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Brady, Brady, Brady: The Complete Story of The Brady Bunch as Told by the Father/Son Team who Really Know
The Brady Bunch is one of the most beloved series to ever grace American television screens. Whether you've been a devoted fan since its inception in the late 1960s, or are a more recent Brady buff thanks to its steady airing in syndication, there is an undeniable shared delight that comes from the simple-natured, humor-filled world of that picture-perfect family.Now, for the first time, the show's famous creator, writer, and producer Sherwood Schwartz and his son, writer and producer Lloyd Schwartz, share with their loyal audience the complete first-hand behind-the-scenes story of The Brady Bunch. From how the show was developed, pitched, greenlighted, cast, produced, and embraced, to ultimately how it changed the TV and cultural landscape of America—this book really has it all.
Sherwood and Lloyd Schwartz carefully and nostalgically recall all the details—great, small, funny, frustrating, and everything in between—that came with the show. Taking an exclusive tour of everything Brady, you'll marvel at the stories, take pleasure in more than 50 rare photographs, and transport yourself into the show you love with the insider details you never knew.
Sherwood and Lloyd Schwartz carefully and nostalgically recall all the details—great, small, funny, frustrating, and everything in between—that came with the show. Taking an exclusive tour of everything Brady, you'll marvel at the stories, take pleasure in more than 50 rare photographs, and transport yourself into the show you love with the insider details you never knew.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published August 1, 2010
25 people are currently reading
229 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 95 reviews
January 6, 2011
If you're gonna be a real hardass about it, this book probably deserves two stars (if you round up), but I feel very strongly that Brady, Brady, Brady needs to be made an example of. It should be stripped to the waist, lashed with barbed strips of stiff leather, and forced to drag heavy, rusty chains through the streets; it should be pelted with peach pits, walnut shells, and dense wads of viscous spittle by an angry, bloodthirsty mob; and it should be left for a day or two in the stocks to redden in the pitiless August sun. There is no excuse for books like these, and likewise there is no excuse for us consumerist dupes who shell out twenty-five bucks for them in hardcover, hoping for scandal, Schadenfreude, or at least a prurient thrill, but who instead merely empower a mindless media machine so in love with itself that it would eat itself out and then devour itself whole -- if only it could. In other words, expect to see this book on sale for $3.99 on Amazon within twelve months. And twelve months is a generous prognosis for this swill. And I am truly ashamed to admit that I couldn't stop reading said swill because I was hoping, waiting for something -- some tidbit, some tantalizing morsel -- that would earn my twenty-five hard-earned dollars. That something never materialized. As I closed the book last night, slowly, ruefully, I kept punishing myself by thinking, 'Twenty-five dollars could probably feed a family of eighteen in Sudan for twelve years.' But was twenty-five dollars quite enough to feed the ravenous egos of Sherwood Schwartz and Lloyd Schwartz, the father-son creator and producer of The Brady Bunch, respectively? Unlikely. I think I hear the stomach of their self-regard growling all the way across this frivolous nation...
If you are roundabout my age and your parents weren't crazy, TV-hating communists, then it's likely that you were raised (wholly or in part) by the sitcom The Brady Bunch. During the late 1970s and 1980s, the show was ubiquitous in syndication. When I was young, I remember that there were periods when you could catch episodes four or five times a day. TBS, then WTBS, would air one or two episodes a day; 32 WFLD out of Chicago maybe would add another airing; and one of the local channels might contribute a couple more back-to-back episodes. I’m almost tempted to refer to it as syndicated terrorism, but that would be unfair and revisionist because I loved the show. I’d watch each and every episode that I could, even the egregiously shitty ones, like the episode that was a pilot for Kelly’s Kids or the one where Florence Henderson sings in church for Christmas -- which was just WASP overload for me. I’ll never understand Protestants. Maybe because their churches resemble wood-paneled basements. Where’s the razzle-dazzle? But I digress.
The Brady Bunch is undoubtedly the most influential television series of my life, both because of its frequent airings and because I watched it primarily when I was young and impressionable. I was never one of these kids who compared the Brady household, wistfully, to my own and wondered what was wrong with my family that we didn’t build a concrete block stage in our backyard to put on plays or that we weren’t incarcerated in a ghost town jail by a man with borderline personality disorder or that we didn’t do the Charleston together, or even aspire to. The Brady world was always unreal and not entirely appealing to me. I mean, it was appealing to watch, as one watched the lion maul to death the heretic in ancient Rome, but there was never any wish fulfillment bullshit going on for me. First of all, I detested the father Mike Brady (Robert Reed), who was a bit too much a father in the classicist vein: authoritarian, moralistic, humorless, and conservative – which is another way of saying that he was very similar to the father I was already saddled with. The only Brady child who had any real resonance for me was, occasionally, Jan (Eve Plumb) because she was super-neurotic and she did amazing things like invent imaginary love interests and stage fake telephone calls with them. (Remember ‘George Glass’? Mike and Carol should have grabbed Jan by the ear right then and there and dragged her to a licensed clinical therapist.) The only character I really loved on The Brady Bunch was the housekeeper Alice (Ann B. Davis, who, you may be surprised to know, as of this writing, is still alive) -- which is why I could never watch the episode where the Brady kids were mean to Alice and called her (unjustifiably) a snitch. They emotionally harassed her to such an extent that she actually resigned as the Bradys’ housekeeper. Can you believe what horrible fucking shits those kids were? I wish Jesse James (in Bobby’s dream sequence in another episode) had really shot them all dead. So after Alice quits, a new housekeeper named Kay is hired, and she’s a real stick-in-the-mud. No corny jokes, no making facings, no silly hijinks from Kay. She’s all business. Probably never had an orgasm in her sad, oven-scrubbing life. When the kids try to engage Kay -- in effect, to turn her into Alice Version 2.0 -- she balks and serves up her withering rejoinder, ‘That was Alice. I’m Kay.’ The problem with this whole piece of fuckery is that if Kay were actually ‘fun’ (in the limited Brady definition of fun) they would have gotten away with treating Alice like shit and forcing her out -- with no moral retribution whatsoever! That’s bullshit! They only received their comeuppance on the basis of a technicality. Whenever I saw that this galling episode was being aired, I didn’t watch it. If those ungrateful fucks didn’t want Alice living in their house and mugging for the camera, I sure the hell did.
