‘Brady Bunch’ Star Eve Plumb Says the ‘Marcia Marcia Marcia’ Mantra Became Famous Because of This ‘SNL’ Alum
The Brady Bunch gave viewers some iconic plots and catchphrases that are still remembered today. On the air from 1969 to 1974, the series included lines that are often repeated almost 50 years later.
One infamous mantra apparently didn’t catch on until this Brady was spoofed on Saturday Night Live.
Eve Plumb ‘can’t escape’ Jan Brady
The cast of Barry Williams (Greg), Maureen McCormick (Marcia), Christopher Knight (Peter), Eve Plumb (Jan), Mike Lookinland (Bobby), and Susan Olsen (Cindy) who portrayed the six Brady kids remained close after the series ended. Each co-star achieved their own level of fame thanks to their stint on The Brady Bunch. Plumb noted the challenge of entering adulthood after making it big as a child actor.
“I had so much success as a child,” she told Closer Weekly in 2018. “But once you age out of being the cute kid, then what? If you’re not ready for it, it can be very difficult.”
Now an artist and continuing to take on acting roles, Plumb doesn’t mind if her Brady notoriety provides her a segue into other opportunities.
“If it gets me in the door [for jobs], then fine!” The Brady Bunch alum said. “If you’re surprised to learn I can do other things, then great! I’ll always be Jan Brady to so many people. I can’t escape it, but I can do other things.”
Who can forget ‘Pork chops and applesauce’?
The Brady Bunch provided some catchphrases that live on in television history. “Oh my nose!” “Mom always says don’t play ball in the house…” And one that has stayed with Knight since his infamous Humphrey Bogart impersonation in season 3.
“Pork chops and applesauce? Where does that come from?” Knight commented to the New York Post in 2019. “I still don’t have an answer for that. My production is Porkchop Phenomenon Inc. I have to be the only one on this planet that has a pork chop phenomenon.”
The four-word line is apparently a global sensation, where Knight hears the phrase repeated back to him regardless of his geographic location.
“It’s odd. It’s not like somebody out there on social media said, ‘This is my favorite line,’ and then recruited a bunch of people to believe the same way,” Knight explained. “When I went down to Australia, people there were asking me to say ‘Pork chops and applesauce.’ Who knows?”
‘SNL’ gets on the ‘Marcia Marcia Marcia’ bandwagon
With six child actors portraying brothers and sisters, sibling rivalry on and off camera was sometimes inevitable. Apparently some competitive friction would develop between the two oldest girls, McCormick and Plumb.
“It was very much like we really were siblings, except we didn’t have to live together and share one bathroom,” Olsen told Oprah: Where Are They Now? in 2013. “I would say that the only thing that even comes close to genuine sibling rivalry would be between Eve Plumb, who played Jan, and Maureen McCormick, who played Marcia,”
The outcry of “Marcia Marcia Marcia” became an iconic mantra when uttered from middle child Jan for the first time in season 3 of the series. Yet Plumb revealed that the three-peat of her onscreen sister’s name didn’t catch on until a Saturday Night Live star used it in a flawless Jan Brady impersonation.
“Do you know where that came from? It was from Saturday Night Live and [former cast member] Melanie Hutsell did a parody of it,” Plumb told the New York Post. “That’s why it’s so popular, thanks to her. Until then, it wasn’t a thing.”
