but I hope some of you remember the name of the wonderful maid I'm talking about whose first name, IN the show, was the name of the show, itself. Okay, do you remember her? I hope so, and if you do, I hope you feel good like I do when I remember the name and the show. It was “HAZEL.”
This was the stuff of the earliest of my memories of sitting in front of the television, watching, in black and white, on the only three channels which we had, 4, 5, and 8, representing ABC, NBC, and CBS. Ah, the memories.
Thanks for allowing me to share my thoughts and impressions of what life was like way back when the Brady clan entered the scene. The decade of the show’s birth was very different than what we see now. Despite the difficulties, the United States of America was still a place of optimism, and a thing existed, or at least we believed it did which people referred to as “the great American dream.” Maybe we just imagined that it was possible for this dream, which was precious to many, to transform itself in something solid, three dimensional and real. Yet much seemed possible in that long ago land of America’s past, and I’ve seen with my own eyes a dream or two spring to life. In the beginning of the 1960s when a man who some believed to be a virtual knight in shining armor came to occupy the office of Chief Executive, in the thousand days left that he lived he spoke HIS dream, and it was a dream in which we believed because he, himself, believed in it first. This dream was something that almost seemed crazy. A fantastic idea, like Jules Verne taking us 20,000 Leagues Beneath The Sea. A wild idea, where men might blast through space at incredible speeds, travel a rather vast distance, culminating with men just like you and me standing on the surface of the moon. Of course they would need to come back to earth, as well. I know it doesn’t seem like so much from where we are now, but trust me, we’ve become rather jaded. There’s not much these days which can excite or amaze us. And is there anything left that seems worthy of inspiring a dream? Well, maybe we could dream of unemployment dropping to something less than a level that seems to me obscene, or the fantasy of a day when mortgage foreclosures might slow to a pace that won't continually leave one with a sense of gloom and dread.
In the decade in which the Brady Family first came into existence, in the very same year, only two months before they came, I saw a miracle happen on TV, with my own two eyes. This was the culmination of the martyred President’s dream, to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. I am very glad that I was able to witness it. I will always wish that he might have been able to see it, too.
Well, enough of thinking about anything too “serious,” I do believe. Earlier, before I went careening down memory lane I was watching and listening to Florence Henderson, a/k/a Carol Brady, talk about what it was like when she first created Mrs. Brady, and she talked a little about her memories of the rest of the cast, as well.
In honor of the Brady Bunch, which I’ll remember for a long time still, and to commemorate this day, 42 years ago when they first joined our own lives by living theirs on TV, if you are so inclined, please go where the link below takes you. And if you do I hope you enjoy it like I did. Actually, I left the Brady's rather prematurely in order to share with you what I was seeing and experiencing there. I want to go back now, so I'll say to you goodbye for now. I'm heading back now to TV Land, to hang with Bob and Carol and those 6 darned crazy, funny kids. Wait! Mike, Carol, Alice, MARRRRRRRRRSHA! Hey, wait! I’ll be right there!