Why am I telling you all this? I’m glad you asked. I’m telling you all this because I’m trying to establish in your mind an understanding of how high (and misguided) my hopes were when I purchased this book. I’m not just a casual, fair-weather Brady Bunch fan; I like to consider myself a minor Brady Bunch authority. If Nova does a documentary on Brady Bunch scholarship, I hope that I would be asked to be one of the talking heads who sits in front of a bookcase filled with leatherbound books, has a well-clipped beard, and peers at the camera, condescendingly, through his bifocals. Consequently, since this was a book about The Brady Bunch written by Sherwood Schwartz, the creator and executive producer of the show, and Lloyd Schwartz, his son, and later associate producer, producer, and one-time director of the show, my hopes were soaring higher than the green midget-piloted UFO that landed in the Bradys’ backyard. (Don’t worry about the limits of your disbelief suspension. It was another dream sequence.)
First of all… the format? Dumb. Sherwood writes the first portion of the book independently of the son. Did they even bother to read each other’s parts? I doubt it because there’s actually duplication. Sherwood spends the first part basically discussing the creation and casting process, which is mostly uninteresting. Also, you should probably know that Sherwood Schwartz is probably in his nineties, and from his book jacket photo, he looks like someone that you’d have to hold up a mirror to in order to be certain if he’s still alive. He’s very pre-post-mortem. As such, his section of the book feels like listening to a very old relative who is completely out-of-touch with the modern world and who rambles on about his own life mercilessly in a doddering, audience-ignoring style. Lloyd, meanwhile, is arrogant and self-important. He addresses the day-to-day production of the show, and often peppers his account with the generally oxymoronic clause, ‘I don’t mean to toot my own horn, but [my italics]…’ It’s hard to know whether to pity Lloyd or to hate him, although the two are not mutually exclusive. He really, really, really believes that The Brady Bunch is great television and enjoys celebrating his and his father’s contributions in making it so great. He seems to have no awareness that much of the show’s success is attributable to nostalgia and the enduring (ironic) appeal of kitsch.
Secondly, most of the content of this book fall into one or more of the following categories: (1) uninteresting, (2) repetitive, (3) previously known/publicized, or (4) irrelevant. I mean, really, what authentic Brady Bunch aficionado is not aware (at this point) that Robert Reed, who played the father Mike Brady, was gay or, unrelatedly, was a total asshole? He was under contract with Paramount, which produced the show, and since they were paying him anyway, they wanted him to work for it, so they basically ‘assigned’ him to The Brady Bunch, which he loathed. He was familiar with Sherwood Schwartz’s work with Gilligan’s Island, which symbolized for him everything that was wrong with popular television entertainment. He arrived on the set with a bad attitude from the beginning -- which only worsened over time until he refused to participate in the final episode of season five, in which a cheap hair tonic turns Greg’s hair orange. (He objected to the shoddy science of the episode, even though Sherwood consulted Clairol who confirmed that incorrectly formulated tonics could actually turn hair orange. So you can basically see that, if this is true, Robert Reed was batshit crazy. He was actually obsessed about the plausibility of The Brady Bunch!) As a consequence of his refusal to appear, the Schwartzes actually fired Reed; this turned out to be meaningless because the show was later canceled by the network anyway. But it would have been interesting to see the sixth season in which Sherwood was debating whether to kill off the character of Mike Brady or send him away indefinitely ‘on business.’
Both Sherwood and Lloyd trash Robert Reed in their sections of the book, but he is the only person connected with the show who is disparaged in any way. And -- oh! -- conveniently enough, Robert Reed is dead and cannot rebut any of this. There are a few subtle intimations about Eve Plumb (who played Jan). Both Sherwood and Lloyd seem to be insinuating, very tentatively, that she was irritable or difficult or something else that they won’t specify, but since Eve Plumb is enduringly alive, tact wins the day.
In summation, I hated this book. These Schwartzes are fucking in love with themselves and their contributions to ‘television history.’ It’s really almost embarrassing, like when you walk in on somebody masturbating. And some of the anecdotes have the feeling of being manufactured or exaggerated. Sherwood Schwartz, for instance, claims that when he was casting the part of Carol Brady one actress grabbed his dick when he held out his hand to her. Maybe this really did happen, but when I turn back to look at the corpse-like man in the jacket photo, I’d really prefer that it didn’t. I’d also prefer that this book were never written because it pollutes the memory of the show a little for me. Whenever I see Marcia Brady being clocked in the nose with that football, I’ll remember that I read about that jackass Lloyd Schwartz congratulating himself on being the one to throw the football. He literally goes on about it for half a page. You’d think he invented penicillin or something.
