Silent Night, Deadly boring Brady Night

A VERY BRADY CHRISTMAS (1988)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Now here is some priceless dialogue for you to savor: "I am feeling terribler." That's one. The next one is a doozy. Here we go: "Don't be sorry. Just be Wally." Both lines come from one of the worst TV movies ever made, and I mean worse than anything Lifetime has to offer. Any TV series or movie that crosses over into the Yuletide season is bound to be a disappointment. Don't forget "Star Wars Holiday Special" or the unwatchable "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation." Then there is 1988's truly awful "A Very Brady Christmas." It is so wretched, so cheesy beyond cheeseteaks and cheesecakes, so syrupy beyond saccharine that I gag at the revolting thought of ever having to sit through again.

Now "The Brady Bunch" I did watch when I was younger and in small doses in the last few years. It was an unrealistic family comedy where every problem could be resolved within a half-hour. Most sitcoms from "I Love Lucy" to "Father Knows Best" resolved difficulties in a small amount of time as well, but this show stretched the boundaries of even TV reality. Remember Marcia's big nose? How the family had a second floor yet the outside house looked like a rancher? How overlit their backyard was? How we never saw a bathroom with a toilet? Mike's hair changing color at the most inappropriate moment?

Some shows were better than others. I did like the episode about Jesse James - it had a nice moral to it. The whole Vincent Price/Hawaii/ black magic two-parter I will choose to forget. But producer Sherwood Schwartz really turns reality on its head with this Christmas movie. Oh, where shall I begin? Let's see - the kids are all adults. Some are married, some aren't. Peter (Christopher Knight) is having an affair with his boss, and oddly likes to wear a nightgown! Bobby (Mike Lookinland) has turned to race-car driving and abandoned business school, unbeknownst to his parents. Marcia (Maureen McCormick) is having financial problems with her husband Wally (Jerry Houser) who has lost his job at a toy factory! Jan (Eve Plumb) is separated from her husband, a professor whose workload takes precedence. Greg Brady (Barry Williams) is a doctor now, married to his nurse assistant! Meanwhile, the parents, Mike (the late Robert Reed) and Carol (Florence Henderson), are planning surprise trips to different countries for each other! Then they decide to stay home and invite all the kids and their spouses for Christmas! Where on earth will they find the room?

The rancher still looks like a rancher from the outside, but not inside. Mike is still a stubborn architect and thinks Christmas solves every problem, which of course it does in the Brady world. I did forget to mention Cindy (Jennifer Runyon replacing Susan Olson) who is treated like a child. She is expected to go to her parents house for Christmas, instead of having a boinking time at a ski resort before graduating college! Oh, and I did forget the maid Alice (Ann B. Davis) who is treated as a member of the family when her dear Sam abandons her and is not expected to cook for anyone, yet she remains the faithful maid till the end, cooking Christmas dinner and somehow still wearing her old blue uniform! Another doozy is that she is expected to pick all the kids up at the airport and carry their luggage! Shouldn't Mike do that?

What we learn from "A Very Brady Christmas" is that a mother can help a daughter fix her marriage by suggesting sex; singing "O Come All Ye Faithful" helps Mike Brady lift concrete slabs off of his legs; and the youngest child of the family, no matter how old he or she is, should sit at a separate table with tots. Couldn't the writers think of a more creative story for the Bradys? No wonder they were spoofed a few years later in "The Brady Bunch Movie." If all this is to your liking, you'll love this Brady movie. I loathed it.