The Brady Bunch Variety Hour

On sheer brand recognition, The Brady Bunch is one of history's most culturally significant sitcoms; at least in its infinitely parodied opening titles, where the cast's boxed heads look each other up and down against a clear blue background. As explained so succinctly and saccharinely in the theme, a mom (“a lovely lady”) with three blonde daughters marries a man with three brunette sons – “that's the way we all became the Brady Bunch!” – for the hi-jinx heavy set-up of a blended family plus housekeeper. The original series ran from 1969-74, accompanied by five albums, thirteen singles, and a cartoon; Filmation's The Brady Kids.

The end was short-lived, back just two years after cancellation, in the form of Sunday night's Brady Bunch Variety Hour. The series was helmed by brother-team Sid and Marty Krofft; Canadian puppeteers behind the Banana Splits, turned producers on series noted for wildly psychedelic visuals, including H.R. Pufnstuf, Land of the Lost, Lidsville, and Sigmund and the Sea Monsters. Sid and Marty also ran brother/sister variety show Donny & Marie, on which four Bradys reunited for an episode which drew such giant ratings, ABC brought the whole band back together for their own series. Everyone returned except for – as lampooned in the Simpsons Spin-Off Showcase – recast middle daughter, Jan; selected from 1,500 auditionees one day before rehearsals began. By the time of airing, the youngest kids were now 16/17, and the older ones well into their 20s.

The Brady Bunch Variety Hour is notorious as one of TV's most catastrophic failures, and at the heart of this is its conceit; that the actual sitcom family landed a hosting gig, in-character, father quitting his job as an architect at his children's behest, to move everyone out to Hollywood. Imagine Bruce Forsyth's Big Night was hosted by Slinger from Slinger's Day, or if the Trotters had their own Saturday Night Takeaway; Uncle Albert donning a top hat to shuffle his way through Seventy-Six Trombones, while everyone places bets on if he'll crack his head open like at the comedy awards. Viewers had to constantly remind themselves they weren't watching a real family, suspending their disbelief like when the Golden Girls show up in a skit at the Royal Variety. Including the pilot, there were nine episodes, of which just two are available today, due to their unfathomable release on VHS and DVD in 2000.

1976's pilot has a dizzying opening, with a line of high-kicking showgirls – house troupe The Krofftettes – in classic sequins and feathers, black and white headshots of the cast projected behind them, as the soundtrack degrades into the famous theme played on kazoos. Stage doors pull apart to reveal the family, all eyes and teeth, in flared jumpsuits like something Ric Flair would wear to a crystal healing session, enthusiastically swaying through lyrical non sequitur “babyface, you've got the cutest little babyface...” Well, ta very much! Predominant look for the series is sparkle; every millimetre of set and costumes plastered in spangles and bulbs, devouring so much of the world's glitter supply, your wife's had to close her home-made birthday card business. Constantly reflecting off the lens, they might as well be shining a laser pointer in your eyes, and a 4K remaster would leave audiences like PJ after the paintballs. As the medley reaches Donna Summer's Love to Love You Baby,  with the surprise of a Bond villain pushing a button, a pool opens up in the studio floor, dancers blowing kisses as they launch themselves down a slide into 50,000 gallons of chlorinated bottled water.

The pool's a big set piece, and through the series, family members repeatedly fall or get pushed in. It's pure Busby Berkeley, using every beat from both classic Hollywood swim-dance and its parodies; the 'panning down the line as everyone goes in'; the 'shot from overhead on a big swing'; the 'synchronized mermaiding'. Its reality was less glamorous, with soaking wet Krofftettes battling freezing conditions, in a pool directly next door to the stage which housed Donnie and Marie's ice rink. ABC's strict mandate banned both goggles, and the frightful sight of air bubbles farting from a nostril, forcing the woman to exhale before entering the water, for constant and lengthy retakes over 15 hour shoots, many of which had them sat on the bottom of the pool. Hair was held in place using a gel concoction which turned it green, though in later episodes they were allowed headwear.

