The bunch is back
By Sheryl-Lee Kerr
Yikes, Bradymania is back. I saw the clip for the new movie the
other day and suddenly found myself spinning back, back ... back to a
Brady Bunch world of cheesiness; a world where right always comes up
trumps, out-of-tune singers win contests, lispers are only mocked
(nicely) behind their backs and teens never have sex (and I mean
never).
I was one of the generation who grew up in two worlds: the Brady
world and the real world. Funny, the older I get, the more I notice the
very strange disparity between these two existences...
Like the time Peter is taught by Mr Brady how to box, in order to
punch an annoying little kid's lights out. In the real world, he'd
be in the principal's office undergoing bullying counselling and Mr
Brady severely reprimanded for contributing to such an anti-social lad's
behavioral problems.
There's the episode where the girls had a slumber party and the boys
sabotaged the sleeping bags with itching powder, causing many
high-pitched squeals. In the real world, one of the visiting girls
would be an asthmatic and have a violent reaction. Her mother would
then sue the Bradys for everything they have. (She'd settle for
getting Alice, who wouldn't mind because she hadn't had a day off in
four years.)
There was that time a women's magazine published a letter about a
blended family of three girls and three boys who hate each other,
causing sideways looks around the household until the Agony Aunt
tells them it was another family who wrote in. In the real world, the
Agony Aunt would have said: ``Of course it's your family; what are you,
imbeciles?''
There was Marcia's ambit claim, when running for school president,
that she could get a groovy Monkee star to sing for them. He agreed
after much pleading. In the real world, she might have seduced him
(or vice versa), only to later become a pregnant teen, drop out of
school and hear all about ``Jan, Jan, Jan'' for the rest of her life.
There was the Very Brady Christmas Special in which Mike Brady
gallantly leaps into a collapsed mine where workers are trapped. In
the real world, he's home watching TV - there's not a lot of call
for architects who do mine rescues.
And then there are all those episodes combined, where you have a
stay-at-home mum, a maid, six kids and, supporting the lot of them,
one mostly untalented architect who gives his most important designs
to his kids to lose and spill things on. In the real world the
family's bankrupt, Mike's unemployed and Carol's a feminist
dissatisfied with her subordinate role.
Well, while I hold the whole clan in the utmost affection there's only so much Brady a sane person can take. I'll have the real world any day.
N.B. The Bradyesque moral to this column is: If you dance with your
thumbs sticking out you'll look bloody stupid.
© The Advertiser & Sheryl-Lee Kerr, 07 JAN 1997.