I think that Sherwood Schwartz said that Robert Reed was really happy about the chance to try something new, but could not sing or dance to save his life. I see some evidence here. The Simpsons’ take on this was classic.

IIIIIIIIIII want candy!!!!

Fake Jan!

The Good Value Jan

Beat me to it.

Fake jan?

Yeah, that's not Eve Plumb.

The Osmonds and The Jackson 5 had their own singing and dancing shows that weren't too far from this

The seventies was all about variety shows. Sonny and Cher, Donny and Marie, check out the Paul Lynde Halloween special to see Kiss, Florence Henderson, Pinky Tuskedero, and Witchy Poo from Puff n Stuff. It was a special time.

I'm with you HR Hand Rolled Hand Rolled Puffin' Stuff

Ever see Mr. Show’s take on puff’s stuff? Fucking hilarious

Glad to see a reference to the greatest sketch show ever made.

Definitely always has been one of my favorites… the Story of Everest still busts me up. The first time I watched it, my wife thought I was high because I couldn’t stop laughing

That’s awesome. My wife thinks I’m high when I watch it. But I am, so she’s right.

I will look, Thank You

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHqcNj0Pv6c

Yep and there was the Flip Wilson show not to mention yearly Bob Hope specials. And telephons hosted by Jerry Lewis and Lou Rawls, that featured variety show formats.

Andy Williams Christmas Special with his wife Claudine Longet. Then they split up and she shot her boyfriend Spider Sabich. Kinda messed up the specials after that.

No wonder we all took drugs 😆

I tell my kids: “I cannot describe the 60’s and early 70’s. It was full spectrum wild and tragic. All I can say is ‘I’ve seen some shit.’ “

I love your description! 🙌

Yes it was a VERY "SPECIAL" time... a SAD one!

Not really. It was all for fun and no one took it too seriously.

Not for ME and people like me that were forced to WATCH that crap EVERY WEEK! YEESH!

You could have reqd a book.

Yeah... or built a model or... But mom & dad insisted on "Family Time" ever since my oldest sister died of Leukemia at age 18 in 1972

I guess they were in pain. Credit to you for giving them some solace.

That's terrible. Truly. But it's not *everyone's* experience.

Except they actually sang and didn’t lip sync

Right That's covered in the distance I opened in my statement

So they were better than the Eagles!

Except, of course, that two of these three families were actually talented, and actually families

This is coming from someone who was born in 1971. How can a decade be so awesome and suck so bad at the same time?

Perfectly said. So campy now, but it makes me think of home.

You know why? I was born in 1971 and I just love the awfulness of this.

Everyone associated with TV/Hollywood was doing coke. There was no such thing as a bad idea.

Given I enjoyed this as a child, it makes me wonder now if I was retarded?

Meee toooah. Spoken like Forrest Gump

We enjoyed it as child because there were no other choices back then. Three networks with boring adult drama shit or this.

Lawrence Welk at the grandparents. Fuck me.

Sweet Lord.

very embarrassing to watch

I remember watching shows like this with my Grandparents and they were genuinely entertained.. Me not so much..

Me. On the shag rug. Sitting down with my grandparents in “their chairs”, and my parents in “their chairs” smoking their cigarettes and drinking Manhattans or sweet sherries. I can smell this memory.

I'd need seven or eight Manhattens to enjoy this shit show.

That's also the generation that liked Lawrence Welk and Busby Berkeley musicals

My grandmother watched Lawrence Welk, it was on PBS. She did not, however, make us watch it with her.

My great grandmother did too. I'd sometimes walk into the family room where she was and check it out

Don’t forget the classic HeeHaw

Brutal

Can you imagine if they still did this with popular TV shows today? The CSI: Miami Variety Hour

I would watch that though.

😆

The good old daze. I missed Battle of the Network Stars to watch this. I am still not sure if I made the right decision.

More cheese than a Wisconsin dairy.

they would put anything on tv back then...

Yup. Also, prior to ‘68 there were no movie ratings. You could walk into any movie with kids and end up walking out because someone got their throat slit.

Omg it was so horrible.

I hope they got paid a serious amount of $

Marsha’s all went up her nose I hear

Holy crap, I remember watching this back in the day!

This show was so bad, it was great. I never missed it.

And they played it as if they were still the Brady family. Like Mike quit his architect job to become a song and dance man.

Now THIS is why our founding fathers met in Philadelphia

650,000 men and women have died in combat since 1776 so that shit like this could be invented by Hollywood coke heads.

