Even though The Brady Bunch was only on the air at ABC from 1969 to 1974, it lived on in reruns for decades. Everyone seemed to love their Bradys and their wholesome family. Sure, a lot of the storylines might have been pretty saccharine sweet, and the Brady kids always seemed to end up on top, but that was comforting to a lot of people. Barry Williams, who played the eldest Brady, Greg, confessed that it wasn’t always easy being a Brady.
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Barry Williams told the Asbury Park Press that it wasn’t until the 1988 made-for-TV movie, A Very Brady Christmas, that he realized how much merit there was in being corny. Still today, millions of people really loved the Bradys.
“When the network had us back, and I know how the networks work, the networks only care about numbers. Which meant, to me, that they’d already done their research, they already knew that there was a market for this — and a big one for our show,” Barry Williams admitted.
Barry Williams Realized America Really Does Love ‘The Brady Bunch’
For Barry Williams, it took being away from The Brady Bunch for a few years to realize that corny and wholesome fill a void for many people.
“To me, it meant that we had kind of transcended just being a little ditty from the seventies that was totally inconsequential,” he said. “And it means that there was a viewer loyalty that we had kind of survived the test of time. At that point, I could kind of just let it be. It kind of legitimized the early series for me, and then we had fun filming it.”
And if you’re looking for Greg and the gang, all five seasons of The Brady Bunch are now streaming on Paramount+.
This story’s featured image is by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
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