siblings—Barry Williams (Greg), Maureen
McCormick (Marcia), Christopher Knight
(Peter), Eve Plumb (Jan), Mike Lookinland
(Bobby) and Susan Olsen (Cindy)—for the
first time in 15 years. The actors team up
with eight HGTV all-stars from shows like
Property Brothers (Jonathan and Drew
Scott), Hidden Potential (Jasmine Roth)
and Flea Market Flip (Lara Spencer) as
they renovate the property to make it an
exact replica of the house featured on the
sitcom, including elements like the floating
staircase and the kids’ Jack and Jill bath-
room. With a 130-day shoot and a 150-per-
son production and construction crew,
“it’s definitely the biggest thing we’ve ever
done” at HGTV, says Finch.
And while TV’s reboot/revival craze
has quieted somewhat after recent fizzles
like Murphy Brown, execs and media buy-
ers alike see A Very Brady Renovation as
a slam dunk that, like Fox’s hit BH90210,
offers a novel twist on a beloved TV series.
“This one was a no-brainer. The Brady
Bunch is one of the most iconic shows
ever. HGTV is bringing it to their net-
work in a way that’s really on-brand,” says
Sharon Cullen, executive director of in-
tegrated investment, Hearts & Science.
“It’s a home-renovation show at the core
that just happens to have one of the most
iconic casts participating.” Given that the
series is likely to draw both Brady Bunch
fans and the network’s core audience, Cul-
len adds, “I’d be very surprised if this show
doesn’t do extremely well for HGTV.”
That’s because The Brady Bunch is
one of the few series with devoted fans of
all generations. As Discovery’s chief U.S.
advertising sales officer, Jon Steinlauf,
points out, “It ran for five seasons”—from
1969-1974 on ABC—”but it feels like it ran
forever,” because it was heavily syndicat-
ed for decades, and even today is ubiqui-
tous on streaming platforms like Amazon,
CBS All Access and Hulu.
Advertisers and buyers, who swarmed
the Brady siblings during Discovery’s
New York upfront in April, have already
f locked to the series. “We’re selling it
really hard,” says Steinlauf, who has se-
cured twice the amount he usual charg-
es for a 30-second ad Monday nights on
HGTV. He’s also lined up three major
VERY BRADY PHOTOS COURTESY DISCOVERY CHANNEL; ORIGINAL CAST: WALT DISNEY TELEVISION VIA GETTY IMAGES
—BARRY WILLIAMS (GREG BRADY)
28 SEPTEMBER 2, 2019 | ADWEEK
®FEATURE
million to buy
the propertywork hoursdays of shootingHGTV starsBrady Bunch
siblingsperson
construction and
production crewsquare feet of stone
and brick workhandmade pieces
of furniturecustom paint and
stain colorssquare feet of
custom redesigned
wallpaper and fabricsponsors, including Wayfair (see sidebar), to create custom
content, much of it ’70s themed, around the show. “This is do-
ing very well with advertisers,” he said.
Yet despite Zaslav’s early bravado about the project—he an-
nounced Discovery’s Brady Bunch house purchase during the
company’s August 2018 earnings call—execs grappled with a major
hurdle early on: none of the six Brady siblings had signed on, and in
fact hadn’t reunited as an entire group for a decade and a half. Ma-
ny of the previous Brady reunions and spinoffs over the years—like
The Brady Bunch Hour, The Brady Brides or A Very Brady Christ-
mas—had been missing at least one original cast member.
Finch, who hadn’t batted an eye about the home’s $3.5 mil-
lion cost (“That’s just money,” she says), admits that she “did
not sleep for a couple of days” as she worried about wooing the
cast. “If they had not signed on, I would have been personally
devastated, because they make the show.”
So HGTV refused to take no for an answer, taking several of
the actors out to dinner in L.A., and inviting the New York-based
Plumb to the Food Network kitchen, in Manhattan, to make its
pitch. “They were very persuasive, and very clear that they had to
have all of us,” says Williams. For the actors, the idea of partici-
pating in something different from a typical Brady reunion was
appealing. “My initial reaction to the pitch was two things: You
guys are crazy, and that’s a great idea,” says Lookinland. Plus,
notes Plumb, “it wasn’t about creating drama. It wasn’t a reality
TV show where we all are shut in the house and let’s make each
other cry. It was truly about the renovation. The biggest crisis
was, ‘Oh, no, that box of tile broke!’”
For every reunion offer that comes along, “we look at each
one and say, ‘Is this something that I want to be a part of ?’ This
was something I was very excited about,” says McCormick. “I
felt that HGTV was going to do it in a really classy way, which is
very important to me.”
HGTV’s quick decision to buy the home and line up the ac-
tors was apparent in some of its early talks with the cast. “They
didn’t know it wasn’t a house that we didn’t work in,” says
Knight. “We never worked there once, and it wasn’t really the
Brady house as far as we were concerned.” Because the entire
series had been shot on a Holly wood soundstage, some cast
members, like McCormick, had never set foot on the property
prior to starting filming last fall. To help marry the fictional
TV sets to the actual home, architects added 2,000 square feet
to the house’s original footprint.
Ultimately, the complete sextet signed on. While some sib-
lings had been given a general sense of what to expect, othersTe a m B r a d y (from left): McCormick, Knight, Olsen, Lookinland, Plumb and Williams with HGTV stars Steve
and Leanne Ford of Restored by the Fords, Jasmine Roth of Hidden Potential, Karen Laine and Mina Starsiak
of Good Bones, Jonathan and Drew Scott of Property Brothers, and Lara Spencer of Flea Market Flip.