The Brady Bunch - The Complete First Season | 
| Directors: Robert Reed, Norman Abbott (ii), Jack Arnold, Peter Baldwin, Allen Baron
Actor: Robert Reed
Studio: Paramount
Category: DVD
List Price: $29.98
Buy New: $15.45
You Save: $14.53 (48%)
New (40) Used (16) from $15.45
Rating:  61 reviews
Sales Rank: 4334
Format: Closed-captioned, Dvd-video, Full Screen, Ntsc
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Number Of Discs: 4
Running Time: 652 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: PARD040564D
ISBN: 1415706816
UPC: 097360405644
EAN: 9781415706817
ASIN: B0006Z2L4W
Theatrical Release Date: September 26, 1969
Release Date: March 1, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Studio: Paramount Home Video Release Date: 03/20/2007
Amazon.com
Because of Gilligan's Island and The Brady Bunch, writer-producer Sherwood Schwartz will forever be a TV hall-of-famer. They were his only real hits, but they were both grand slams in their prime times and have remained syndicated favorites ever since. Following closely on the Gilligan's Island season 2 release, The Brady Bunch is ready for home theaters with a nicely designed, 4-disc set of 25 first-season episodes. The pilot episode, "The Honeymoon" sets up the story we all know from the theme song (lyrics by Schwartz) by giving us the marriage of Mike and Carol and the coming together of the six kids. Schwartz provides commentary for just this first show, but he fondly recalls his intention of sweet, subdued, and often corny gags the pre-fab family encountered as a precise format each week. Two other episodes include commentary by Barry Williams (Greg), Christopher Knight (Peter), and Susan Olson (Cindy), and their reminiscences are equally affectionate about time on the show and everyone's surprise at its enormous success. Every Brady episode is a classic in some sense, and this first of five seasons (those kids did grow up fast) includes some real charmers when the six Brady kids still seemed impossibly young. It's hard to say the show was ever hip, even though it became slightly more attuned to a pop sensibility as the Bradys moved into the '70s. But man, is this 1969 everyfamily ever square. Even so, it's hard to resist the way each one gets their own screen time with shows devoted to simple childhood joys and traumas--Jan's missing locket, Cindy's missing baby doll, Greg's crush on his math teacher, Peter's swelled head when he gets his picture in the paper, etc. In a brief bonus featurette we get more innocuously entertaining interview comments from Schwartz, Williams, Olson, Knight, and Mike Lookinland (Bobby). It's interesting that all the subjects make note of how seriously the classically trained (now-deceased) Robert Reed took his role as patriarch, Mike Brady. His reputation as being "difficult" followed the long run of the show, but if Schwartz's first choice had gotten the role it could have been a lot worse. (Schwartz is delighted to reveal the famous name and career path that followed, so the mystery shouldn't be spoiled here.) As it was during its TV run, The Brady Bunch on DVD is clearly meant for a specific generation--yours. --Ted Fry
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| Customer Reviews: Read 56 more reviews...
 When Florence Henderson was at her loveliest, and the kids were at their cutest November 2, 2008
Katherine Laura Mayfield (Northwest Florida, the United States of America)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I know this has nothing to do with the actual show, but what happened to Flo Henderson's looks after the Christmas episode (which, by the way, is one of the two best episodes in this set)? I know she was supposed to be sick in that one, but her appearance drastically changed after that. Not only did she have that ridiculous hairdo (sort of like a mullet), she also appeared gaunt and looked as if she had aged ten years. Did fashion change that much between 1969 and 1970?
As for Marcia, she was always wholesomely pretty (though she could have used a haircut in the succeeding seasons), Jan was still cute (before she turned into a nerd) and Cindy was absolutely adorable (she couldn't help but lose it as she got older, just as Shirley Temple did). Even Greg didn't look too bad in the beginning (I never thought he was much of a looker as he got older, especially with that Afro), Chris Knight, I could tell, would grow up to be handsome and little Bobby was just as adorable as little Cindy. And I can see why Jeffrey Hunter was turned down for this role--he was way too good-looking for the part. Not that Robert Reed was ugly, he was just right (for the part, and looked like your average soccer dad).
I do think the first season had an entirely different tone than the latter seasons. For instance, when Bobby thinks Carol doesn't really love him because he is just her "step", and she tells him the only steps in this house are those (and she points to their stairs), was so touching, it brought tears to my eyes. I think had the show had a few more episodes like this instead of the gosh-awful "Kelly's Kids" pilot (and I've never been a fan of vacation episodes--to me, they seemed due to lack of material, and I absolutely abhorred Cousin Oliver), it would have more appeal to me now instead of viewing only for nostalgic purposes.
But what do I know, the show is still popular (I assume), and it was very much so back in its day. I think the Brady kids had a lot of singing talent and the show would have benefited more from this as well had it been a little more Partridge Family in this respect (Brady still beats Partridge in spite of this).
I think it was weird how the girls never mentioned their real father (was it ever established that Carol was either divorced or widowed?), nor did the boys ever mention their real mother (except in the first episode). And yet, they immediately start calling their stepparents Mom and Dad and the girls' last names go from Martin (I think it was) to Brady in the second episode.
