Product: Brady Home Movies (1995)
Rating: 5.0
and the nostalgia continues--only this time, behind the scenes
Brady Bunch Home Movies never would have been were it not for the fact that Robert Reed, who played the father on the hit series, was kind and generous enough to give out 8 mm cameras to everyone in the cast. Therefore, what we get here is roughly an hour of terrific "home movie" footage shot by the cast members (especially the child actors) as the series ran its course over several years; and it's great fun to watch this DVD. The pace of the footage flows along against the backdrop of a "family reunion" as most of the cast was able to get together much more recently to reminisce about the series. For example, they recall that the original title for the pilot episode was "The Brady Brood" instead of "The Brady Bunch." The quality of the 8 mm footage is certainly not the best but it's thoroughly entertaining and I enjoyed watching it tremendously.The footage is truly fascinating; we even get television footage of the actors before the series even began! There's a great clip of Ann B. Davis (who played Alice the homemaker on the series) acting on the Bob Cummings TV show for which she got two Emmys; and we see the majority of the child actors in TV commercials as well. There's also a good amount of footage shot when Robert Reed took the cast--at his own expense--to New York and then to London on the QE2; Reed wanted the children to understand and appreciate the arts and acting and he certainly succeeded. Even though Reed wasn't initially too keen on working with children, he became a father figure to them as they worked together.As far as extras go, there are the "interviews with Bobby and Cindy." These are professionally shot interviews with Mike Lookinland and Susan Olsen as they recall the show and their experiences while doing the show. It's a terrific extra feature.Overall, this is a must-have for fans of The Brady Bunch. Sadly, it is out of print as of the time I am writing this, but maybe that will change in time since the show is very often shown in syndication. Fans of the actors in this series will also want this for their collections.