There wouldn’t be too many people who couldn’t sing along to the infamous theme song lyrics “Here’s the story … of a lovely lady … Who was bringing up three very lovely girls”. Those words formed part of the opening credits to the iconic American sitcom, The Brady Bunch. But did you know that the show, which ran from 1969 to 1974, almost didn’t make it to air?
It seems that a story about a lovely lady and a man named Brady who get married and merge two families into one, was a bit taboo back in the day. In fact, when the show was first conceived, the idea of a television show centred on the every day goings-on of a blended family was considered quite groundbreaking for the day.
The premise of The Brady Bunch was pretty simple. An architect by the name of Mike Brady (Robert Reed), a widower, meets Carol (Florence Henderson), a widow. The two are each bringing up three children as single parents. Mike and Carol fall in love and decide to marry. Voila, one blended family thank you very much!
What we, as viewers, saw was how the six children and two adults managed to happily live together in a four-bedroom, two-bathroom home. That little detail has even parents today scratching their heads … But perhaps help from Alice, the housekeeper, and a dog by the name of Tiger had something to do with it.
Now, more than 50 years later, it’s hard to imagine just how groundbreaking this show was. However, television producer Sherwood Schwartz gives some perspective when he said, “Television was loaded with married couples, and single widows and widowers, but there wasn’t any show that revolved around the marital amalgamation of two families”. This at a time when it was claimed up to 30 per cent of marriages involved children from a previous relationship!
The 1960s is remembered as a time when people’s morals around sex and marriage were being shaken up. Divorce was on the rise. Schwartz — who’d already had television success with Gilligan’s Island — felt that a television show honing in on a new family make-up might be well-received by American audiences, so he got to writing.
It would be some years before the networks would be willing to gamble with the concept. That was until the film Yours, Mine and Ours starring Lucille Ball and Henry Fonda found success.
The film grossed more than $25 million at the box office when it was released in 1968. Network executives now knew that audiences were interested in stories like this one, and Schwartz was encouraged to try again. This time the show got the green light.
The first episode of The Brady Bunch, ‘The Honeymoon’, aired on September 26, 1969. From then on we were entertained by Mike and Carol, children Greg (Barry Williams), Marcia (Maureen McCormick), Peter (Christopher Knight), Jan (Eve Plumb), Bobby (Mike Lookinland), and Cindy (Susan Olsen) and Alice as they squabbled, learned the value of teamwork and navigated the murky waters of adolescence. The Brady Bunch wasn’t the only television show that nearly didn’t make it to air.
Lawyers at American network CBS got in the way of The Carol Burnett Show going to air. It seems the network felt ‘variety shows’ could only be successful if they were done by men. Burnett, who had a 10-year contract with the network, had it written into the agreement that she be allowed to do 30 hour-long variety episodes, but CBS tried to resist when she attempted to hold them to it. Today it ranks as one of the funniest television shows of all time and is one of the top 10 best shows for the CBS network in history.
Monty Python’s Flying Circus might be a cult classic today, but it too was almost cancelled. Premiering on the BBC in 1969, the show wasn’t expected to make it past the first episode, what with its low budget and untested sketch comedy set-up. But by the end of the first season, the audiences were in stitches with the humour and creativity of John Cleese and co and now the show is regarded as one of the most influential television shows in history.
Low budget televisions shows such as Doctor Who, which aired in 1963, and Lost In Space were also lucky to make it out of the starting blocks. Doctor Who was only made to fill a void in the schedule. It was expected to be an educational children’s show, but perhaps its debut right after the assassination of president John F Kennedy had something to do with its enormous success and cult following.
Also with a cult following is Lost In Space, a television show about a family who struggles to survive as colonists in space. The series was such a hit it ran for three seasons.
While in the 1970s, Lynda Cater was breaking the glass ceiling as television’s first female superhero. Back then, the production team and even Carter herself didn’t expect Wonder Woman to amount to much. Yet audiences loved it and the show ran successfully for a further three seasons!