BRADY BUNCH Brothers Dish on Show’s Legacy: ‘Friends Everywhere You Go’

Published: November 25, 2024

BRADY BUNCH Brothers Dish on Show’s Legacy: ‘Friends Everywhere You Go’

Movieguide® Contributor

THE BRADY BUNCH brothers Barry Williams and Christopher Knight are reflecting on the show’s lasting legacy and continued impact.

“It’s like having friends everywhere you go, because people generally have a positive experience of having watched the show or being fans,” Williams said of being recognized as a BRADY BUNCH actor. “And so when they’re putting that together with us, it turns on a heartlight, I guess you could say.”

Knight told The Hollywood Reporter, “I feel like Santa Claus a lot. It’s like they’ve already virtually invited us into their families. And that’s how they treat us.”

“It’s not really a burden, it’s just a different kind of experience,” Williams added.

The kids weren’t new to acting when they were picked to be on the show, but they never knew how being in THE BRADY BUNCH would change their whole lives.

“I’d done a lot of television shows: DRAGNET, THE MOD SQUAD, MARCUS WELBY, M.D,” said Williams, who’d been an actor for five years. “So I was not inexperienced. And this audition came up.”

“The director of THE BRADY BUNCH pilot had directed me in both THAT GIRL and GOMER PYLE. And so I got into the loop with over 1,000 kids brought in to audition,” he continued. “I know I was anxious. I thought, ‘Boy, if I could have a series, then I wouldn’t have to go on a lot of auditions and I’d get to go to work every day.’”

Though Knight had been acting for two years, he mainly landed commercials, so he didn’t quite know what he was getting into.

“I was a kid with parents who thought that a child might help serve themselves. It’s very old school: All kids work and help support the family. I was told that I was to go on [auditions] by my dad,” he recalled.

He said on a recent podcast episode that he wouldn’t make his kids “work” like his father had him do. Fame wasn’t something he wanted, but it just happened to him.

“I was born on the Upper East Side [of New York]. But we moved out to Hollywood when I was two because my dad was an actor. This is how he phrased it: ‘There’s this new business in Hollywood that a struggling stage actor might be able to make some money at.’ And this other work was in this industry called television.”

All of his siblings had an agent, and some had more success than others. Knight was one of the “lucky” ones.

Williams and Knight learned more about the show’s creator, Sherwood Schwartz, when they created their podcast, “The Real Brady Bros.”

“We’ve learned quite a bit about who he was doing our podcast and his intentions, and then how it was reflected in our show,” said Williams.

“And in his other series [like GILLIGAN’S ISLAND], he was about one thing and that was about disparate people getting along,” Knight said.

That attitude may have been related to his background as a Jew.

“He was studying medicine. He wanted to be a doctor, and back then there was a limit on the number of Jewish applicants that were accepted. He was waiting for his application to come through. His brother was a writer for Bob Hope and Sherwood helped him as a way of paying for his room and board,” Knight explained.

“He was pretty good at it, and ultimately he never went into medicine,” he said. “He just went on to write. He wrote for RED SKELETON and won Emmys.”

At the time of THE BRADY BUNCH’s arrival, divorce rates in America were at over 50%.

“But it hadn’t yet been accepted that people could be shown being divorced on television,” he said. “And with the concept of marrying those two, he just thought that the episode ideas were limitless.”

“He wrote the pilot in ’65 and he took it around town and it didn’t get picked up,” Knight said. “Then YOURS, MINE, AND OURS came out in ’68 with Lucille Ball and Henry Fonda [which features a similar concept to BRADY BUNCH], and became a hit. Paramount remembered that they had this script that had been pitched to them three years earlier. So they quickly recognized there might be something to that.”

The on-screen brothers note that the cast had undeniable chemistry.

“It was…about how Florence [Henderson] ultimately played the role of Carol, the way that Mike is played by Bob Reed. Then there was Ann B. Davis,” Knight said. “Everybody at the network recognized there’s nobody in this series that’s got comic chops.”

“That’s really what the role of Alice provides,” he continued. “She was the comedian. The situations were supposed to provide the rest of the comedy.”

Williams agreed, adding that chemistry can’t be falsified.

“That is something that is there or it’s not,” Williams said. “But we genuinely have it for real and still do, hence we’re here. And that I think translated through the screen. People got that and felt it.”

Last year, millionaire Tina Trahan bought the famous BRADY BUNCH house in California. The inside was recently remodeled to look like it does in the TV series. Soon, Williams and Knight will participate in “The Brady Experience,” hosting five winners in their TV home to a meal of pork chops and applesauce.

“This is really protecting the brand and protecting the legacy and doing something for the fans, as well,” Williams said. “We’re sort of the genesis of it now because Tina has only recently become the owner. We’re collaborating with her to brainstorm ideas. We’ve already done fundraising for Marine Mammal Care Center and No Kid Hungry. There might be weddings there.”

Knight said, “It’s been 40 years that people have been driving by this location and taking pictures of this house. They say it’s the second most photographed house in America, outside of the White House.”

Knight says THE BRADY BUNCH’s Hawaii episode helped increase tourism in the state.

“In fact, we got the honorary key to Honolulu because we helped kick off Hawaii as a practical destination. It was right after the Boeing 747 was introduced in ’69. We went in ’71 and it shows a large family going to Hawaii, which is depicted as affordable and practical. Until then, it was a really exotic destination,” he said.

Williams said, “Hawaii is my favorite place in the world, and yes, I’ve continued to go there and continue to surf there. And we’re thrilled to do a TV show there. That was just too good. They declared an honorary Brady Bunch Day there.”