Robert Reed Hated ‘The Brady Bunch’ — Why Did He Return for the Sequels?
It was no secret that Robert Reed often clashed with the writers and producers of The Brady Bunch; in 1972, in the middle of the show’s run, he gave an interview with the Courier-Post where he commented, “The ineptitude of the scripts can be overpowering … It could be a good show, but we’re operating at 30 percent capacity, I think.” He even famously skipped participating in the show’s final episode, simply because he thought the plot was too stupid. Because of this, many fans have wondered why Reed showed up for the show’s many sequels: he performed in The Brady Bunch Hour variety show, as well as the specials The Brady Girls Get Married and A Very Brady Christmas, and the 1990 sequel series The Bradys. According to creator Sherwood Schwartz, Reed didn’t come back because he needed money; rather, it turns out that he didn’t want to miss out on key family moments that the show was built around.
As creator Sherwood Schwartz explained in his interview with The Television Academy Foundation Interviews, Reed reached out when he heard about the 1981 reunion special in which Marcia and Jan were getting married, telling Schwartz, “I certainly want to be in it, in a show where my two oldest girls get married.” For Reed, who had dismissed the sitcom’s lighter stories during its run, the chance to play the father figure during milestone events gave him a reason to return.
How did Robert Reed leave The Brady Bunch?
Reed’s return to the Brady fold was all the more shocking when you recall the fierce way he left the series. In the final season, Reed balked at a storyline where Bobby sells hair tonic that turns Greg’s hair green. Schwartz remembered Reed calling on the morning of the shoot and declaring, “I won’t do the show.” With little time to spare, Schwartz rewrote the script to give Reed’s lines to Florence Henderson and Ann B. Davis, and the episode went forward without him.
Everett Collection
When Reed showed up on set anyway, Schwartz asked him to keep his distance so as not to unsettle the children. “I called Paramount and they said they’d send security to haul him off,” Schwartz recalled. “I said not on my set they won’t … what about those six kids looking at their father being hauled out of the set? That’s terrible.”
Given all this tension, it is surprising that Reed wanted to come back at all. But Schwartz explained that Reed may have been experiencing a kind of “transference,” linking the fictional daughters to his own real family. Schwartz said of the reunion, “He was wonderful. He performed, he did what he was told, and there wasn’t a peep out of him.”
Where to Watch The Brady Bunch and its sequels
You can catch the Brady family streaming on Paramount+ or free on Pluto TV. You can also watch it on MeTV and Catchy Comedy. Many of the sequels and specials are on Paramount+ or YouTube.
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April 2019
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