![]() They just wanted me to make my script longer. I maintained that I needed more story to make it an hour and a half long, but they didn't want more story. ![]() It seemed like an ideal way to get to the half hour marriage script I had already written.īut ABC liked my script just the way it was. I could use the first hour to show how the couple met, the problems of courtship, which involve the man, the lady, and the kids from both families. I didn't see that as a problem because I felt my half hour script could be the third half hour. That was the year Barry Diller, at ABC, had "invested" the two hour TV movie, except the two hour TV movie was an hour and a half at that time. Except they wanted me to make it an hour and a half long. And then I went to ABC.Īt ABC, they loved the script exactly the way it was. That's what I hoped to accomplish by having the marriage in the first episode. I maintained, because "The Brady Bunch" was the first marriage to bring two different families together, it was a departure from all other previous family series, and it required an explanation for the audience. This was their general approach, at that time, to all new series. CBS wanted what they called the sixth or seventh "slice." In this way the audience would learn information from week to week about how this series got it's start. So much for NBC.Īt CBS, they objected to any script which specifically was designed to be a pilot episode. Brady a unique couple, and the audience would love them for showing that kind of concern. I took the position that it would make Mr. NBC took the position that no sane couple on their honeymoon would go back and get the kids. The realize their honeymoon would be more complete if their kids were with them. Brady are uncomfortable on their honeymoon because they had left their kids with Alice, who was Mr. NBC took exception to the last sequence in the script in which Mr. However, each network had it's own approach to the opening episode which I had written. Interestingly enough, all three networks were very interested in this new idea, and anxious to move forward. Fox had not yet been born and cable channels were still way out there in the future. At that time, 1965, that's all there were, three networks. But if they try something really new and different, they have nothing to blame except their own judgment.Īt any rate, after I wrote the format, I wrote the pilot episode in which the couple are married and the new family is formed. It's easier to sell a series idea that's similar to a successful series, because then executives who buy it have an excuse if it fails. And new concepts, by the simple fact they are "new," are more difficult to sell because there's no antecedent to refer to. Like "Gilligan's Island," "The Brady Bunch" was a new concept. There's a whole chapter about the importance of avoiding exposition in a book I wrote called, "Inside Gilligan's Island." The theme song, in that case, was a major factor in selling the show to CBS. Actually I had learned this lesson with "Gilligan's Island" some years earlier. If all exposition could be avoided by a theme song, every episode could start the story on page one. I believe exposition is the enemy of entertainment, so the less of it, the better. And to avoid exposition, I wrote a theme song which explained how these two families became one. ![]() I immediately sat down to write a format based on this concept. Sometimes it just takes a simple four-line statistic to be the key that opens a new door. And stories are the ingredients that keep a series alive. It opened up a whole new avenue for stories. And the problems each parent would have trying to convince the "new" children that they loved them just as much as their own, etc. Not only could there be sibling rivalries, but there could be cross sibling rivalries. That's a huge statistic.Īs a writer, frequently in situation comedy (in radio I had written the first two years of "Ozzie and Harriet"), I saw the immediate possibility of brand new story lines. 31% is approximately one third of all marriages. It was just a statistic, but to me it indicated a remarkable sociological change in our country. It said that year, 1965, 31% of all marriages involved people who had a child or children from a previous marriage. It was just a 4-line filler piece in the Los Angeles Times. However, in the case of "The Brady Bunch", I know exactly what inspired that show. It's very rare that a writer knows exactly where his ideas come from.
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