Love to Love You Bradys: The Bizarre Story of The Brady Bunch Variety Hour
$16.95-
After decades under lock and key, Hollywood’s best kept secret is about to be revealed. Love to Love You Bradys: The Bizarre Story of The Brady Bunch Variety Hour is an in-depth look at the most disastrous offering in television history brought to you by Cindy Brady herself, Susan Olsen. In this colourful, glitter-filled retrospective Susan and co-author Ted Nichelson investigate in very Brady detail how and why the rarely seen Variety Hour was conceived, produced, and ended up ranked in TV Guide’s top five “Worst Shows of All-Time.” Behind the scenes, this production was chock full of very serious human conflict: drug addiction, sexuality, weight issues, religion, and heated power struggles — all ultimately shattering the Bradys’ perfect image and forever scarring the legacy of TV's favorite family.
Featuring hundreds of never-before-published photos and interviews with cast, crew, and production staff, including the Brady Bunch, Sherwood Schwartz, Sid and Marty Krofft, Bruce Vilanch, Paul Shaffer, and Rip Taylor.
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Ted Nichelson is a writer, musician, scholar, business entrepreneur, and pop culture historian. Susan Olsen is internationally recognized for her role as Cindy Brady on The Brady Bunch. She is an actress, writer, artist, producer, and radio personality. After The Brady Bunch ended, she became a successful graphic artist working for fashion designers and serving as art director for a Malibu-based clothing company. Appearances on major talk shows led to her own daily radio show on KLSX-Radio in Los Angeles with Ken Ober. She most recently toured the country for three years as the national spokesperson for migraine awareness. Lisa Sutton is a graphic designer and art director in the music business. She has designed hundreds of CD packages with artists ranging from George Lopez and the Dead Kennedys to the Monkees and David Cassidy. 2008 marked the debut of her weekly "Collectiblog" for TVLand.com, a column dedicated to TV and pop culture memorabilia collecting. All three contributors live in Los Angeles, California.
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Published: September 2009
ISBN: 9781550228885
Dimensions: 8.375 x 10.5 in.
Pages: 352
Reviews
“Was The Brady Bunch Variety Hour the worst TV show ever? A new book makes a convincing (and charming) case . . . Love to Love You Bradys is, undeniably, a head-scratchingly hilarious celebration. . . . It's also a candid peek into the workings of a sinking, polyester ship, replete with closeted homosexuality (Robert Reed), drug abuse (Maureen McCormick), hissy fits (Florence Henderson) and some of the worst attempts at singing and dancing ever recorded in human history. Only by understanding those things that Ann B. Davis refers to as 'unmitigated disasters' can we hope to never repeat them. Love to Love You Bradys is the Wisconsin Death Trip of the disco era — strange, awful and utterly, guilt-inducingly fascinating.”— Salon.com
“With insights from Susan Olsen (AKA Cindy Brady), it pushes past the showbiz exterior to reveal a writing team who turned to drink and drugs in a bid to cope with production schedules, and the thinking behind cringe-worthy sets that made Liberace look dowdy.”— Bizarre Magazine
“Olsen provides a personal account of her experiences on the show — and she proves to be a brutally frank and funny writer. . . . run, don't walk, to pick up a copy of this amazing book.”— AfterElton.com
“This book chronicles how chronicles how so many good successful people could be associated with such a bad show . . . [Ted] Nichelson was relentless in tracking down people associated with the show and getting them to talk about what was more than likely the most embarrassing period in their career . . . If you like The Brady Bunch, if you are a pop culture freak, if you find orange jumpsuits intriguing, you will like this book.” — 410media.com
“Cindy [Brady], Susan Olsen — with Ted Nichelson and Lisa Sutton — documents the chapter of Brady history you didn't want to know everything about, in Love to Love You Bradys: The Bizarre Story of the Brady Bunch Variety Hour. At least, you thought you didn't want to know everything about it. . . . Full of photos, the book is a colorful document of a television show so bad, it's legendary. Most good shows don't get treatments this detailed.” — Bookgasm