15 Surprising Facts About the Brady Bunch

The Brady Bunch is an iconic family sitcom that is still gaining fans decades after its first air date in 1969. It ran just five seasons up until 1974, but it seems to show somewhere around the world in syndication every minute of the day. It’s a phenomenon that just won’t quit, even though it’s set at a simpler time. The kind of mischief the kids got into might seem wholesome today, but the life lessons dispensed by the end of each episode still ring true. Here are some facts about the cult classic show that might surprise even the biggest fans.

1. The Show Concept Came From a Statistic

Producer Sherwood Schwartz read a statistic one day that really hit home and seemed like an important change in society. “It was just a four-line filler piece in the Los Angeles Times. Just a statistic. It said that year, 1965, 31 percent of all marriages involved people who had a child or children from a previous marriage.” The story of a man named Brady and his lovely lady, both with three kids of their own, blossomed from there.

2. The Show Wasn’t Really Popular When It Was On

These days everyone knows The Brady Bunch, but when it first aired it didn’t ever crack into the Top 30 Shows of the Nielsen ratings. But since it did well enough to run for five seasons, there were sufficient episodes to go into wide syndication, and it continued to grow in popularity from that point on.

3. When it Came to Casting, Hair Color Mattered

When they were casting the show, they started with the kids before looking for actors to play the parents. They knew they wanted contrasting hair colors for the families, but weren’t sure which gender would be light and which would be dark. So they actually chose a set of each and waited to see which would match up with the Mike and Carol actors. So that means there are six people out there who were almost cast as the Brady children, they just ended up having the wrong hair color! They did, however, make accommodations to cast Mike Lookinland as youngest bro, Bobby. They actually dyed his natural sandy hair dark brown to match up with Greg and Peter’s hue, and straightened out his natural curls. Only during the last two seasons did they allow his true hair color to shine through.