If you are roundabout my age and your parents weren't crazy, TV-hating communists, then it's likely that you were raised (wholly or in part) by the sitcom The Brady Bunch. During the late 1970s and 1980s, the show was ubiquitous in syndication. When I was young, I remember that there were periods when you could catch episodes four or five times a day. TBS, then WTBS, would air one or two episodes a day; 32 WFLD out of Chicago maybe would add another airing; and one of the local channels might contribute a couple more back-to-back episodes. I’m almost tempted to refer to it as syndicated terrorism, but that would be unfair and revisionist because I loved the show. I’d watch each and every episode that I could, even the egregiously shitty ones, like the episode that was a pilot for Kelly’s Kids or the one where Florence Henderson sings in church for Christmas -- which was just WASP overload for me. I’ll never understand Protestants. Maybe because their churches resemble wood-paneled basements. Where’s the razzle-dazzle? But I digress.
The Brady Bunch is undoubtedly the most influential television series of my life, both because of its frequent airings and because I watched it primarily when I was young and impressionable. I was never one of these kids who compared the Brady household, wistfully, to my own and wondered what was wrong with my family that we didn’t build a concrete block stage in our backyard to put on plays or that we weren’t incarcerated in a ghost town jail by a man with borderline personality disorder or that we didn’t do the Charleston together, or even aspire to. The Brady world was always unreal and not entirely appealing to me. I mean, it was appealing to watch, as one watched the lion maul to death the heretic in ancient Rome, but there was never any wish fulfillment bullshit going on for me. First of all, I detested the father Mike Brady (Robert Reed), who was a bit too much a father in the classicist vein: authoritarian, moralistic, humorless, and conservative – which is another way of saying that he was very similar to the father I was already saddled with. The only Brady child who had any real resonance for me was, occasionally, Jan (Eve Plumb) because she was super-neurotic and she did amazing things like invent imaginary love interests and stage fake telephone calls with them. (Remember ‘George Glass’? Mike and Carol should have grabbed Jan by the ear right then and there and dragged her to a licensed clinical therapist.) The only character I really loved on The Brady Bunch was the housekeeper Alice (Ann B. Davis, who, you may be surprised to know, as of this writing, is still alive) -- which is why I could never watch the episode where the Brady kids were mean to Alice and called her (unjustifiably) a snitch. They emotionally harassed her to such an extent that she actually resigned as the Bradys’ housekeeper. Can you believe what horrible fucking shits those kids were? I wish Jesse James (in Bobby’s dream sequence in another episode) had really shot them all dead. So after Alice quits, a new housekeeper named Kay is hired, and she’s a real stick-in-the-mud. No corny jokes, no making facings, no silly hijinks from Kay. She’s all business. Probably never had an orgasm in her sad, oven-scrubbing life. When the kids try to engage Kay -- in effect, to turn her into Alice Version 2.0 -- she balks and serves up her withering rejoinder, ‘That was Alice. I’m Kay.’ The problem with this whole piece of fuckery is that if Kay were actually ‘fun’ (in the limited Brady definition of fun) they would have gotten away with treating Alice like shit and forcing her out -- with no moral retribution whatsoever! That’s bullshit! They only received their comeuppance on the basis of a technicality. Whenever I saw that this galling episode was being aired, I didn’t watch it. If those ungrateful fucks didn’t want Alice living in their house and mugging for the camera, I sure the hell did.
Why am I telling you all this? I’m glad you asked. I’m telling you all this because I’m trying to establish in your mind an understanding of how high (and misguided) my hopes were when I purchased this book. I’m not just a casual, fair-weather Brady Bunch fan; I like to consider myself a minor Brady Bunch authority. If Nova does a documentary on Brady Bunch scholarship, I hope that I would be asked to be one of the talking heads who sits in front of a bookcase filled with leatherbound books, has a well-clipped beard, and peers at the camera, condescendingly, through his bifocals. Consequently, since this was a book about The Brady Bunch written by Sherwood Schwartz, the creator and executive producer of the show, and Lloyd Schwartz, his son, and later associate producer, producer, and one-time director of the show, my hopes were soaring higher than the green midget-piloted UFO that landed in the Bradys’ backyard. (Don’t worry about the limits of your disbelief suspension. It was another dream sequence.)
First of all… the format? Dumb. Sherwood writes the first portion of the book independently of the son. Did they even bother to read each other’s parts? I doubt it because there’s actually duplication. Sherwood spends the first part basically discussing the creation and casting process, which is mostly uninteresting. Also, you should probably know that Sherwood Schwartz is probably in his nineties, and from his book jacket photo, he looks like someone that you’d have to hold up a mirror to in order to be certain if he’s still alive. He’s very pre-post-mortem. As such, his section of the book feels like listening to a very old relative who is completely out-of-touch with the modern world and who rambles on about his own life mercilessly in a doddering, audience-ignoring style. Lloyd, meanwhile, is arrogant and self-important. He addresses the day-to-day production of the show, and often peppers his account with the generally oxymoronic clause, ‘I don’t mean to toot my own horn, but [my italics]…’ It’s hard to know whether to pity Lloyd or to hate him, although the two are not mutually exclusive. He really, really, really believes that The Brady Bunch is great television and enjoys celebrating his and his father’s contributions in making it so great. He seems to have no awareness that much of the show’s success is attributable to nostalgia and the enduring (ironic) appeal of kitsch.
