‘I Wanted My Dad to Be Like the Brady Dad’

In 1990, Beverly Ginsburg made “The Brady Boomers,” a 16-minute documentary about the Brady Bunch phenomenon.

Ginsburg and partner Arlene Richards videotaped a group of people in their late 20s--the post-Kennedy, pre-MTV generation--and had them explain why the Brady Bunch is, in some ways, a touchstone for their generation.

In the award-winning documentary, “The Brady Bunch” evinced ambivalent responses, but even those who loved the show had reservations about its unrelentingly cheery view of family life. What Ginsburg and Richards found was funny, revealing and a bit sad.

“It has the same fascination as watching someone tell an out-and-out lie, but they’re telling it with a straight face,” explains one man.

“Come on, there’s got to be an alcoholic or a drug abuser in there somewhere,” scoffs someone else.

Another man notes wryly, “My father was a Communist and my mother was a sexually fixated neurotic, and it didn’t have too much resemblance to anything I saw on TV.”

Others confess that, as children, they thought the Bradys were reality, and that their families, with all their real-life problems, were the aberration.

“I wish I could have had these ideal lifestyles like the Brady children had,” says one man. “Or what we thought was ideal.”

“I think it was exactly what the public wanted to see, especially after Vietnam and the horrid kind of things that happened in the world,” adds someone else.

One man says sadly, “I wanted my dad to be more like the Brady dad.”

Some of the Brady Boomers say it wasn’t the domestic bliss that hooked them on the show. Instead, it was something more hormonal.

“I loved Peter! He was everything to me! He lined the walls of my bedroom!” squeals a woman.

“ Marcia ,” remembers one man, savoring the name. “Yeah, she was all right, you know?”

Another man adds, “I thought Marcia was attractive. Not in a sexual way, mind you. After all, she was a Brady.”

All the Brady Boomers express some ambivalent feelings about the squeaky-clean Bradys:

“It seemed so fake and plastic.”

“It’s so hokey!”

“The Brady Bunch really turned my stomach.”

But when asked to sing the theme song, the Brady Boomers really come alive with reactions from delight to revulsion.

“No! No! You can’t make me!” yells one woman. Others launch happily into word-perfect renditions. And yes, even the most virulent of the self-proclaimed Brady haters finally break down and begin to mumble shyly, It’s a story, of a lovely lady ...

One 30ish man smiles wistfully.

“Don’t they all just live down the road?” he asks. “Someplace where we can get to?”