The Partridge Family

Recently I've had the pleasure of watching re-runs of this quite pleasant television show. While it never dealt in-depth with earth shattering issues, it was well performed, well crafted & had some great songs that showcased the era. Some may find it sappy & over indulgent, but take it for what it was, a light comedy for teenage viewers. Also the show did pick up three 'Golden Globe' nominations, so some in the industry must have been of the same opinion!

The Partridge Family premiered in 1970. Sure, it was sort of corny. But most TV shows back then were. It was a more innocent era then, and so was television. It revolved around the misadventures of a squeaky-clean, middle-class family, who decided to form a band and make records. It was based on the real-life rock-n-roll family, the Cowsills. David Cassidy, who was a teen heart-throb on the show, played the eldest brother, Keith Partridge. Laurie Partridge, played by Susan Dey, was his cover-girl-pretty younger sibling, and tended to annoy Keith on a frequent basis. His other siblings were cute, precocious-types, especially Danny Partridge (who was the 10-year-old financial wizard).

The family was headed by widow, and cool mom, Shirley Partridge (played by David Cassidy's real-life step-mom, Shirley Jones). The cast was rounded-out by their hapless Manager, Reuben Kincaid (played by rubber-faced comic Dave Madden), who always made a perfect comic-foil for Danny. The whole family sang and played instruments. They cut several albums during the course of the series, that spawned some hit singles. Their songs to me, were really quite good, especially if you like soft-rock and love ballads.

I could identify with the Partridge's suburban life-style, having grown-up in a solid middle-American, middle-class suburb myself. Some of the kids on the show were my age, and some were the same ages as my own siblings.

This show came on ABC on Friday night, following another family sitcom with several kids, the Brady Bunch. The Partridge Family even had many episodes that were so similar to some Brady Bunch episodes, they could only be called shameless rip-offs. Still, it was a gentle, family-oriented show, with good music and good acting by the cast. I always looked forward to Friday nights back then, just so I could enjoy the Partridge Family on TV.

I was 5 years old when this show debuted, and can remember the popularity of it unlike any other show to date. The bubble gum cards, the records, teen magazines-everything to do with "The Partridge Family" was a hot commodity! "I Think I Love You" was the first song I ever knew all the lyrics to. This was due to my friends and I piling onto the swingset in my backyard, which included a 4 seater lawn swing which we made fit 8 kids, and sing "I Think I Love You" over and over again while pumping the lawn swing way into the air. Some of my friends would take the end cones off and sing through the top bar to get a reverb effect! Seeing the show in reruns throughout the '70s & '80s, it still had it's charm. It wasn't mean't to be an emmy award winner, but it served it's purpose-to be lighthearted and funny. The music showcased on the show was memorable too. Try watching an episode, and not have their songs replay in your head long after watching it. To me, "The Partridge Family" will always have a special place in my heart because it invokes happy memories from such a great time in my life.

for kids, and wish there were more like this today.

Shirley Jones, David Cassidy, Susan Dey and Danny Bonaduce are the primary characters; This show competed with the Brady Bunch when it first aired. It had the usual teen conflicts, Keith (David Cassidy) and his dating conquests. Danny and his latest scheme. The music was fun (so innocent- compared to what is offered up today!) Basically a good nostalgia show. The Reuben Kincaid interactions with Danny (Danny Bonaduce) are some of the best. Funny and cynical, Kincaid is the cranky old uncle, Bonaduce the trouble maker.

I don't know if this show is still available on cable regularly, but it is well worth watching. 9/10.

Amusing to see VH-1 staging a minor-scale "American Idol" to find the "new Partridge Family" (with judges who base their scores on, among other things, physical likeness to the original line-up). It's nice see Shirley Jones and David Cassidy involved (as for Danny Bonaduce, well...he'd appear at the opening of an envelope). But the really funny part is the fact that VH-1 does not air reruns of "The Partridge Family', so how do these young kids auditioning even know who Keith Partridge is (and what he meant to TV viewers and teenyboppers all over the world from 1970-1974). It's bound to flop, as did the remake of "Family Affair", simply because you can't get lightning to strike twice. "The Partridge Family" came along at the right time, when people needed it--needed to BELIEVE IN IT--and record producer Wes Ferrell and the editors at 16 Magazine and Tiger Beat made millions off the show (exploiting David Cassidy's manufactured wholesome image of the boy-singer-next-door). There were better shows of this period (and the laugh-track just screams at the sometimes corny humor), but the show does have great appeal, and the familial relationships have a lived-in feel (when Laurie and Danny kid Keith about his non-existent bald spot, they wink at each other as Keith goes mad with the hairbrush, and mom Shirley watches from the sidelines, no doubt enjoying the prank). They have tried unsuccessfully to reunite this group of actors for specials, and aside from a David-Danny-Shirley reunion on "Arsenio", they've failed. If you can't reunite the originals, why then is VH-1 betting on the success of duplicates? Maybe people need to believe again, or maybe Hollywood has really run dry of ideas.