Jets of water shoot up for the big climax – “babyface, babyface, babyfaaaace!” – and we're straight into the Variety Hour's sole narrative device; jokey bickering. Family sitcoms thrive on toothless insults, and even fronting a prime time TV show, they simply cannot communicate any other way. “How'd you like to eat your teeth?” “How'd you like to sit on a frog?” You're on telly; bit of professionalism, please. Perhaps 117 episodes of the preceding series used up all the good ones, because the banter here is shocking, like “aluminium foil sings better than he does!” or “how'd you like a mouthful of purple socks?!” Actually, there's OnlyFans subscribers who'll pay big money for that.

But as Vin Diesel harps on about, this is a ruddy family, and for all of its disagreements and personality clashes, there's love at the centre. Youngest daughter Jan folds her arms with a stomp, “I wish I was dead!” Dad gets so nervous he forgets his own name. Mom gives updates like she's sending us a Christmas letter – “she's all grown up, but she's still her daddy's little girl... our son Peter is at college now, I think he's majoring in girls.” Like WWE or the Muppets (or Motormouth), we get scripted behind the scenes, at their 'house'. This cuts an awkward balance, attempting to recapture the sitcom vibe with stilted bits which sit too dramatically in contrast to the top-hat-and-cane hotdogging, leaving heartfelt moments playing to silence, and weak jokes salted with old fashioned audience laughter, like the fucking Flintstones.

Here, the kids want to ditch Dad because he's got stage fright, and he overhears a plot to recast him with special guest Tony Randell (the television Odd Couple and the voice of the brainy gremlin in Gremlins 2). Randell gets big applause for zinging one kid “up your nose with a rubber hose,” and the scene ends with a group hug as everyone tells Dad they love him. “That's my bunch!” says Mom, which coincidentally is what I titled a recent jpg to my haemorrhoid doctor.

Hard cut to a bowler hat being lifted into frame by a gloved hand, as the family strut through One from Chorus Line (“one smile and suddenly nobody else will do”), also parodied by the Simpsons when that gas turns them inside out. With each passing year, the Bradys underwent further cultural drift from wholesome to embarrassingly bland, giving a cult-like feel to their full and gleeful embrace of the growing untrendiness. In the outside world, punk was breaking, but they're ending songs with high kicks to a slowed-down chorus like 40's Broadway. It only serves to make constant references to modern things more dissonant; Marsha storming in with a bent record and a “look what daddy just did to my new Led Zeppelin album,” and repeated attempts to wring humour from contemporary slang, such as “cute,” “hip,” and “out of it,” in the modern(ish) equivalent of Ian Hislop making a joke about twerking.

With the kids wondering aloud if their parents were ever young, a wavy screen takes us to a Rollerama; male Bradys circling on skates in 50's greaser wigs and jackets, gnashing on gum. And here's where the meta thing trips me up. When the “chicks” skate in, both groups begin ogling each other, giving the eye, all “ain't he dreamy?” That's your dad! Actors playing siblings playing 50's horny teens; a set-up which only feels gross if you buy into them being a real family – as the show spends its entire time forcing you to. The incest vibes summon Donnie and Marie Osmond on a stars and stripes motorbike, Donnie acting like the Fonz and leading everyone in a version of Splish Splash which somehow is worse than Charlie Drake's.

Like a dancer with hypoxia taking the day's fiftieth header into a freezing pool, the show's escalating weirdness continually tops itself. We go to ads with a warning “hi, this is Bobby Brady, stay tuned for the rest of the Brady Bunch Variety Hour, or my sister will sit on ya,” and return to a scene which almost defies description. Trademark Sid and Marty Krofft acid-circus visuals, and something '94 Marilyn Manson could've stolen for his videos, purple flames rise over the wail of a fire siren as Mom screams in panic from the window of a glittery house frontage set high above the pool. Her kids are dressed as clown firefighters next to a half-submerged firehouse. A frenetic, trippy scene plays out at Benny Hill speed, as clowns in stripy tights careen into an already-packed pool; a heaving soup of limbs and bubbles, balloons and splashing foam. Painted faces hold their breath, paddling wide-eyed and red-mouthed into the lens; one falls from a ladder which stretches into the sky; everything under raucous big top music, slide-whistles and inexplicable audience laughter.

