The Brady Brides

If you look at this show, it can be seen as the middle part of a trilogy (that is if you don't count the cartoon series and the horrid variety show). This show along with the original "Brady Bunch" and the hour long drama "The Bradys" make up the trilogy. Unfortunately, no one wanted to see a show with just Marcia, Jan, Carol and Alice (neither Robert Reed nor any of the Brady Boys or even Cindy appeared on this show). It was a bad idea then and it was just another attempt to squeeze a little more out of the family that wouldn't die.

People heap a lot of scorn on anything Brady, but it's undeserved. The original show taught me about as much about human relations as Gilligan's Island. Brady Brides -- and all the subsequent attempts to revive the Zombie Brady -- have always seemed like trips home for me.

It was almost pathologically unfunny. Just like the original. But how could you not love it? Marcia and Jan looked fantastic -- in fact, I think they could've saved the show if it was titled 'the Brady Strippers.'

When it first came out, everyone in my class loved it. We had puppet shows when I was in grade six. Two of them were Brady Bride puppet shows. I was in neither, despite my hand's striking resemblance to Wally - very hairy and meaty.

This short-lived spinoff from the 1981 TV movie The Brady Girls Get Married only lasted 7 episodes. The series tried way too hard to cash in on the more successful Three's Company with more adult-oriented humor and was taped in front of a live studio audience. The only good episode was when the couples appeared as contestants on The Newlywed Game and discover how very little they know about their marriages.

I thought this show really deserved more of a chance. Marcia and Jan are both newly married and are house-hunting. They quickly realize that they only way they can afford a nice house in California is to pool their resources and buy a house together.

The comedy comes from the fact that the man Marcia married is an easygoing slob, while Jan's husband is an uptight, neat-freak professor. Sound familiar? If Neil Simon did not demand royalties, it was only because the show disappeared so quickly.

Another appeal for me as a young man was that Eve Plumb had grown up to be a total babe. Despite her role as the awkward middle child on "The Brady Bunch", she played a self-assured young woman whose beauty completely outshone that of Maureen McCormick (who was still very attractive).

Perhaps this show would have done better without the Brady connection. Brady fans were probably disappointed that the show featured only two of the Brady family, while those who scorned "The Brady Bunch" never gave it a chance.

My rating of seven (one for each aired episode) may be higher that the show actually deserves, but I give credit for the potential of a show that never really got a chance to find itself

A few of years ago, I caught some episodes of "The Brady Brides" on FoxFamily(or now ABCFamily... w/e) NEWAYS! I guess it's just not the same without the whole Brady family, and it's just different seeing Marcia and Jan being married. However, I really liked all the characters in this show and the plot because they're all really funny and the plot is just awesome... two couples all living in the same house because the two couples can only afford this really nice house if they pitch in together. However, both couples are totally opposites of each other. I guess that's really what makes it funny, because you have Wally: a guy who just likes to fool around and be silly.... and sleep in the nude. Then you have Philip: a guy who is serious, a professor, and is traditional. I mean, it's just really amazing and funny to see how two people so different can live in the same house and work it out. One of the episodes I really liked was when Wally and Philip just had it with each other and drew a line across the house, where Philip and Jan is to stay on one side and Wally and Marcia on the other. Both Wally and Philip drove each other crazy by doing things that would annoy the other person to death right next to the border of the line. Anyways, I wouldn't say this is one of my favorite shows, but it really isn't that bad if you want to just find something to watch and have a good laugh.

Bottom line... it's kinda funny, but just not the same without the whole spirit of the Brady family.