Secondly, most of the content of this book fall into one or more of the following categories: (1) uninteresting, (2) repetitive, (3) previously known/publicized, or (4) irrelevant. I mean, really, what authentic Brady Bunch aficionado is not aware (at this point) that Robert Reed, who played the father Mike Brady, was gay or, unrelatedly, was a total asshole? He was under contract with Paramount, which produced the show, and since they were paying him anyway, they wanted him to work for it, so they basically ‘assigned’ him to The Brady Bunch, which he loathed. He was familiar with Sherwood Schwartz’s work with Gilligan’s Island, which symbolized for him everything that was wrong with popular television entertainment. He arrived on the set with a bad attitude from the beginning -- which only worsened over time until he refused to participate in the final episode of season five, in which a cheap hair tonic turns Greg’s hair orange. (He objected to the shoddy science of the episode, even though Sherwood consulted Clairol who confirmed that incorrectly formulated tonics could actually turn hair orange. So you can basically see that, if this is true, Robert Reed was batshit crazy. He was actually obsessed about the plausibility of The Brady Bunch!) As a consequence of his refusal to appear, the Schwartzes actually fired Reed; this turned out to be meaningless because the show was later canceled by the network anyway. But it would have been interesting to see the sixth season in which Sherwood was debating whether to kill off the character of Mike Brady or send him away indefinitely ‘on business.’
Both Sherwood and Lloyd trash Robert Reed in their sections of the book, but he is the only person connected with the show who is disparaged in any way. And -- oh! -- conveniently enough, Robert Reed is dead and cannot rebut any of this. There are a few subtle intimations about Eve Plumb (who played Jan). Both Sherwood and Lloyd seem to be insinuating, very tentatively, that she was irritable or difficult or something else that they won’t specify, but since Eve Plumb is enduringly alive, tact wins the day.
In summation, I hated this book. These Schwartzes are fucking in love with themselves and their contributions to ‘television history.’ It’s really almost embarrassing, like when you walk in on somebody masturbating. And some of the anecdotes have the feeling of being manufactured or exaggerated. Sherwood Schwartz, for instance, claims that when he was casting the part of Carol Brady one actress grabbed his dick when he held out his hand to her. Maybe this really did happen, but when I turn back to look at the corpse-like man in the jacket photo, I’d really prefer that it didn’t. I’d also prefer that this book were never written because it pollutes the memory of the show a little for me. Whenever I see Marcia Brady being clocked in the nose with that football, I’ll remember that I read about that jackass Lloyd Schwartz congratulating himself on being the one to throw the football. He literally goes on about it for half a page. You’d think he invented penicillin or something.
September 7, 2010
If you're a Brady Bunch junkie, you're not going to be able to resist this one, regardless of whatever you might read here. And a book written by the man who created the series probably seems like it should be filled with lots of juicy gossip and inside information not available anywhere else, right?
Wrong.
There actually isn't much that's new here, unless you're a Brady novice. You probably know the stories of the Bradys being rejected by every major network, of Robert Reed's annoying work habits, of Barry Williams' horniness for both his TV mom and TV sister, and the demise of Tiger. In fact, much of what you'll read here you've likely seen in lots other places, and sometimes told a bit better. The Schwartz's mutual dislike of Robert Reed is a common theme in here, for instance, but Barry Williams makes the stories funnier and more interesting in his book GROWING UP BRADY. Lloyd Schwartz is careful to remind you that just because Williams says something in HIS book doesn't make it true, but on the other hand, just because Schwartz says so doesn't make it that way, either.
That said, both Schwartzes seem to want to use this book as an opportunity to set the record straight -- whatever that means -- but it mostly becomes an opportunity to take credit for pretty much anything about the series that you may have liked, while disavowing (and saying they had NOTHING to do with) anything you didn't. Peter's "pork chops and applesauce" Bogart impression? Lloyd taught him that. "Oh my nose!"? Lloyd threw the football. The horrible variety show? They had nothing to do with that. All those funny moments in the Brady Bunch movie? All Sherwood and Lloyd's ideas from the opening draft of their first script, don'tchaknow.
I don't think I've ever heard it said that the Schwartzes weren't creative, thoughtful writers or producers, so I'm not sure why they're trying to stop anyone from grinding an axe with all this pre-emptive braggadacio. It makes what should be a entertaining memoir a real eyeroller.
If you're a Brady fan like me, you've probably already got this. In that case, read it and enjoy it for what it is -- and consider it merely another point of view in the familiar stories.
Wrong.
There actually isn't much that's new here, unless you're a Brady novice. You probably know the stories of the Bradys being rejected by every major network, of Robert Reed's annoying work habits, of Barry Williams' horniness for both his TV mom and TV sister, and the demise of Tiger. In fact, much of what you'll read here you've likely seen in lots other places, and sometimes told a bit better. The Schwartz's mutual dislike of Robert Reed is a common theme in here, for instance, but Barry Williams makes the stories funnier and more interesting in his book GROWING UP BRADY. Lloyd Schwartz is careful to remind you that just because Williams says something in HIS book doesn't make it true, but on the other hand, just because Schwartz says so doesn't make it that way, either.
That said, both Schwartzes seem to want to use this book as an opportunity to set the record straight -- whatever that means -- but it mostly becomes an opportunity to take credit for pretty much anything about the series that you may have liked, while disavowing (and saying they had NOTHING to do with) anything you didn't. Peter's "pork chops and applesauce" Bogart impression? Lloyd taught him that. "Oh my nose!"? Lloyd threw the football. The horrible variety show? They had nothing to do with that. All those funny moments in the Brady Bunch movie? All Sherwood and Lloyd's ideas from the opening draft of their first script, don'tchaknow.
