The Brady Bunch -- The Brady Bunch

 

Today is Family Day and much of Canada is celebrating this regional holiday (under different names depending on the province), although since it's not a federal holiday, we should still be getting our mail. We did have our family get-together last night with some fine platters of sushi.

No matter the level of holiday though, it still means that it's time for a special Reminiscings of Youth article, and under the theme of Family Day, I thought it would be appropriate to bring in one of my fondly-remembered TV theme songs. "The Brady Bunch" was one of the many sitcoms that peppered my childhood through its first run and then reruns. If I recall, it was on Friday nights on ABC for the first half of the 1970s and from what I saw on the Wikipedia page for it, it was never a ratings winner despite its longevity but then Friday nights were usually seen as the death slot of TV shows.

"The Brady Bunch" was the quintessential family half-hour sitcom back in the day. There was nothing controversial about it...just each of the kids having their easily solvable problems and then getting help from the parents, Mike and Carol, and perhaps even their maid Alice. There were some plot lines that I remember from the series which lasted from 1969 to 1974 such as the gang heading to Hawaii and the Grand Canyon, the truth about Jesse James, the kids cutting their own hit songs, and the one depicted above where little Bobby gets his first kiss from a schoolmate portrayed by Melissa Sue Anderson who would become even more famous as one of the Ingalls' daughters on "Little House on the Prairie". In addition, the kids literally grew up right in front of our eyes and even Mike and Carol eventually got groovier with the times in their fashion and hairstyles.

Of course, there is the famous opening credits sequence with the nine squares showing off the parents, kids and Alice with the sweetly sung theme song which delivered how this blended family got together in the first place. However, my memories of "The Brady Bunch" began from the second season when the actors portraying the children sang the theme for the rest of the series. For some reason, reruns of the first season wouldn't start playing on TV here in Toronto until several years later, and it was pretty amazing seeing how young and 60s everyone looked back then. The first season's rendition of the theme was recorded by a sunshine pop band known as the Peppermint Trolley Company with series producer Sherwood Schwarz and prolific composer Frank DeVol (probably one of the great inspirers for Shibuya-kei to be born) creating the song. No matter who sang the theme, it still remains very hummable; I was doing some of that myself while typing this.

After "The Brady Bunch" got cancelled in the spring of 1974, the show was a regular rerun on many a channel, and it seems as if there were folks who wanted to bring it back in some shape or other. I remember "The Brady Bunch Variety Hour" and the animated series starring the kids. And a decade later, there was even "The Brady Brides" and eventually a film franchise taking a parodic approach. There was even "The Bradys",  a dramedy sequel that lasted all of a month in 1990; I hadn't even heard of that one since I was in Japan that year.

"The Brady Bunch" did get aired in Japan on Fuji-TV between 1970 and 1971 under the title "Yukai na Brady-ke"（ゆかいなブレディー家）which translates into "The Happy Bradys", and yes, they certainly were. I couldn't find any footage of the Fuji-TV version; the only thing I could find was this Japanese-subbed commercial that aired during the Super Bowl of 2015. Yup, it was epic. And good heavens...there was that episode about Marcia getting her nose broken by a football!

So, with the show premiering on September 26th 1969, what was at the top of the Oricon list at around that time? Here are the Top 3 from September 29th.

1. Mina Aoe -- Ikebukuro no Yoru （池袋の夜）

2. Naomi Sagara -- Ii Janai no Shiawase Naraba（いいじゃないの幸せならば）

3. Mieko Hirota -- Ningyo no Ie （人形の家）