The Brady Kids

The Brady Kids

The Brady Kids title card
Created by Sherwood Schwartz
Directed by Hal Sutherland
Voices of Susan Olsen
Eve Plumb
Maureen McCormick
Barry Williams
Christopher Knight
Mike Lookinland
Larry Storch
Jane Webb
David E. Smith
Erika Scheimer
Lane Scheimer
Composer(s) Frank DeVol
(theme music)
Ray Ellis
(incidental music)
Country of origin  United States
Language(s) English
No. of seasons 2
No. of episodes 22
Production
Executive producer(s) Sherwood Schwartz
Producer(s) Norm Prescott
Lou Scheimer
Editor(s) Doreen A. Dixon
Joseph Simon
Running time 30 min. (with commercials)
Production company(s) Filmation
Redwood Productions
Distributor CBS Television Distribution
Broadcast
Original channel ABC
Original run September 9, 1972 (1972-09-09)[1] – August 31, 1974 (1974-08-31)[1]
Chronology
Preceded by The Brady Bunch
Followed by The Brady Bunch Hour
Related shows Mission: Magic

The Brady Kids was an animated television series, produced by Filmation in association with Paramount Television and seen on ABC from 1972 to 1974. It was an animated spinoff of ABC's live action situational comedy, The Brady Bunch and spun off another Filmation series, Mission: Magic! which starred rock star Rick Springfield.

Contents

Background

In 1972, with the live action sitcom The Brady Bunch preparing for the start of its fourth season, show creator and executive producer Sherwood Schwartz approached Filmation about the creation of an animated series featuring the Brady Kids. Filmation agreed, and Lou Schiemer and Norm Prescott (creators of other Schwartz properties Gilligan's Planet and The New Adventures of Gilligan) headed up the project.[1]

Characters

The original show's six children (Barry Williams, Christopher Knight, Mike Lookinland, Maureen McCormick, Eve Plumb, and Susan Olsen) voiced their animated counterparts in the first season; however, as the series' name implies, the parents and Alice the housekeeper characters were omitted from the show. At the end of the first season, Filmation asked the kids to continue on their existing contracts for another five episodes in a second season. The kids' original answer was no, prodded on by their agent Harvey Shotz. Filmation threatened to both sue the children over breach of contract, and to continue the show without their voices. Lookinland, Plumb, and Olsen agreed to the extended Filmation contract, while Williams, Knight, and McCormick did not.[2] Williams's and McCormick's voices were replaced by the children of producer Lou Schiemer (Lane and Erika Scheimer, respectively).

The animated series also added some animal characters. Marlon (voiced by Larry Storch) was an intelligent, red, talking mynah bird and also a wizard who used his magic to help the kids out of jams. Marlon was also notable for his method of flight: he spun his tail feathers like a helicopter rotor rather than using his wings, which were instead used as hands, often for grand gestures as he cast spells.

The Bradys' dog from the live-action series, Tiger, was replaced by a dog named Mop Top (also voiced by Storch). There were also twin panda cubs, Ping and Pong (voiced by Jane Webb), named after the game ping-pong. The pandas only spoke in a Chinese-like gibberish.

There were three human characters created for this show: Chuck White (Storch) was a boastful, self-absorbed teenager (about Greg's age) who was not above cheating to get whatever he wanted, Fleetwood (Storch) was his easygoing sidekick and rounding out this trio was Babs (voiced by Webb), a cute redhead who was smitten with Greg. The three of them went to the same school as the Bradys, and Chuck was sometimes central to the plot as an antagonist.

The Bradys

Other characters

Production

While Schwartz originally intended to hand off full editorial control to Schiemer and Prescott, he eventually returned to become an active part of production, reviewing scripts and advising on creative input.[1]

Originally aired as a one-hour segment on The ABC Saturday Superstar Movie,[3] the pilot episode was split into two half-hour segments on The Brady Kids. A total of 22 episodes were produced.[4] Season 1 aired Saturday mornings from 10:30 to 11:00 AM, and season 2 aired Saturday mornings from 11:00 to 11:30 AM.[1] Season 1 contained 17 episodes, and season 2 contained 5. Season 2 was specifically created by Filmation with the intent on 5 episodes to bring the total count of episodes to 22, the minimum required for syndication.[2] Like most 1970s-era Saturday morning cartoon series', The Brady Kids contained an adult laugh track.

The opening sequence featured the "grid" familiar to The Brady Bunch viewers, without the center column that is normally occupied by the elder Bradys and Alice; as the theme song (new lyrics set to the original Brady Bunch theme with a 70's style beat) plays, Marlon flies up and down the center, "magically transforming" the live-action children into their animated counterparts.

