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The Brady Bunch is an American classic. It follows a big blended family navigating a new life together. The sitcom ran for five seasons before ending in 1974. However, had The Brady Bunch aired for a sixth season, it would have looked very different after killing off a central character.

‘The Brady Bunch’ ran for 5 seasons from 1969 to 1974

The Brady Bunch Season 6 without Robert Reed
‘The Brady Bunch’ cast circa 1970 | Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

Creator Sherwood Schwartz had an idea for a show about a blended family in 1966 after reading in a newspaper that “29% of families now included a child from a previous marriage,” the New York Post reported. Thus, The Brady Bunch was born.

The show premiered in 1969 on ABC. Although it earned a moderate number of viewers, it wasn’t considered a hit show and didn’t win any awards at the time. The Brady Bunch aired for five seasons until the network canceled it in 1974. 

The sitcom became much more popular after it went into syndication in 1975. Since then, it has become an iconic TV series watched by multiple generations of Americans.

‘The Brady Bunch’ would have looked a lot different in season 6

Schwartz revealed that if he had done The Brady Bunch Season 6, he would have killed off patriarch Mike Brady. The New York Post noted that the sixth season would “have the plot revolve around the kids helping Carol find love again.”

Schwartz wanted to cut Mike from the storyline because the creator clashed with Robert Reed, who played the character. He was a serious Shakespearean actor and often objected to what his character had to do and say in the comedy series.

“He wound up on a show that he didn’t want to do in the first place, and it became more and more difficult for him,” Schwartz told ABC News in 2000.

Additionally, Reed often got drunk on his lunch breaks, which caused issues for Schwartz and the crew when the actor returned to the set. Reed reportedly had angry outbursts and forced the show to stop filming for the day.

But his co-stars adored Robert Reed

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Despite his reputation for being difficult to work with, Robert Reed had supporters on set. Notably, the six actors who played the Brady children adored him. According to Schwartz, Reed was a father figure to them.

“They were a family. They became a family,” Schwartz told ABC News. “They became very attached to each other … Even Bob Reed, who was a personal pain to me, loved the kids, and they loved him.”

Florence Henderson, who played the mom, Carol Brady, understood Reed struggled with living as a closeted gay man.

“Here he was, the perfect father of this wonderful little family, a perfect husband,” Henderson said. “He was an unhappy person … I think had Bob not been forced to live this double life, I think it would have dissipated a lot of that anger and frustration.”

She added, “I had a lot of compassion for him because I knew how he was suffering.”

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