I don't think I've ever heard it said that the Schwartzes weren't creative, thoughtful writers or producers, so I'm not sure why they're trying to stop anyone from grinding an axe with all this pre-emptive braggadacio. It makes what should be a entertaining memoir a real eyeroller.
If you're a Brady fan like me, you've probably already got this. In that case, read it and enjoy it for what it is -- and consider it merely another point of view in the familiar stories.
August 11, 2016
For some odd reason, I love watching/reading about The Brady Bunch. This book was a bit of a disappointment to me, though. It didn't really have any new insights into the show, although I didn't mind reading some of the same stories I had heard before.
Four things about this, especially Lloyd Schwartz's sections, that really annoyed me:
1) There are a ridiculous amount of typos in the book. For example, who is the editor who missed that the "brilliant" Lloyd misspelled our current President's first name?
2) Lloyd is so pompous throughout the book, it made me sick. According to his testimony, every thought he had was right and brilliant and anything that failed or didn't work was tried by someone else against Lloyd's better judgment.
3) Lloyd actually looks back wistfully at his missed opportunity to assassinate Ronald Reagan when he once met him (before Reagan was President).
4) Both Lloyd and Sherwood make every snide comment possible about Robert Reed, to the point where it got absurd. I mean, the guy is dead! Let it go.
I don't think Lloyd could be any more unlikeable. In fact, I kind of want to punch him in the face.
Four things about this, especially Lloyd Schwartz's sections, that really annoyed me:
1) There are a ridiculous amount of typos in the book. For example, who is the editor who missed that the "brilliant" Lloyd misspelled our current President's first name?
2) Lloyd is so pompous throughout the book, it made me sick. According to his testimony, every thought he had was right and brilliant and anything that failed or didn't work was tried by someone else against Lloyd's better judgment.
3) Lloyd actually looks back wistfully at his missed opportunity to assassinate Ronald Reagan when he once met him (before Reagan was President).
4) Both Lloyd and Sherwood make every snide comment possible about Robert Reed, to the point where it got absurd. I mean, the guy is dead! Let it go.
I don't think Lloyd could be any more unlikeable. In fact, I kind of want to punch him in the face.
September 14, 2022
A fun read! It was delightful to read about the creation of this iconic TV show and what went on behind the scenes.
February 18, 2025
As a Gen X youth, I grew up on The Brady Bunch reruns and have probably seen all the episodes at least once if not multiple times, so this was a fun nostalgic look at this retro series. The first half was written by the creator Sherwood Schartz who also created Gilligan's Island and detailed how the series began, while the second half was by his son Lloyd who shared information about the episodes while in production and then the years afterwards. There were a few interesting gossipy items, and both men hated Robert Reed who played the father, but it was mostly self-congratulatory about their work with the fictional Brady family. Lloyd came off as a creepy weasel, so I took much of his story with a grain of salt. But this book whetted my appetite for more Brady trivia, so I might check out a few other books written by the actors themselves, just as I did for the Little House on the Prairie series.
April 27, 2020
Super cute book detailing behind the scenes of The Brady Bunch television show which ran for five seasons in the late 60s and early 70s. For me, born in 1973, I came home from school each afternoon in time to catch The Brady Bunch reruns. I remember so many details mentioned in this book from “Pork chops and applesauce” to the tarantula. Many things I did NOT know, like how very difficult working with Robert Reed was. Who knew? I also did not realize how many specials and movies occurred after the original series. The Brady Bunch in the White House, WHAT?!?! Honestly, if you have not watched the show, I don’t know why you would read this book. It is for Brady fans, and yep, that is just what I am!
September 5, 2021
Brady, Brady, Brady tells the story of The Brady Bunch - directly from the show creator Sherwood Schwartz and his son Lloyd Schwartz, who was a dialogue coach and later assistant producer on the show.
I grew up watching The Brady Bunch and was looking for a fun, light retro read. I enjoyed the anecdotes about the show, the cast (Robert Reed does not come across well!), and little trivia tidbits I had never heard. I recommend this book for fans of the series. Lots of retro nostalgia here!
I grew up watching The Brady Bunch and was looking for a fun, light retro read. I enjoyed the anecdotes about the show, the cast (Robert Reed does not come across well!), and little trivia tidbits I had never heard. I recommend this book for fans of the series. Lots of retro nostalgia here!
November 7, 2025
I really enjoyed Part 1 from Sherwood - he sounded like a really nice and genuine guy and I liked what he had to say.
Parts 2 and 3 were harder to get through. Lloyd was just narcissistic and arrogant and it was pretty much all I could focus on. The guy would say "I don't mean to toot my own horn" right before tooting his own horn like every chapter🙄
Besides that, it felt like it was just a book to shit on Bob Reed.
Also anything Lloyd said about Maureen and Barry being horny for each other, or at all, ever - I did not enjoy. It was weird and gross the way he discussed it.
Overall, it was really cool to read so much behind the scenes of one of my favorite shows. I did mostly enjoy it. I wish Sherwood had written more than 92 pages of it.
Parts 2 and 3 were harder to get through. Lloyd was just narcissistic and arrogant and it was pretty much all I could focus on. The guy would say "I don't mean to toot my own horn" right before tooting his own horn like every chapter🙄
Besides that, it felt like it was just a book to shit on Bob Reed.
