Entertainment
57 Years Later, the Best Sitcom Ever Made Still Deserves a Reboot
It could be argued that we are currently in the midst of a new Golden Age, that of the TV reboot. Scrubs was brought back for a tenth season, with an eleventh on the way. Netflix recently rebooted Little House on the Prairie, which Collider declares is a “must-watch Western masterpiece,” and guilty pleasure Baywatch is back on the beach in January 2027. If you’re still not convinced, consider this: on August 7th, 2026, not one, not two, but three reboots were officially confirmed: Monarch of the Glen, Sherlock Holmes, and Animorphs. But there’s one series that stands out for its absence; one of the most iconic family sitcoms of all time, a 10/10 classic that actually deserves a reboot, certainly as much as, if not more, than Baywatch: The Brady Bunch.
‘The Brady Bunch’ Looms Large in Pop-Culture
That’s right, The Brady Bunch. You know, a lovely lady, Carol (Florence Henderson), who has three very lovely girls — Marcia (Maureen McCormick), Jan (Eve Plumb), and Cindy (Susan Olsen) — meets a man named Mike Brady (Robert Reed), who has three boys of his own — Greg (Barry Williams), Peter (Christopher Knight), and Bobby (Mike Lookinland), and they somehow form a family. With Alice (Ann B. Davis), of course. The concept was groundbreaking at the time, with the Bradys’ becoming the first depiction of two separate families coming together through marriage on television. And for five seasons, the Brady clan was welcomed into family homes nationwide.
Five seasons and fade into obscurity? Not by a long shot. The lunchboxes, comic books, trading cards and albums were just the beginning of the Bradys’ long, lengthy run in pop culture. They closed out the 70s with notorious spin-off The Brady Bunch Variety Hour, had two made-for-TV movies — The Brady Girls Get Married (which segued into The Brady Brides series) and A Very Brady Christmas — in the 1980s, and entered the 1990s with The Bradys, an ill-advised series meant to bring dramatic gravitas to the family’s TV exploits. A movie trilogy, one that sees the still very 1970s Bradys in the 1990s, kicked off with The Brady Bunch Movie in 1995. There was a 35th anniversary special in 2004, various specials surrounding the 50th anniversary in 2019, and A Very Brady Renovation in 2019. Oh, and the theme song that has persevered to become an icon unto itself.
Long story short, The Brady Bunch has existed in one form or another every decade since its debut. That’s a level of longevity that any series would envy, and certainly one that should, at the very least, enter the discussion for a reboot. But the Bradys have fallen off the radar following A Very Brady Renovation, and it’s a borderline sin that the 2020s have thus far remained Brady-less. The name recognition alone is enough to draw in viewers, and, if it’s done right, keep them.
What a Reboot of ‘The Brady Bunch’ Could Be
So, if we’ve established that The Brady Bunch is deserving of a reboot, what would that look like? A straight reboot featuring the 1970s-era Brady Bunch could be one direction, and series like The Goldbergs are proof that family sitcoms set in a distinctive era can work. But that puts the reboot in direct comparison to the beloved original, which isn’t necessarily a good sign for its success. Likewise, the premise of the film, with the Bradys, locked in their 1970s era, existing in the 1990s, has been done, and done well.
But one could adapt the concept of the movie to create something for a generation that hasn’t been privy to the magic of the Brady Bunch: create a fresh, circa-1990 Brady family and place them in the present day. It opens a world of possibilities: the Bradys navigating Amazon with dial-up internet; Mike inviting the guys over to watch the Super Bowl on the big screen, a 35″ backbreaking CRT box model; big cell phones, and so on. Maybe Mike invested early in Netflix, when it was just a DVD-by-mail movie rental service, or even Apple, giving a rational explanation for being able to afford six kids and a live-in maid.
Where it could separate itself, however, is by being smarter than its predecessors. The movies used the premise for comic purposes, but never explored the bigger idea of how the Bradys’ kept their wholesome values in a disparate world. Now, the world is even more disparate than the film’s 70s vs. 90s premise. A series would give the opportunity to explore that idea, using it as a means of addressing smart social commentary. And a 1990s Brady family could have a bit of an edge to them, but not too much: they have a long, long history to honor after all.
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