Clown sons drag their mother to safety, her oversized costume waterlogged and pulling her into the depths, as she's shoved through an underwater door to the clown firehouse, as if auditioning for the SAS. I know “clowns are scary” is a thing bores say to sound interesting, but nobody's leaving this without a phobia or a fetish. I feel changed after sitting through it. Directly from that to the fam sat playing a board game and chatting about the made-for-TV movie where John Travolta was a bubble-boy, machine-gunning viewers with cultural references to Pinky Tuscadero and Sonny and Cher, before an extended series of gags about East Germany.

Greg gets a solo number, Corner of the Sky from the musical Pippin (whose Broadway run he resigned from to free himself for this series), before an unbelievably unhinged performance by Tony Randell, dressed like a rustic Willy Wonka to speak-sing his way through Dame Edith Sitwell's poem Facade –“see me dance the polka, said Mr. Wagg like a bear, with my top hat and my whiskers that – tra la la la trap the Fair.” The orchestra sound like they're crying for help through their tubas, and the animal costumes came from a locked trunk deemed too horrible for The Shining.

In the closing ten minutes, the housekeeper shows up to reiterate that they really love each other, before Mom steps out of a family portrait for an earnest, vaseline-smeared medley of What I Did For Love and The Way We Were, over clips from the sitcom. Then everyone's in white like Liverpool at the '96 cup final, for a bruising end medley beside barely-dressed showgirls and motoring through half a dozen songs. Peter's dressed like Elvis, Mum and Dad take old standards; Cheek to Cheek; I Could've Danced All Night; and everyone la-la-las through the Hustle, shake-shake-shaking their booties. The studio floods with dancers and pyro as the pool opens up. “Wow,” says Dad at the big finish, “we made it.” I'm not sure the same can be said for me, though I perk right up at the hilarious credit for a mister Dick Browning.

I subjected myself to one more, episode four from March 4th 1977, as it's of special interest to me, your favourite goth, with guest star Vincent Price. Opening number sees the Bradys precariously balanced on an Escher-esque series of platforms and tiny staircases, kicking flares to Keep Your Sunny Side Up. That song always triggers a flashback, of the time Simon Brett who wrote ITV sitcom After Henry came to my junior school to judge our stories, and some kid said “anyone see Clarence last night?” in reference to Ronnie Barker's one-and-done short-sighted 1930's removal man sitcom, of which that was the theme. Another lad replied “keep your sunny side UP!” punctuating the final word by thrusting his cock into the air, and getting sent into the corridor. Sorry yes, the Brady Bunch.

Underwater dancers dressed as sunflowers form legs into shapes, one rising into the ceiling on a swing, as the family cheerily demand of us “keep your sunny side up, keep it up!” I don't want to! This episode really underscores the awkward crevasse between wacky variety and sitcom plot, as Mom tells us what a rough week it'd been –  “we had a little problem with Greg.” Shown in flashback, Greg's had it with his noisy siblings and announces, despite loving them all very much, it's time to be a man and move out. Cue slow and dramatic zoom on Mom's upset face.

Though he's a very old-looking 22 with a Cromwell Street haircut, Greg's leaving is treated as an unthinkable tragedy, and I guess it's a plot they never explored in the sitcom, getting the full 'kid moves out but discovers it's not like they'd hoped' trope, when his great new apartment turns out to be a shithole. Said place was acquired by Brady neighbour Rip Taylor; best recognised by millennials and Brits as the chap who throws confetti (and his own wig) everywhere at the end of the Jackass movies. Taylor was brought onto the Variety Hour as love interest for the housekeeper.

A sudden knock at the front door signals Vincent Price, giving it his very best Vincent Price (an undead Donald Sinden), with a ghoulish “I come in friendship, seeking relief from the turmoil of this temporal life.” Rip and Vincent engage in a glorious camp-off; a race to devour the scenery, meeting in the middle like Lady and the Tramp, as Vincent lets on that the apartment's haunted. Sadly, this exciting set-up is the beginning and end of it, and there's to be no Vincent Price Monster Mash accompanied by dancing skeletons and half-naked showgirls covered in talc.

