If you can believe Barry Williams, he spent his teenage years as a hopeless studmuffin, with girls of all ages falling all over him.
I should point out we're talking about Barry Williams here. You know, Greg Brady.
Okay then.
Well hey, what do I know? I wasn't around back in those days. Who knows? Maybe what Barry says is true. Maybe he and his TV mom, Florence Henderson, really did share a kiss. Maybe he did get all hot with his TV sister, the girl who played Marcia. And Jan and Peter? Perhaps they had a thing going too. And because they were just that bored, maybe Cindy and Bobby really did start something too! Which only leaves poor Mr. Brady and Alice. Did they pair off? Nah. Ann B. Davis was old, Robert Reed was gay, and oh by the way, Robert didn't like the Brady scripts. (Whew. Finally -- something that seems plausible!)
Growing Up Brady is based on the memoir by Barry Williams, which became a best-seller in 1992. In the film, we see Barry getting the role of Greg Brady, and we get to see some "behind-the-scenes" Brady Bunch stuff. Like, did you ever wonder why their dog, Tiger, seemed to vanish after season 1? That was because the dog who played him died, and the replacement dog couldn't follow directions, so they essentially wrote the pooch out of the show. Wow. Or did you ever wonder why Robert Reed wasn't in the final episode of the series? Script-loathing, walkoffs... oh boy, the drama!
And how about life off the set? Well, we get to see plenty of that. A lot of time is spent delving into the relationship between Barry and Maureen McCormick (aka "Marcia"). They're crushing. They're infatuated. They're on. They're off. They're angsty. They're being naughty. Greg was so hot and Marcia was beautiful and she just couldn't resist him and...
Vomitation. Occurring. Now.
I'm sorry, it's just so unbelievable. At least when they did those Partridge Family TV-movies, we got to see two perspectives: David Cassidy's in The David Cassidy Story and Danny Bonaduce's in Come On, Get Happy: The Partridge Family Story. The facts matched up, you believed them. Here, it's like... come on, Barry, get over yourself for one second, please!
Whether the events depicted in Growing Up Brady are true or not, I can not say. I did hear Florence Henderson was furious when the book came out and apparently disputed Barry's claims that they had anything going on, ever. But it's his word against hers. And does it matter? Not especially.
What I do know is this: Growing Up Brady is silly, self-serving, and full of obnoxious personalities. Not groovy, man.