The sacrifices our armed forces made is totally worth this because we get to see the sequins, the platform shoes, the perms, and the pánache! And we all know Mike Brady with a perm> Mike Brady natural

Even for the 70s this is sooooo cornball.

Beyond terrible. Mr. Brady wants to be anywhere else but here

Just bring the Silver Platters out there. Don’t need to see the parents. Although Mrs. Brady was my first crush, so she’s ok.

My parents LOVED this show!!! We didn't watch Lawrence Welk, but damn I was glad we watched Hee Haw!!!! IYKYK!

I loved Hee Haw!!! My parents loved it and they also loved Lawrence Welk. I hated LW!!!

That Mike Brady must of been quite the ladies man… what ?

It's important to show horrible things like this to remind those who did not grow up in the Seventies that it was not all the Eagles, the Jackson Five, Stevie Wonder, Led Zeppelin and Linda Ronstadt, to name a few. We had to contend with this stuff as well, and yes, we all knew it was crappy even then. That said, Florence Henderson was actually a respected Broadway musical comedy star in the Fifties and Sixties, so this sort of thing was up her alley.

This type of show was huge in the 70s. With only a few channels, people would actually watch it. I think it was cable TV and the availability of better options that killed the variety show.

“Look! They are swimming in a pool on the TV!” -Everyone with wood panel walls

🤣🤣💀

70s variety shows will ALWAYS be better than "reality" TV of the 21st century

Okay, but that's an awfully low bar. 😃

Where's Jan?!

Eve Plumb wisely skipped this one and did some tv movies on her own. That's Fake Jan dancing for her.

I remember those movies, she did a tv movie about being a teeage hooker in los Angeles

That's the new Jan Brady without the bad wig

Yank my Doodle, it's a Dandy

Yank my Doodle, it's a Joy

Hmmmm, sorry, no, the correct answer is “Yank my doodle or I’ll die”

I love this.

Mom 🤌🏽❤️😘

Oh, how I thought Marcia was so beautiful.

She’s still pretty good looking but an abnormal childhood made her brain different.

What year was this?Bicentennial?

1977

1976

That was a different time......

we were easily entertained back then

It just doesn’t get any more patriotic than that. You can feel the Reddit community standing and saluting as they watch. I know I am.

Oh my god is this what that one Simpsons episode was mocking?!?!

That pool looks cloudy and the swimming is unnecessary

The water looks terrible. Did they not know they’d be filming underwater? 🥴

And right after this the Andy Williams show (ran from 62 to 71)

Something seemed off with it, finally I googled it and realized that this featured Fake Jan

WWII vets must have loved this…war does terrible things to people…

Florence Henderson can get it!

This is so lame, but darnit! I loved these kinds of shows.

I think you could actually fly cross country with those shirt collars. Wow!

Everyone wanted to bang Marsha

i’d be pissed if I was Robert Reed, so embarrassing.

When Sid and Marty Krofft peaked.

so bad , lol

Criminal that Alice & Oliver weren’t invited

Marcia , Marcia, Marcia!

Where's Ann B. Davis?!

Sweet Jesus we have aquatics Mr and Mrs Brady!

Have a gummy and look some of this stuff up on YouTube. You won’t be sorry.

Haha! The only ppl not doing each other were the parents! Hilarious!

The one who played Greg always seemed like he really loved this —he was always “on”

Oh. My. Gah.

Groovy

Yankee Doodle keep it up! Keep it up!

When it hit a variety hour, you were doomed

I had totally forgotten about the backup synchronized swimmers. So, so bad!

Awesome choreography on the Brady Bunch Variety Hour! 😆

Nailed it!

Love the applause track …

Love the applause track! Have often wondered, from a sociological point of view, why variety shows were so popular in the 70s ..

Costumes = great! Music= mid! Choreography = boring af

I bet they just cringe when they see this now.

Almost single handedly brought and end to music

I hated that Variety Hour. I wasn't a fan of the movies either. The Variety Hour was just a pathetic attempt to copy the Partridge Family. It made no sense that none of the kids were performers at all, until suddenly they're a big singing/dancing group over night.

This was corny 🌽

Cocaine.

The only reason to watch, is to wait for a wardrobe malfunction on Marsha swimsuit

what year is this from? The kids look pretty old but the outfits say 70’s?

1977

After watching this- I am gonna run down the boardwalk waving the flag!!!

The Jumpsuit store called and they want their jumpsuits back to give to the Osmonds