I will never claim to be much of a Brady Bunch fan (watched it a bit in the 70’s and early 80’s) but never near enough to really follow the series.
That being said, the theme song makes a big deal about the two families joining to form the BB but that seems to (me at least) be the last said about the family origin. Were there episodes (after the pilot) where this was discussed or the ‘two family dynamic’ (friction, lack of communication etc.) was used at a plot device?
There were a few episodes where the girls and boys claimed that the parents were favoring one or the other group.
It’s been years since I’ve watched the show, but having watched it a thousand times in the 70s and 80s, it pretty much was never discussed, save for blue sky’s observation that it came up as a boys vs. girls favoritism theme a few times.
No mention that I recall was ever made of the dead spouses, nor any type of acknowlegement that they ever existed outside the pilot. After the first episode, it was pretty much mom and dad as far as the kids were concerned.
I may be wrong on my recollections and my memory is surely spotty, so take that as you will.
Also, one of the brady bunch parody sequels made light of this, and brought carol’s supposedly dead husband into the film as a plot device.
Yes, absolutely. Pretty much the entire first season (rarely shown in reruns) dealt with this issue. From season 2 on, they must have run out of plots based on this, and just did plots based on a single character’s dilemma.
In the 2nd movie, they sort of forgot about this, until the hunky brother and hot sister realized that they weren’t actually brother and sister, and contemplated making sweet sweet love.
Too bad this was never done in a primetime TV sitcom. Recently. In a marathon. Oh, and Gary Cole was in it. 