Also anything Lloyd said about Maureen and Barry being horny for each other, or at all, ever - I did not enjoy. It was weird and gross the way he discussed it.
Overall, it was really cool to read so much behind the scenes of one of my favorite shows. I did mostly enjoy it. I wish Sherwood had written more than 92 pages of it.
March 24, 2023
A love for the Brady bunch and memories of reading this a chapter a night with my roommate in our college dorm room is a big part of me getting through this. The first third was wonderful but once we got to the portion written by Lloyd Schwartz it was awful. There was just an overarching air of condescension and badmouthing people, not to mention editing errors and incorrectly referencing things or taking credit for others….
February 10, 2018
It's not edgy, it's not full of gossip...it's simply a loving & nostalgic look back at an iconic, well-loved TV series that brought great delight to millions of people in the early 1970s. It's a breezy, happy read that lacks any hint of cynicism...and that makes it incredibly refreshing.
May 21, 2020
Docking stars for the alarmingly high amount of typos and grammatical errors - even "Barack Obama" was spelled wrong. Also agree with other readers who felt that Lloyd Schwartz was waaaay too braggy and full of himself.
October 9, 2017
This book felt detached and super self-congratulatory.
April 4, 2022
Pure nostalgia, though a lot of Robert Reed bashing was found inside. He was difficult? Meh
August 15, 2022
A lot of interesting facts I didn't know about the Brady Bunch. Also interesting to learn the process of how a sit com goes from an idea to the actual show.
April 30, 2023
I grew up watching the Brady Bunch after school. One of my favorite shows. I enjoyed this book. All Brady fans should read.
October 5, 2019
There are quite a few books out there about the Brady Bunch origin story and how this TV show came to be so well loved by millions of people. For decades too! I grew up in the 90's watching the reruns as a kid. Always loved and will love this TV series even until I grow old and have a family of my own. It's a classic.
With the new HGTV series 'A Very Brady Renovation' currently on the air, I am once again reacquainted with the TV family that I (childishly) always liked to imagine as an extension of my own. (My favorite was Marcia, but I always secretly believed I could be a Jan.) It's been a very long time since I watched the 1970s reruns. So naturally, I found season 1 on Amazon Prime and have been slightly binge watching whenever I got the chance... which has led me down a rabbit hole of reading up on as much Brady history as I can get. Evidently, over the years, more and more material have surfaced through cast interviews, memoirs, etc. I just wanted facts, which I realized is something you just have to sift through among the rest of the noise. A lot of material out there is repetitive or taken out of context. Natural occurrences that come with recycling tales and embellishments here and there. I figured some of the better sources would be anything offered from the people who were actually at Paramount studios, stage 5, in the 1970s. That's what I liked about this book.
Published in 2010, this book in particular was written by the creator and executive producer Sherwood Schwartz and son (dialogue coach/assistant producer) Lloyd Schwartz. Some may find their tone to be far from humble, maybe even narcissistic, self-important. Or they could view the book as the work of a father and son who are proud of their accomplishments, who want to share with readers their experience in creating a TV series they dearly loved. I'm in the latter category. They write about their own personal experiences with the cast and the crew. Some stories in here can be found on various internet sources, sure, but it's nice to read it from their own hand. Not gonna lie, there was quite a lot of Robert Reed bashing in this book.
In summary, I found the book to be overall enjoyable, for someone who has only begun digging into the off-screen Brady history. Definitely not the gold standard for all the Brady Bunch things one needs to know, but really, is there such a thing? With so much material out there, this book simply provides a look inside the heads of two people who were legitimately integral to the Brady Bunch beginnings. That's all. A literary walk in their shoes.
With the new HGTV series 'A Very Brady Renovation' currently on the air, I am once again reacquainted with the TV family that I (childishly) always liked to imagine as an extension of my own. (My favorite was Marcia, but I always secretly believed I could be a Jan.) It's been a very long time since I watched the 1970s reruns. So naturally, I found season 1 on Amazon Prime and have been slightly binge watching whenever I got the chance... which has led me down a rabbit hole of reading up on as much Brady history as I can get. Evidently, over the years, more and more material have surfaced through cast interviews, memoirs, etc. I just wanted facts, which I realized is something you just have to sift through among the rest of the noise. A lot of material out there is repetitive or taken out of context. Natural occurrences that come with recycling tales and embellishments here and there. I figured some of the better sources would be anything offered from the people who were actually at Paramount studios, stage 5, in the 1970s. That's what I liked about this book.
Published in 2010, this book in particular was written by the creator and executive producer Sherwood Schwartz and son (dialogue coach/assistant producer) Lloyd Schwartz. Some may find their tone to be far from humble, maybe even narcissistic, self-important. Or they could view the book as the work of a father and son who are proud of their accomplishments, who want to share with readers their experience in creating a TV series they dearly loved. I'm in the latter category. They write about their own personal experiences with the cast and the crew. Some stories in here can be found on various internet sources, sure, but it's nice to read it from their own hand. Not gonna lie, there was quite a lot of Robert Reed bashing in this book.
In summary, I found the book to be overall enjoyable, for someone who has only begun digging into the off-screen Brady history. Definitely not the gold standard for all the Brady Bunch things one needs to know, but really, is there such a thing? With so much material out there, this book simply provides a look inside the heads of two people who were legitimately integral to the Brady Bunch beginnings. That's all. A literary walk in their shoes.
May 14, 2020
This disappointing book is supposedly the creators' way to "set it straight" after complaining about the many other books that have come out about the show. Yet there is almost nothing to this book and most of the stories were told better elsewhere.
