I was so, so excited to find this book. I used to love watching The Brady Bunch. Everything was also so perfect, the siblings fought but made it up in the end. When something went wrong they stood up for each other. It was so different to my family. I just wonder if I made the right choice. I just wonder if the things we love as children should remain there, in our childhood, and not be examined in the light of adulthood.
Why do I say this?
The Brady Bunch was a popular TV series here in Australia. It was produced between 1969 and 1974.
Let me look at what I learned about the two oldest children. Barry Williams and Maureen McCormick played these two characters. They were in the teenage hormonal stage of their lives while they were growing up in this series. Williams found McCormick quite attractive and as they spent a lot of time working together this turned into a mutual attraction. If you look at the front cover you can even see them kissing, the book tells us that’s as far as it went. I was very young when it was on TV and I can’t seem to separate the characters from the actors. I’m having to place the book upside down as I find it slightly disturbing to see them kissing in quite that manner.
Why did I enjoy this book?
I loved getting the other behind-the-scenes stories. It was good to know the children were getting an education during the filming. Apparently they had a teacher on set who sat with them and made certain education other than filming happened. This is something that’s always worried me about children growing up in the film industry.
The story of the episodes set in Hawaii when they were on a boat of some kind which had an issue. Susan Olsen playing the youngest girl, Cindy, ended up in the water. Florence Henderson, playing Carol, the mother, promptly went in search of her as Olsen couldn’t swim.
Williams has written out a brief synopsis of each episode. He’s also included various snippets of information pertaining to that episode, unfortunately not every episode. This includes one time when he uses the actor’s name rather than the character’s name.