Episodes

Season 1 (1972–1973)

№ Ep Title Original airdate
1 1 "Jungle Bungle, Part 1" September 9, 1972 (1972-09-09)
2 2 "Jungle Bungle, Part 2" September 16, 1972 (1972-09-16)
3 3 "Double Trouble" September 23, 1972 (1972-09-23)
4 4 "Long Gone Silver" September 30, 1972 (1972-09-30)
5 5 "Cindy's Super Friend" October 7, 1972 (1972-10-07)
6 6 "Pop Goes the Mynah" October 14, 1972 (1972-10-14)
7 7 "Who Was That Dog...?" October 21, 1972 (1972-10-21)
8 8 "It Ain't Necessarily Snow" October 28, 1972 (1972-10-28)
9 9 "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the End Zone" November 4, 1972 (1972-11-04)
10 10 "That Was No Worthy Opponent, That Was My Sister" November 11, 1972 (1972-11-11)
11 11 "You Took the Words Right Out of My Tape" November 18, 1972 (1972-11-18)
12 12 "Give Me a Home Where the Panda Bears Roam and the Dog and the Mynah Bird Play" November 25, 1972 (1972-11-25)
13 13 "It's All Greek to Me" December 2, 1972 (1972-12-02)
14 14 "The Big Time" December 9, 1972 (1972-12-09)
15 15 "Marlon's Birthday Party" December 16, 1972 (1972-12-16)
16 16 "The Richest Man in the World" December 23, 1972 (1972-12-23)
17 17 "Wings" December 30, 1972 (1972-12-30)

Season 2 (1973–1974)

№ Ep Title Original airdate
18 1 "Frankincense" September 8, 1973 (1973-09-08)
19 2 "Teacher's Pet" September 15, 1973 (1973-09-15)
20 3 "Marcia's Lib" September 22, 1973 (1973-09-22)
21 4 "Ceiling Zero" September 29, 1973 (1973-09-29)
22 5 "Who Believes in Ghosts?" October 6, 1973 (1973-10-06)

DVD release

Two episodes of this series (the two part "Jungle Bungle") were released in The Brady Bunch - The Complete Series 21-disc DVD set.[5]

CBS Home Entertainment currently holds the rights to all Brady Bunch-related properties, including The Brady Kids, but currently has no plans to release the show on DVD.

External links

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Moran, Elizabeth (1992). Bradymania! Everything You Always Wanted to Know - and a Few Things You Probably Didn't. Adams Publishing. pp. 238. ISBN 1558504184. 
  2. ^ a b Williams, Barry; with Chris Kreski (1992). Growing Up Brady: I was a Teenage Greg. Good Guy Entertainment. pp. 300. ISBN 0967378508. 
  3. ^ "The ABC Saturday Superstar Movie: The Brady Kids on Mysterious Island". http://www.tv.com/the-abc-saturday-superstar-movie/the-brady-kids-on-mysterious-island/episode/91011/summary.html?tag=ep_list;title;0. Retrieved Oct 19, 2006. 
  4. ^ "The Brady Kids". http://www.tv.com/the-brady-kids/show/3540/summary.html. Retrieved Oct 19, 2006. 
  5. ^ "The Brady Bunch - The Complete Series (Seasons 1-5 + Shag Carpet Cover) (1969)". Amazon.com. http://www.amazon.com/Brady-Bunch-Complete-Seasons-Carpet/dp/B000MGBSEY. Retrieved Feb 16, 2010. 
Creator
Characters
TV series
TV films
TV specials
Feature films
Books
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Singles
Related shows
First-run animated series
The New Casper Cartoon Show (1963-1970) • The Smokey the Bear Show • The Cattanooga Cats Show (1969-1971) • Hot Wheels (1969-1971) • The Hardy Boys (1969-1971) • Skyhawks (1969-1971) • The Adventures of Gulliver (1968-1970) • Fantastic Voyage (1968-1970) • Will the Real Jerry Lewis Please Sit Down (1970-1972) • The Road Runner Show • The Funky Phantom (1971–1973) • The Jackson 5ive (1971–1973) • The Osmonds (1972-1974) • The ABC Saturday Superstar Movie (1972-1974) • The Brady Kids (1972–1974) • Kid Power (1972-1974) • Yogi's Gang (1973-1975) • Super Friends • Lassie's Rescue Rangers (1973-1975) • Goober and the Ghost Chasers (1973) • Mission: Magic! (1973-1974) • Hong Kong Phooey (1974-1976) • The New Adventures of Gilligan (1974-1977) • Devlin (1974-1976) • These Are the Days (1974-1976) • The Tom and Jerry Show (1975-1977) • The Great Grape Ape Show (1975-1976) • The Oddball Couple (1975-1977) • Jabberjaw (1976-1978) • The Scooby-Doo/Dynomutt Hour • The Mumbly Cartoon Show (1976-1977) • The All-New Super Friends Hour • Scooby's All-Star Laff-A-Lympics (The Scooby-Doo Show • Laff-A-Lympics • Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels) • Fangface (1978-1979) • Challenge of the Super Friends • The All-New Pink Panther Show (1978-1979) • The World's Greatest Super Friends • The Plastic Man Comedy/Adventure Show (Mighty Man and Yukk • Rickety Rocket) (1979-1981) • Spider-Woman (1979-1980) • Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo
First-run live-action series
Rebroadcasts
George of the Jungle (1967-1970) • Bewitched • Jonny Quest (1970–1972) • H.R. Pufnstuf • The Monkees (1972–1973) • Speed Buggy • Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!
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