Did You Know This Fun Fact About THE BRADY BUNCH?

Published: July 2, 2025

By Mallory Mattingly

Did you know THE BRADY BUNCH was originally supposed to focus on the parents instead of the kids?

However, when the first season of the hit TV series aired, the producers realized that the kids interested the audience more than their parents.

“We began the show with a family unit, and then it evolved,” Lloyd Schwartz, a writer and producer on the show, said on an episode of “The Real Brady Bros.” podcast in 2022 “It was originally supposed to be about the parents, and the kids were there — six kids were there — and then we realized that the kids couldn’t [not] affect the parents…They were involved in their own lives, and the parents could be there to help them. And so that’s how our show evolved, but it was originally going to be about the parents. But that’s why in the second year we changed the song: ‘So that’s how we became the Brady Bunch.’”

The show, which ran from 1969–1974, follows Mike Brady (Robert Reed), the father of three boys, who marries Carol (Florence Henderson), who’s mom to three girls. “…hilarity begins as the kids try and adjust to their new step siblings,” a synopsis reads.

“The Brady boys Greg (Barry Williams), Peter (Christopher Knight), and Bobby (Mike Lookinland) and the Brady girls Marcia (Maureen McCormick), Jan (Eve Plumb), and Cindy (Susan Olsen) are joined by Alice (Ann B. Davis), the wise-cracking housekeeper and all together strive to tackle the issues of a combined family,” it continues.

While most shows typically focus on one point of view, THE BRADY BUNCH gave “equal respect to both Brady generations,” something that wouldn’t have happened if its creators stuck with their original plan.

“A lot of times the shows are kind of one-sided,” star Christopher Knight said previously. “It’s from the parents’ point of view and the children are irritants, or it’s from the kids’ point of view and the parents are, you know, idiots, or played for the comic purpose. I think the reason that our show works, and it works for kids growing up, is because it’s respectful to them. In fact, it’s also respectful to the parents.”

Actor Barry Williams appreciated the show’s perspective on family, too.

“That is, how do people get along with one another? How do we resolve issues together?” he said earlier this year. “And we said it in kind of trite ways, ‘All for one, one for all,’ and that’s really what we meant. As I look at the body of five years of shows, we see that with our siblings — who we never refer to as steps, it was never my stepsister or stepmom, right away it was sister — we were all in it together. Each time we finished an episode I felt better than when I started. And that was the point. That is what the show is supposed to be, that is what the brand of the show was, as a model.”

This focus on the entire family — parents and kids alike — makes THE BRADY BUNCH such a beloved and enduring classic.

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