I guess you could say this is more of a review of the entire series, and if the series was super cheap (like ten dollars), I would buy it, just because it brings back memories. I remember watching "The Brady Brides" and thought it was great, thinking it "The Brady Bunch" for adults, but too bad it didn't last.
The one episode I thought was really bizarre was when Peter was supposed to be playing Benedict Arnold and all the kids in the school turned against him because he was playing a traitor. It's sad to say, but I'd say you're lucky if you can find a kid that age today who even knows who George Washington is, much less Benedict Arnold (public schools aren't what they used to be). I also thought Bobby pretending to be Cindy's secret admirer was a little creepy, too, but what with the publicity of Maureen McCormick's new memoir (how much of it is true, and how much of it is sensational for monetary gain, I don't know), my interest in the Brady clan has been resurrected. Of course, perhaps Bobby's interest in Cindy (or more like Mike's interest in Susan), though onscreen is weird, might make more sense off-screen because the gist of Maureen's book (or what I got out of it, having not yet read it) is that the Brady kids were a bunch of hormonal teenagers who had the hots for their step-siblings closest in age to them.
I know this sounds crazy, but it's hard to believe none of the Brady kids ever tried pot or experimented with some other psychedelic drug, but then, the way Carol flipped out about Greg smoking was pretty over-the-top. I wanted to tell her to get a grip! Of course, it is impossible to watch something this dated (which I think is a stupid term, because everything is dated) and not react to it with our modern sensibilities.
The Brady Bunch is a relic of its time, a time capsule in celluloid, and one worth opening and enjoying, for whatever reason. For hardcore fans, I'd say wait awhile till you can get the entire series for forty bucks. I wish I had waited before buying the first season of "Get Smart".
 Uncut & no commercials April 15, 2008
Elizabeth L. Pocchiari (Butler, PA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
How great it was to see all of the Brady's again without a commercial every 5 minutes. That was the first time in years that I saw the whole complete Christmas episode. On TV they cut half of it out. I highly reccomend this video for all of you Brady enthusiastic fans. If only we could return to the time period of wholesom families again.
 Sappy, schmultzy, silly but still endearing October 21, 2007
Dr. O'Boogie
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Ahhh, the Bradys. How can we ever forget that lovable textbook sitcom family that made us laugh, cry and throw-up! They were the last of the fairy-tale families from Cleaverville and Nelsontown before Norman Lear threw the Bunkers in our faces.
Created by Sherwood Schwartz, he came up with the idea in the mid-sixties but decided to sit on it. Then the success of Lucille Ball's film Yours, Mine & Ours (based on real life family of 20 kids the Beardsleys) came, and Schwartz went full steam ahead.
The pilot starts off with the wedding of two single parents which is never explained whether they're divorced or widowed. I can imagine they're of course widowed being how divorce was still a touchy subject especially for a sugar dripping show like this.
Florence Henderson's Carol (soon-to-be-Brady) Martin didn't exactly have the sex appeal of previous TV moms like Laura Petrie or Samantha Stevens, her face looks like it was squashed in a vice, but with the mini-skirts in style then, she sure had a great set of legs and a nice big rear-end as well. Then there's closet gay Robert Reed's all wise, all knowing and all even-tempered architect Mike Brady to round out the parental duties. The kids? Well, they're just a bunch of unknowns fresh off of commercials, modeling or whatever that can't act worth a mosquito's butt. Aside from the lack of acne, masturbation, drugs and drinking, they were pretty typical kids. And finally we have comic relief from veteran funny lady Ann B. Davis as the goofy but sincere maid Alice.
For five years the show went through the typical family thoroughfare of raising six kids without any political or social commentary. Sex didn't exist, drugs didn't exist, rock 'n roll barely existed and bathrooms without toilets DID exist! But it was this syrupy phoniness that made the show so endearing that it would make you laugh at it and not with it.
Today, the show has become a cult phenomenon and been revisited in many ways from reunion specials (including a terrible short-lived variety hour in the seventies), spinoffs, parodies and threatrical remakes. The surviving cast members have been doing nothing but living off poking fun at it and a good job doing it too.
So, get some milk and cookies and pop in a disc and get ready to laugh, cry or throw-up. Don't expect to see Reed in the final episode, he was in such a riff with Schwartz that he refused to particapate. I think it was that episode when one of the kids gets in trouble, I don't know.
Great family show! October 10, 2007
"truth master" (no.utah)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I watched the BB growing up when i was 8-12ish. I love it then and love it now.
My 3 and 6 yr old girls love it. I am going to get season 2 for Christmas 07.
There is simply nothing "of quality" on t.v. anymore and this is perfect for them... (and me too!) haha!
Classy not corny September 23, 2007
Greg K. Afuso (Corpus Christi, Texas)
Do you have little kids, were you born somewhere between 1962 and 1972 and think that today's children's television programs are tacky at best? Then here's a possible solution - something we've been doing for the past year. Buy the entire Gilligan's Island and Brady Bunch series and play one episode before the kiddie's bed time. Mr. Schwartz got it right with both series - a combination of comedy, morals, ethics and team work that is frequently labled as corny by today's standards but I think will strike a chord with the offspring of the between Boomer and X generation, like myself.
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