It’s Been 35 Years Since ‘The Brady Bunch’ Came Back as a Drama

The Brady Bunch has risen from the television dead several times over the past 50 years, but you can blame only one reincarnation on Thirtysomething. That’s 1990’s The Bradys (or Bradysomething as some critics derided it), an ill-advised attempt to turn the kid-centric sitcom into a sophisticated yuppie drama. Spoiler alert: Like all Brady spin-offs, reboots and cash grabs, it was absolutely terrible. 

What was the new show about? As always, viewers could turn to the theme song for the lowdown. Even though the reboot only lasted a month before it was canceled, it somehow went through three versions of the song — impressive! The last one is the best, with histrionic Florence Henderson warbling an impossibly earnest update of the lyrics:

Here's the story 
Of the family Brady 
A mom and dad with all their children grown 
Our kids are now pursuing their dreams
With families of their own

When our kids were small, their problems all were smaller 
As they changed, so did their point-of-view 
The world has taken on a larger meaning 
Since the family grew 

The Bradys, oh the Bradys
That's how the Brady Bunch became the Bradys

The kids, now “pursuing their dreams with families of their own,” were each given soap-opera backstories so melodramatic that they couldn’t help but be hilarious. Bobby is a successful race-car driver until a crash turned him into a paraplegic dating MTV’s Martha Quinn. Greg and his monstrous mustache is an obstetrician and father to young Jonathan Taylor Thomas. Jan adopts a Korean moppet. What about Marcia (played by a new actress since at least one original cast member has to boycott every remake)? An alcoholic, of course, an affliction made even more poignant by the show’s use of a canned laugh track. 

“This is why grown men groan. This is why some people only watch PBS. This is why TV critics get old before their time (though they may not look it). This is why CBS is the third-rated network and bucking for fourth. This is why we were in Vietnam,” bemoaned The Washington Post’s Tom Shales. “The Brady boys have grown up to be dolts, and the Brady girls are dreary drips.”

Amazingly, The Bradys didn’t come close to putting a stake in the franchise’s coffin. Despite the critical and ratings disaster, the family keeps coming back. In addition to the four variety shows, cartoons and made-for-TV movies that preceded The Bradys, we’ve since been treated to three satirical movies, A Very Brady Renovation (an HGTV home fix-up show), A Very Brady Musical (a stage production by the show’s original creators), Dragging the Classics: The Brady Bunch (a RuPaul’s Drag Race crossover) and The Real Brady Bros podcast. 

Yet another dramedy version was proposed in 2022, but Susan “Cindy” Olsen says the show was canceled after 50 pages worth of her right-wing radio diatribes made their way to producers. “Everybody was saying, ‘We’re sorry, but they just won’t budge. They just will not have you in this,’” Olsen claimed. “I was like, ‘Wow, I’ve been canceled.’”

Hopefully, so have the Bradys.