Retro : A Non-Satirical ‘Brady Bunch’ Show

“Brady Bunch Home Movies,” airing Wednesday on CBS, is the brainchild of Susan Olsen, who played perky Cindy on the 1969-74 cult comedy series. The Brady Bunch has spawned two other series, a hit play and a feature film, but it struck Olsen that audiences never get to see--aside from a few individual appearances on talk shows--the people behind the Brady masks.

The one-hour special features the entire surviving cast of the original ABC series--Ann B. Davis, Florence Henderson, Christopher Knight, Mike Lookinland, Maureen McCormick, Olsen, Eve Plumb and Barry Williams--talking about their lives as Bradys and what they’re doing today. The show also features never-before-seen footage shot by each cast member on Super-8 cameras given to them by the late Robert Reed, who played patriarch Mike Brady.

Olsen, who is co-executive producer of the “Home Movies” special, came up with the idea for it more than 18 months ago. “So many people just didn’t get it,” says Olsen, who recently returned to acting after spending 10 years as a graphic artist. “They wanted to turn it into some reunion show full of contrivances and just trying to dictate how it should be. My whole point was let the material speak for itself. Just let us be ourselves. This is the first time anybody has ever seen us not be our characters. That’s where the home movies came in handy.”

“I think it’s going to be the most unique of all the ones we have done,” says Florence Henderson, who played the ultimate mom Carol Brady. “I’m so proud of Susan Olsen. I adore her. They are all like my own kids. When she came up with this idea, I said, ‘Yeah, go for it.’ ”

The special is the first time the entire cast has reunited in 14 years. “Originally, I was saying [to CBS], ‘I know I can deliver four out of the six Brady kids,’ ” Olsen says. “‘I don’t think Eve will do it. I don’t think Maureen will do it. Tell you what, I won’t be twisting their arms because I respect them. I understand they don’t want to be involved in Brady things.’ Let’s face it, most of the reunion things we have done, we haven’t been exactly thrilled with the result. But I guess easy does it because they came around and decided to do the show.”

McCormick, who played Marcia, decided to reunite with the Brady clan because it wasn’t an atypical reunion. “I think it’s great,” says McCormick, who just released a country album “When You Get a Little Lonely” and appeared as Rizzo last year on Broadway in the hit revival of “Grease!”

“It shows us as real people. I’m really excited because I get to show what I’m doing now.”

One of the main reasons Olsen wanted to do the special was because she was “sick and tired of these crybabies who get on TV and say my life is so terrible because I had the good fortune of being on a TV show when I was a kid. I don’t mean to be unsympathetic to those people, but what was starting to happen was that instead of people coming up to me and saying, ‘That must have been so neat to do that show,’ they were coming up and saying, ‘How messed up are you?’ I wanted to show we are six people who may not necessarily have gone on to be actors, but we are all successful people.”

“I know there is all this stuff out there in the press about child stars,” says McCormick, who has been happily married for 10 years and has a young daughter. “But I really feel like so much has to do with your upbringing from the early years.”

Williams, the former teen idol who played Greg, tours in musicals and wrote the popular book ‘Growing Up Brady.” He tips his hat to the show’s producers for allowing them to be kids. “We weren’t restricted during our off-times. We were allowed to express ourselves and mess up and occasionally be irresponsible.”

The Brady kids, he adds, were all within six or seven years in age of each other. “There were six of us all going through a common experience together,” Williams says. “So here was a way in which we kept each other all in check. If one started feeling just a little too cool, there were five others saying, ‘Get over it.’ ”

A segment of the special honors Reed, who died from complications of AIDS in 1992. “Bob took all of the kids to Europe for vacation,” Henderson recalls. “He was extremely generous.”

“Brady Bunch Home Movies” airs Wednesday at 8 p.m. on CBS. Repeats of “The Brady Bunch” air weekdays at 1 and 4 p.m. on KTLA and 1:35 p.m. on TBS.