Show: The Brady Bunch
Kids: Greg, Peter, Bobby, Marcia, Jan, Cindy
Known for: Marrying a lovely lady who was bringing up three very lovely girls (while busy with three boys of his own).
He was TV’s perfect 1950s dad, tweaked for a more modern era. Mike Brady was a natural character for the rising divorce and remarriage rates of the 1960s — as the show’s theme song reminded viewers each week, the Brady Bunch was formed when Mike, the father of three sons, married Carol, the mother of three girls (though Mike was widowed, rather than divorced, and Carol’s past was never fully explained). Hilarious hijinx ensued, from 1969 to 1974. A successful architect, handsome, well-coiffed and handy with a toolkit, Mike Brady was about all a blended family could hope for. He was so perfect, in fact, that a viewer might never guess that classically trained actor Robert Reed resented playing the role and often stormed off the set to sulk in his dressing room when scripts didn’t meet his standards. One reported tempest came when Mike Brady was supposed to walk into the kitchen as Carol was making dessert and remark that it smelled “like strawberry heaven.” An aggrieved Reed demanded that the line be changed, telling the show’s producer: “It just so happens that strawberries, while cooking, have no odor.”