The Bizarre Brady Bunch Christmas Special
In this Christmas special, not everything is okay with TVs perfect family.
My favorite thing to do in December is re-watch the 1988 TV movie ‘A Very Brady Christmas.’
Although I love old TV shows, I was not someone who grew up watching the Brady Bunch. I didn’t even know the show existed until we got Hulu in my mid-teens. I’m not even particularly well versed in Brady lore, nor do I remember the first time I watched A Very Brady Christmas, but as soon as I did I was hooked. It’s a fascinating movie.
The Brady Bunch is TV’s perfect family. The parents love each other and the kids always get along, whatever issue is set up in the first few minutes gets resolved 25 minutes later.
In the Christmas special, the Brady kids are now adults with children of their own and this is the first time in several years that they’re all going to be under the same roof, because with 6 siblings who have husbands and wives and girlfriends, it would be hard to get together every year. It’s surprisingly realistic considering this movie was written by Sherwood Schwartz, the guy who created the Brady Bunch and Gilligan’s Island, shows that are now considered cheesy and unrealistic (not that realism matters in tv and movies. just that there is a certain style to Schwartz’s TV shows).
When they all get together, it turns out that the now grown up Brady kids are all having crises of their own.
Jan is separating from her husband, Philip, but ropes him into coming to Christmas when she admits her family doesn’t know yet.
Bobby dropped out a grad school and became a race car driver. He has (also) not told anyone about this.
Marcia’s husband, Wally, has lost his job and he’s trying to keep this a secret from the family.
Peter’s girlfriend is his boss and this makes him feel uncomfortable.
Cindy feels like she’s not treated like the adult she is.
And Greg misses his wife, who decided to spend Christmas with her family.
As you can probably tell, I’ve sorted these by most serious to less serious. (Sorry Greg.)
Of course this is the Brady Bunch, so everything gets resolved at Christmas dinner, when Mike’s speech inspires everyone to come clean. Jan and Philip save their marriage, Wally admits he lost his job, Bobby comes clean about dropping out of grad school, Peter and Valerie (his boss/girlfriend) prose to each other, Greg’s wife shows up for Christmas, and Cindy tells her family that she’s sick of being treated like a kid (she’s like 27 and stuck at the kid’s table).
I think what makes this movie interesting is that even the Brady’s go through hard and unhappy times. If there’s hope for them, I like to think there’s hope for us. We will get through this, it’s always darkest before the dawn, etc. etc.
I’ll end this with this Letterboxd review from user Kate Milner that I think sums everything up pretty well.
"…I never want to be so distant from my little brother that he could start an amateur race car driving career and i wouldn’t have the slightest idea.”
Notes & links
Everyone should check out this podcast episode from Gayest Episode Ever, where they talk about this Christmas special.
In this movie Cindy is played by Jennifer Runyon, and in my opinion is the superior Cindy Brady.
Greg is now OBGYN. It’s deeply hilarious to me that popular high school student Greg specifically goes into that field, and ultimately turns into a boring adult.
Cindy’s age makes no sense. If we go by Susan Olson’s age Cindy would have been 27 in 1988, but they treat her like she an 18 year old college student.
Link of the Week:
Where every letter i’ll link to a cool website.