Sherwood Schwartz does the first part of the book and seems unable to recall much of anything. His chapters are extremely short and make up only about 75 pages with a lot of white space. He also has a number of errors.
Lloyd Schwartz is his son that was given all sorts of jobs on the show and loves to brag about it. He appears to want us to believe that he was behind much of the success of The Brady Bunch, but he was just a new college grad who got his position due to nepotism. His non-stop self-praise gets annoying, especially when he turns the book into his own life story instead of having many new details about the show. He also has a number of factual errors in his portion of the book.
Then he picks The Bradys drama as being well done, says The Brady Brides was the best of all the incarnations (which he produced of course), and he manages to claim The Brady Bunch in the White House was a great TV movie (which he and his sister wrote). Lloyd is delusional, the last film was cringe-inducing and the others were ridiculous.
If you have never read a book on The Brady Bunch then you might enjoy this, but it's too little and too short. The only decent chapter is about the making of the first Brady theatrical film, which the two had little to do with. While they both love to complain about hating to work with Robert Reed they don't give enough details to make him sound anything but crabby. There's virtually nothing in the book about the cartoon series and only a slam at the Variety Show that they weren't even told about when it was made.
It's mostly complaining and faded memories. Read one of the many other books on the classic sitcom instead.
Sherwood Schwartz does the first part of the book and seems unable to recall much of anything. His chapters are extremely short and make up only about 75 pages with a lot of white space. He also has a number of errors.
Lloyd Schwartz is his son that was given all sorts of jobs on the show and loves to brag about it. He appears to want us to believe that he was behind much of the success of The Brady Bunch, but he was just a new college grad who got his position due to nepotism. His non-stop self-praise gets annoying, especially when he turns the book into his own life story instead of having many new details about the show. He also has a number of factual errors in his portion of the book.
Then he picks The Bradys drama as being well done, says The Brady Brides was the best of all the incarnations (which he produced of course), and he manages to claim The Brady Bunch in the White House was a great TV movie (which he and his sister wrote). Lloyd is delusional, the last film was cringe-inducing and the others were ridiculous.
If you have never read a book on The Brady Bunch then you might enjoy this, but it's too little and too short. The only decent chapter is about the making of the first Brady theatrical film, which the two had little to do with. While they both love to complain about hating to work with Robert Reed they don't give enough details to make him sound anything but crabby. There's virtually nothing in the book about the cartoon series and only a slam at the Variety Show that they weren't even told about when it was made.
It's mostly complaining and faded memories. Read one of the many other books on the classic sitcom instead.
August 13, 2025
It was so hard for me to give this book a rating. It's written by the show's producer, Sherwood Schwartz, and his son Lloyd Schwartz who held different roles in the show and eventually became a producer as well. The Brady Bunch was my favorite show as a young child and for notalighc purposes I'd give it a 5. Loved hearing the behind scenes stories about the cast and episodes that I loved so much. Sherwood did a pretty good job. Lloyd (who covered the majority of the book) did not. There was just too much going back to how difficult Robert Reed was. Interesting at first when Sherwood talked bout it, but Lloyd kept going back to that and it was getting old. I also didn't know if I believed Lloyde. I think it was based on truth, but some things seemed exaggerated for entertainment purposes Fine if this was a more loosely based on the making of The Brady Bunch. But I want to read the truth. Plus, he gets a little bit into his personal life which I was not interested in. Seemed like a bit of a bragger. So, I'm settling on 3 stars. Would have liked to give it 3.5, but rounded down cause I on't think the book is so great. Interesting and nostalgic to me as a huge Brady Bunch fan. Would only recommend it if you truly loved and know the show and all the episodes and are looking for a light read.
January 25, 2019
Sherwood Schwartz and his son, Lloyd Schwartz, the father and son team who collaborated in the 1960's/1970's sitcom, "The Brady Bunch," wrote this book about the truth of that wonderful TV show from a long time ago.
They gave the history of all the characters: Carol, Mike, Greg, Marcia, Chris, Jan, Bobby and Cindy Brady, plus their lovable housekeeper, Alice. And they also gave updates on what has happened to this blended family since the show went off the air.
There were some special reunions, a movie, and talk about other desires which Sherwood and Lloyd have up through 2010. I liked that they said that Michele Obama remember the show from her childhood.
When they mentioned the chances in the kitchen for some of the later special shows, I was surprised that there was no mention specifically of the ORANGE counters....Growing up in New Jersey our house had Orange formica counters, just like the Brady Bunch--until 2001.
I recommend this book to anyone who was a fan of the show back then. I also recommend this book to those who are training for a spot on Jeaporady or other "game shows" on television because "The Brady Bunch" is a "Pop Culture" clue from the 1970's.
Wonderful book on a great topic....
Laura Cobrinik,
Boonton Township, NJ
They gave the history of all the characters: Carol, Mike, Greg, Marcia, Chris, Jan, Bobby and Cindy Brady, plus their lovable housekeeper, Alice. And they also gave updates on what has happened to this blended family since the show went off the air.
There were some special reunions, a movie, and talk about other desires which Sherwood and Lloyd have up through 2010. I liked that they said that Michele Obama remember the show from her childhood.
When they mentioned the chances in the kitchen for some of the later special shows, I was surprised that there was no mention specifically of the ORANGE counters....Growing up in New Jersey our house had Orange formica counters, just like the Brady Bunch--until 2001.
