Susan Olsen, who played Cindy ("the youngest one in curls") will be signing copies of her new book, Love to Love You Bradys: The Bizarre Story of The Brady Bunch Variety Hour, at the Santa Monica Public Library on September 26 at 1pm.
Derek Thomas of the LA Weekly calls The Brady Bunch Variety Hour "one of most hallucinogenically bad variety shows to have ever aired on television."
Susan Olsen ... tells all in Love to Love You Bradys: The Bizarre Story of The Brady Bunch Variety Hour — including how Maureen McCormick was constantly coked up and why Robert Reed was totally okay with dressing up as Carmen Miranda.Susan Olsen booksigning in Santa Monica
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I read it as "Susan Olsen will be singing copies of her new book..."
that would be even more bizarre.
The Simpson's parody of this nightmare seems more like a documentary now that I've seen the real deal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Simpsons_Spin-Off_Showcase
Did the 1970's really happen? I'm beginning to think it was all some kind of horrible hangover from the 60's.
That video went from bad, to awful: Rick Dees singing Disco Duck, to Awesome: Rip Taylor followed by the cast of What's Happening. Glad I stuck around.
Are we being led to believe that someone involved with the Brady Bunch Variety Hour was on drugs? I find that hard to swallow.
After watching that delighful Brady VH Youtube repose of the 70s, I promptly vomited lunch up in my mouth. Thanks, my lunch tasted better the second time around than watching this a second time.
Kimrod,
Drink a glass of drain cleaner. It'll get rid of the taste.
I'm trying to imagine the meeting at which someone said "Hey, and we'll have Rip Taylor dressed as a duck doing a disco cover of 'Tangerine'," and everyone said "Yeah, great!"
Anyone else notice that Maureen McCormick was conspicuously MIA from that clip?
I love me some Brady Bunch when I was growing up (reruns at 4:00 after school - yee ha!), but I couldn't watch past :30.
Wow, you guys that watched it...man, that's some stamina!
Shudder!
Ok, I stopped it at 1:07, and I'll never get that minute of my life back. On top of that, my eyes won't stop bleeding. I hate that.
That's the craziest shit I've seen in years. That clip alone brought on the punk revolution.
Wow. Just, wow.
Almost as bad as The Star Wars Holiday Special.
As I recall, simply having a hit single was enough to qualify you for a variety show in the 70's.
Yes folks, the 70's Were That Bad.
where's Marsha, Marsha, MARSHA????
I feel so much whiter, now.
Maureen was in red in the back left with Barry Williams, but who was the proxy for Eve Plum that sang Turn the Beat Around?
Where's Jan, Jan, JAN?!?
Ukulele chaser, please.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: the only good things to come out that decade was Star Wars, Led Zeppelin and the Corvette Stingray.
I was born in 1971 and even I knew back then that the decade sucked, and it sucked even worse coming of age in the 1980s with herpes, AIDS and Reaganomics.
The 1990s were pretty good. Then it was right back to "Suckville" for a decade of George W. Bush.
I was a victim of the 1970's, why is it that I can't remember this?
Must have been doing something cooler... yeah...
Just had to look up this train wreck. No wonder I missed it... early teen years, definitely not cool to report back in 8th grade homeroom.
Maureen McCormick is there, she's in the orange jumpsuit standing next to Barry Williams when the kids first come on stage. She's also there at the end. The one who's not there is Eve Plumb, who played Jan. She made the wise move of NOT doing the variety hour. Instead, that's Geri Reischl, who replaced Eve. You can check out her website at:
http://www.fakejan.com/
Why don't I remember the Variety Hour?
I was certainly old enough. My sisters and brother and I all faithfully watched the ABC Friday Night family line-up (Brady Bunch, Nanny and the Professor, Partridge Family).
Could the ten year old me have realized that it was crap and just not bothered to watch?
was that Re-run?
I still have the 45 of Rick Dees' Disco Duck. Probably never would've sprung for it had I seen his performance of it midway through this clip. Probably.
gotta keep on, keep on, keep on, keep on dancing all through the night!
And this is why we had to invent punk rock, kids.
I gave this video a second look and watched it all the way through and I must say I found it delightful. Only because it seems so quaint by our standards today. I especially liked the dance moves of the chubby African American dancer about 4 minutes into the video.
Stop being so cynical folks a lot of artists - writers, choreographers, dancers, musicians, set designers, etc. - put a lot of effort into making this show. So your not in the demographic that this show was meant for. I would be interested to know who the sponsors were when this show was originally broadcast.
I like the way they turned the lights down at 3:56. Except not down far enough.
And they should have done it earlier, like at about 0:00.
And it would have been better without sound too.
Except for those 8 bars of intro that started around 30 seconds in. Those were quite good -- shades of Hawai'i-Five-O almost!
@24: sure was! and the whole cast. Not sure why, but there you are.
Oh crap! My brains just liquefied...
For the fist time ever, it makes Donny and Marie seem like the Rolling Stones.
That's right, kids, singers were expected to know how to dance as well, not just pose or move around a bit and rely on clever camera editing to make it look like dancing.
The 1970s were crappy for adults but great for kids. Weed was as legal as it was ever going to be, the country had gotten over its shock over hippies, and Reagan-era paranoia was still a few years off. Good times.
Oh, god. Is that Rerun at 4:07?
This is worse than the cervix pictures.