The Brady Brides (1981) User Reviews

The Odd Couples

[hankgillette · 7/10 · 30 April 2018]

I thought this show really deserved more of a chance. Marcia and Jan are both newly married and are house-hunting. They quickly realize that they only way they can afford a nice house in California is to pool their resources and buy a house together.

The comedy comes from the fact that the man Marcia married is an easygoing slob, while Jan's husband is an uptight, neat-freak professor. Sound familiar? If Neil Simon did not demand royalties, it was only because the show disappeared so quickly.

Another appeal for me as a young man was that Eve Plumb had grown up to be a total babe. Despite her role as the awkward middle child on "The Brady Bunch", she played a self-assured young woman whose beauty completely outshone that of Maureen McCormick (who was still very attractive).

Perhaps this show would have done better without the Brady connection. Brady fans were probably disappointed that the show featured only two of the Brady family, while those who scorned "The Brady Bunch" never gave it a chance.

My rating of seven (one for each aired episode) may be higher that the show actually deserves, but I give credit for the potential of a show that never really got a chance to find itself

Tried Too Hard to Be Like Three's Company

[abbazabakyleman-98834 · 5/10 · 29 January 2019]

This short-lived spinoff from the 1981 TV movie The Brady Girls Get Married only lasted 7 episodes. The series tried way too hard to cash in on the more successful Three's Company with more adult-oriented humor and was taped in front of a live studio audience. The only good episode was when the couples appeared as contestants on The Newlywed Game and discover how very little they know about their marriages.

Decent

[mc-21230 · 6/10 · 17 July 2020]

I thought this show was a decent sitcom.

The Brady characters and their husbands, combined with comedy, and bit more of an adult theme.

I know ratings are everything , but t's unfortunate that they could not have given this show a full season to see if it would catch on.

Not that bad... but not the best either...

[Swtkitty88 · 31 July 2002]

A few of years ago, I caught some episodes of "The Brady Brides" on FoxFamily(or now ABCFamily... w/e) NEWAYS! I guess it's just not the same without the whole Brady family, and it's just different seeing Marcia and Jan being married. However, I really liked all the characters in this show and the plot because they're all really funny and the plot is just awesome... two couples all living in the same house because the two couples can only afford this really nice house if they pitch in together. However, both couples are totally opposites of each other. I guess that's really what makes it funny, because you have Wally: a guy who just likes to fool around and be silly.... and sleep in the nude. Then you have Philip: a guy who is serious, a professor, and is traditional. I mean, it's just really amazing and funny to see how two people so different can live in the same house and work it out. One of the episodes I really liked was when Wally and Philip just had it with each other and drew a line across the house, where Philip and Jan is to stay on one side and Wally and Marcia on the other. Both Wally and Philip drove each other crazy by doing things that would annoy the other person to death right next to the border of the line. Anyways, I wouldn't say this is one of my favorite shows, but it really isn't that bad if you want to just find something to watch and have a good laugh.

Bottom line... it's kinda funny, but just not the same without the whole spirit of the Brady family.

Another one of THE worst spin-offs ever

[frschoonover · 1/10 · 7 September 2023]

The Brady Brides premeired in 1981 after the success of the TV reunion film, "The Brady Girls Get Married".

IMHO, they simply should've just let this be a stand alone thing rather than make a TV series out of it.

As a TV reunion movie, it was funny, warm and entertaining. However, to see this made into a regular weekly TV series was another thing.

Each and every week, this series featured sisters Marcia and Jan (Maureen McCormick and Eve Plumb both reprising their respective roles from the original 1969-1974 TV series) both living under the same roof with their husbands. It featured them both getting on each other's nerves and comparing their own husbands with each other. It was the same old thing each and every week.

According to this site, this was THE only Brady Bunch spin-off to be taped before a live audience. However, I sometimes feel that they used a laugh tarck machine at certain intervals of the episodes when the audience really wasn't laughing.

Like its predecessor, "The Brady Bunch Hour", this should have had "Avoid at all costs" written all over it.

This spin-off of a really wonderful TV series is another one of THE worst ever. Despite the laughter, this series wasn't even that funny. It was simply a lethargic and pathetic excuse for a sit-com after the ratings success of a wonderful TV cast reunion movie. This series was truly "bottom of the barrel" in the worst possible way. It also doesn't even survive on a "So bad, it's good!" kind of level, which truly shows how bad and terrible this series was. This series was simply boring and uninspired. IMHO, it simply had no life within itself at all.

Again, IMHO, they should have left the TV reunion movie as a stand alone film, which means that they simply should've left well enough alone, rather than make this a weekly series.

After the TV movie, there were eight total episodes made, with the TV reunion split into two parts to make it ten.

Thank goodness for small favors that this series was cancelled as it was a ratings disaster.

Overall, one of THE worst spin-offs ever made for TV.

This deserved to be a contender

[safenoe · 8/10 · 8 June 2021]

I must be one of the few people who really liked The Brady Brides. It deserved at least three or four seasons, and shame on it being cancelled way too soon. Why oh why? Anyway, maybe The Brady Brides can be rebooted with a LGBTI twist for these contemporary times.

The scorn was undeserved.

[Jason-173 · 7 December 1999]

People heap a lot of scorn on anything Brady, but it's undeserved. The original show taught me about as much about human relations as Gilligan's Island. Brady Brides -- and all the subsequent attempts to revive the Zombie Brady -- have always seemed like trips home for me.

It was almost pathologically unfunny. Just like the original. But how could you not love it? Marcia and Jan looked fantastic -- in fact, I think they could've saved the show if it was titled 'the Brady Strippers.'

When it first came out, everyone in my class loved it. We had puppet shows when I was in grade six. Two of them were Brady Bride puppet shows. I was in neither, despite my hand's striking resemblance to Wally - very hairy and meaty.

Another Show From the Brady Franchise

[Sargebri · 8 July 2003]

If you look at this show, it can be seen as the middle part of a trilogy (that is if you don't count the cartoon series and the horrid variety show). This show along with the original "Brady Bunch" and the hour long drama "The Bradys" make up the trilogy. Unfortunately, no one wanted to see a show with just Marcia, Jan, Carol and Alice (neither Robert Reed nor any of the Brady Boys or even Cindy appeared on this show). It was a bad idea then and it was just another attempt to squeeze a little more out of the family that wouldn't die.

The Fantasy Lives On

[stevej99 · 9 May 1999]

The fantasy lives on as we watch the Brady girls overact and over cute themselves.

The limited run was obviously due only to our fascination with Maureen McCormick and Eve Plumb

The mediocre "Brides"

[4-Kane · 30 September 2001]

I recall the Family Channel airing The Brady Brides during the Thanksgiving season in 1997. The mediocrity of this 1981 revival was evident, and it's no surprise that the series was axed after just two months on the air. TV revivals in general are often inferior, and The Brady Brides was no exception. Nonetheless, I found it to be only slightly more watchable than the sorry one-hour dramedy that followed in 1990 ("The Bradys").