I recommend this book to anyone who was a fan of the show back then. I also recommend this book to those who are training for a spot on Jeaporady or other "game shows" on television because "The Brady Bunch" is a "Pop Culture" clue from the 1970's.
Wonderful book on a great topic....
Laura Cobrinik,
Boonton Township, NJ
September 28, 2024
the last ten pages ruined this book
In the last few chapters, LLoyd, the younger Schwartz who wrote the second and third parts of this book, suddenly changes tone and language to something that is perhaps described as Trumpian. I really don’t think it’s satire given it was published in 2010. But whoa, way to lose an audience.
Before that was going to say that while clunky, both parts are enjoyable to someone who while born a quarter of a century after Lloyd, has seen all of the original episodes and more than once. But the unpleasant and sour taste left by the last ten pages really tanked my sentiment and thus what would have done as a three star I am giving a two star and that’s just because I fear a one star might be a product of recency bias.
I’d already sighed and ordered a DVD of The Brady Bunch in the White House based on his recommendation just before this unpleasant and jarring change occurred. Maybe if it will help me understand the sea change.
In the last few chapters, LLoyd, the younger Schwartz who wrote the second and third parts of this book, suddenly changes tone and language to something that is perhaps described as Trumpian. I really don’t think it’s satire given it was published in 2010. But whoa, way to lose an audience.
Before that was going to say that while clunky, both parts are enjoyable to someone who while born a quarter of a century after Lloyd, has seen all of the original episodes and more than once. But the unpleasant and sour taste left by the last ten pages really tanked my sentiment and thus what would have done as a three star I am giving a two star and that’s just because I fear a one star might be a product of recency bias.
I’d already sighed and ordered a DVD of The Brady Bunch in the White House based on his recommendation just before this unpleasant and jarring change occurred. Maybe if it will help me understand the sea change.
March 5, 2019
While this is obviously a self-serving chronicle of the iconic sitcom, I appreciate hearing both Sherwood and Lloyd Schwartz's "voices" come through, as this, as much as anything, explains much about the show. As a child of divorce, the Brady Bunch served as a beacon of hope through what were bleak times for me as a child. It is nice to know that the creators/producers of the show, and the cast as well (even including the reputedly cranky Robert Reed) endeavoured to make the show a positive experience for the young stars, and appreciated on some level the impact the show might have on its audience.
January 27, 2023
I read this book to preview it for my son who is a big Brady Bunch fan. It's a pretty good book with a lot of stories and fun facts from the father and son team who created and worked on the show. I know that the behind the scenes of any Hollywood production isn't likely to be very wholesome, and this book wasn't completely terrible in that respect, but did have a lot of strong language, and some anecdotes appropriate for more mature audiences. The hatred of Robert Reed is overdone in this book, in my opinion, especially since he can't respond to the criticisms.
July 28, 2024
It’s a story of a lovely lady… and I loved all the details from the writer/creator/producer/dialogue coach perspectives. I think I really liked it too because I’m basically getting all the tea from the late 60s up until this book’s publishing date of 2010. #drama I also learned a lot about the entertainment industry and that was cool! Always wondered what it’d be like to be on a TV show so this kinda let me live that vicariously.
Now I’m off to watch the whole series and all the spin-offs and movies to understand all that was shared.
Now I’m off to watch the whole series and all the spin-offs and movies to understand all that was shared.
July 2, 2025
Great behind the scenes procedural written by Lloyd Schwartz, the executive producer’s son, who himself was a big reason for the success of the show. You will learn much. This book is required reading for any serious Bradyophile. I remember the show well, was in kindergarten when it premiered, watched it through 1974, and then saw it probably 10 or 12 times in syndication. TV Land runs it at 12:00 PM central every Saturday, and I see it on the screen in the restaurant where I eat lunch every Saturday. Brings back many memories.
April 16, 2025
I like the details about creating the series, especially in the section Sherwood Schwartz wrote. Once Lloyd Schwartz takes over there is a whole different tone and not always a good one. I would have given it 3 stars if LS did not whine so much. His writing about the characters, specific episodes, and the actors is good except for way too much complaining about Robert Reed. We got it quickly but had to read page after page of it.
October 16, 2025
As a child, I was inexplicably drawn to shows like The Brady Bunch, much to my parents' dismay. Their dislike only made me love it more. Now, as an adult, I find myself questioning why I was so enamored with such drivel. Yet, the answer lies in the unexpected joy of those moments spent in front of the TV with my older brother. Little did we know that those times were fleeting.
The book was overall okay. It could have been exceedingly better.
The book was overall okay. It could have been exceedingly better.
October 26, 2018
If you are looking to read a "tell all" book about the Brady Bunch, this is not the book. I liked the book as I grew up watching the Brady Bunch. I sincerely hope that young Mr. Schwartz does not follow through with his idea for a future Brady project that he mentioned on the last few pages of this book.
June 24, 2019
Growing up I watched The Brady Bunch. This book was an interesting read by the father who created the series and the son who worked with his father; the two people who best know the series and the actors! I loved reading the background and stories. What I would have given to be a fly on the wall!
December 30, 2019
This books was not bad as so many people have said it was in their reviews. I personally loved the Brady bunch and enjoyed this book a lot. This is the memoir of Sherwood and Lloyd Schwartz and their experiences making the Brady Bunch, and it’s movies. I enjoyed the book.
October 26, 2020
If you grew up watching The Brady Bunch (and Gilligan's Island) you will love this book. It talks about lots of the shows of that time (I am 57). Makes you see re-runs of the show in a whole new light!
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