Instead, Momma Brady's in tears during a Greg phone call, cradling his photo to her chest like he's died, as the lead into her song; “faded photographs, covered now with lines and creases...” This is proper Yarwood-level earnesty, cutting between her, and Greg's own wistful gaze at a family photo, about sixty seconds after Vincent Price was being all spooky. Surrounded by TOTP style purple haze, Greg appears behind her with his own maudlin refrain, “all by myself... don't wanna live all by myself any more...” Links between crazy song 'n' dance numbers are given with heavy hearts, Brady parents cuddled together, sadly mourning the loss of their adult son. Later that night, Greg shows up for the emotional reunion, hugging his mom, apologising and sheepishly asking if he can have his old room back. The entire family runs in to embrace him after a long 36 hours apart, all played soberly with no laughs, other than at their shitty gags; “I guess this means I don't get your room!”

Straight from that to Peter falling in the pool, and musical guest, Elton John. Sorry, my mistake, not Elton John, but H. R. Pufenstuf, deranged former World's Fair mascot, dragon with a head like the bulbous yellow helmet of an excited penis, and star of titular Sid n Marty Krofft series; the trippiest show ever made. Left without a musical guest after an 11th hour cancellation, Pufenstuf was drafted in, gigantic Elton glasses pinned on his glans-head, to mime along to an Elton-penned track, Celebration; produced for the puppet show at failed theme park, The World of Sid and Marty Krofft, which closed 6 months earlier. H. R. enthusiastically bobs at the piano, loose foam maw yapping up and down like a jogger's ballbag. During a poolside dance routine, the mouth becomes 'stuck', with the poor sod inside manually having to yank it back open. Accompanied by a dancer dressed as a giant chicken, there's a sense this is what Dooby Duck could've been, had he been backed by American money and military grade hallucinogens.

After Marsha's heartfelt and sullen Time in a Bottle, they throw a party for Greg, as Rip hangs balloons by a huge WELCOME HOME GREG, WE LOVE YOU banner and calls us “ding-dongs.” Marsha begs the housekeeper for a lick of the cake bowl, pleading “I've been really good this week, I've lost 5lb,” and Greg's presented with a key to his room “for privacy,” meaning he can finally enjoy his very first wank. Then the housekeeper steps on Bobby's skateboard, accidentally mashing a cake into his face. “Well, that takes the cake!” shrieks Rip Taylor. It's into glitzy suits and dresses for the closing medley, fifty balloons strapped to each dancer's back, and songs about happiness – Happy Together, Make Someone Happy, Put on a Happy Face; even the Happy Days theme. Rip and the housekeeper bust some moves as a giant smiley descends from the ceiling, but sadly, the exhaust fumes from Vincent Price's taxi have long-since dissipated.

Cut to credits, they're still harping on about being happy to have Greg back, arm in arm and closing with United We Stand– “united we stand, united we fall.” And fall, they would, as Variety Hour's legacy was a guaranteed and well-deserved spot on every Worst Of list until the end of time. The Bradys would be resurrected in a bunch of reunion TV-movies, specials, and sitcom continuations, none of which made reference to the time they hosted a television show. The most distressing thing about the whole endeavour is the enormous amount of time, effort and money put in, with multitude eight-person song and dance sequences, all needing to be choreographed and rehearsed, and everyone changing outfits about twenty times per show. Perhaps its most succinct epitaph is the Wikipedia footnote on its final episode: “According to various cast and crew members, former alcoholic Paul Williams got very drunk before they filmed the closing number.”

Over thirty years later, The Brady Bunch Variety Hour would be done for real, with the Osbournes, hot off setting the format for all celebrity reality shows with their MTV series. Osbournes Reloaded aired for a single episode in March of 2009, featuring parodies of Flashdance and Juno – starring a dragged-up Ozzy – various pranks, like forcing a young man to get off with an old lady, and an actual genuine 'Knowing Me, Alan Partridge, knowing you, another Alan Partridge' segment, meeting other families named Osbourne. The premiere was cut from an hour to 35 minutes shortly before broadcast, with the series immediately cancelled, leaving five episodes unaired. Needless to say, I'd sit through the whole wretched Brady Bunch version just for a snifter of it, and that's to say nothing of Hear'Say It's Saturday.