And the center Brady box goes blank -- RIP Ann B. Davis

My 11-year-old has started getting into Fresh Prince of Bel-Air reruns. In watching them, I can see two things:

1. The incredible amount of charm and charisma that Will Smith exuded before he starting trying to make his kids star and/or became a Scientologist or something like that.
2. That from the clothes to the cultural references, this is a show that is very, very, very 90s. Very. I've had to spend a little time explaining who, say, David Duke is.

 

The Brady Bunch was always about the warm fuzzy, not the laugh. It was easy.

Plus ...

A) There was a character crush for kids of every age and both genders.

B) Parents looked at Carol and knew she could get freaky. They assumed she and Mike were deep into the swing lifestyle that California was all about.

 

The Brady Bunch's popularity could be, too, because kids always seem to discover at least one show from an older generation that defies explanation. For example, Full House.

 

Bob Cummings was also the star of the first Frankie-Annette beach party movie - coincidentally, it was called "Beach Party."

 

I actually vaguely remember the Bob Cummings Show, aka Love That Bob, on afternoon reruns as a child. Even as a child, it sucked. It was sort of like 2 1/2 men with no kids, but with Cummings as Charlie Harper and Ann B. as his loyal secretary/superego Alan Harper figure.

 

I can't recall off the top of my head which movie it was, but I recently had to explain to my son who Amy Fisher was, because the movie made a joke about her.

It was a fun explanation.

 

I got back to the states in 1993, kind of between pop-culture cause celebres.

Amy Fisher and Joey Buttafuoco were nuts in 1992, then in '94 you had the Tonya Harding mess, soon trumped immensely by O.J. Simpson.

 

Hank Stuever with a good piece that addresses some of what's in this thread:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog/wp/2014/06/02/ann-b-davis-as-alice-always-there-for-the-bradys-and-for-a-lot-of-other-kids-too/

 

The adolescent Fart would have fingerpainted the state of Hawai'i all over Marsha.
That didn't mean I was willing to make concessions for the show's bad comedic sensibilities.

 

OUTING ALERT: Fart is Robert Reed, back from the grave and still griping about Sherwood Schwartz's brainchild.

 

For its genre, Barry Williams' "Growing Up Brady" is actually a pretty fun read. The stuff about performing high and going on a date with Florence Henderson are hilarious because in the end, it's pretty innocent stuff. A lot of the book is hilarious retellings of the Robert Reed griping that you reference. You wonder why he stayed on the damn show so long, though I would suspect the regular paycheck had something to do with it. He even came back for awful reunions and dance shows.

 

A Very Brady Christmas is my fave Christmas movie.