Vitals

Gary Cole as Mike Brady, architect and family man

Los Angeles, Summer 1996

Film: A Very Brady Sequel
Release Date: August 23, 1996
Director: Arlene Sanford
Costume Designer: Rosanna Norton

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Earlier this summer, my corner of Twitter was briefly ablaze with people celebrating the adaptations of The Brady Bunch that hit big screens back to back in the ’90s, specifically the breakfast scene in A Very Brady Sequel where the insecure middle-child Jan (Jennifer Elise Cox) conceptualizes her made-up boyfriend over blueberry pancakes, only for her older sister Marcia (Christine Taylor) to shut it down with “that’s funny, I’ve never heard of a George Glass at our schœl,” as parents Mike (Gary Cole) and Carol (Shelley Long) look on—the latter pouring an approximate gallon of sugar into her coffee.

The conceit of both The Brady Bunch Movie and the subsequent A Very Brady Sequel maintains the family’s groovy ’70s style, but transplants them—and their MCM home with its astroturfed lawn—directly into the ’90s, where they couldn’t be more obliviously out of place. Released thirty years ago this week on August 23, 1996, A Very Brady Sequel revived a few second-season subplots—including George Glass, the home’s horse statue, and a trip to Hawaii—while also lampshading the fact that the series never addressed the fate of Carol’s first husband by introducing him as the conniving Roy Martin (Tim Matheson). Continue reading →