What Happened on the Final Episode of ‘The Brady Bunch’?
Fifty-one years ago today, the Bradys said goodbye … well, OK, actually, 51 years ago, the Bradys said goodbye for the first time. Though The Brady Bunch aired their final episode on March 8, 1974, just two-and-a-half years later, they were back with The Brady Bunch Variety Hour in November 1976. And though that only lasted one year, in 1981, we got the short-lived reunion series The Brady Brides, followed by a 1988 TV movie, the short-lived 1990 series The Bradys, the 2019 reality series A Very Brady Renovation … it seems like every time you think the Bradys are down for the count, the Bunch rises again.
But in 1974, no one knew we’d have decades left with TV’s favorite blended family — it felt like the actual end of the series. So how did the Bunch bid their fans farewell?
The way they all became the Brady Bunch
Everett Collection
Gilligan’s Island creator Sherwood Schwartz got the earliest inkling of the idea that would become The Brady Bunch in 1966, when he read in a newspaper that 30% of all marriages in the U.S. involved a child from a previous marriage. He wrote a pilot based around the idea of a husband and wife raising children from their previous marriages together, but no networks were sold on it — until the tremendous success of the 1968 Lucille Ball film Yours, Mine and Ours, about a couple who marry despite having a combined 18(!) children from their previous marriages.
The Brady Bunch premiered on Sept. 26, 1969, and though it aired for five seasons, it was at no point considered a hit — in fact, it never even made it into the top 30 most popular shows on TV! When it was decided that the series would end, it had just come in 54th in the ratings, so the decision wasn’t too shocking. It only gained its tremendous popularity and cultural cache after it began airing in syndication in 1975.
What happened in the final episode?
“The Hair-Brained Scheme” wasn’t a dramatic send-off for the series, but it did have a little gravity — Greg (Barry Williams), the eldest Brady, is about to graduate high school. However, whatever emotion that situation might have evoked was undermined by the episode’s other absurd plot line. Cindy (Susan Olsen) and Bobby (Mike Lookinland) decide to make money with two silly get-rich-quick schemes that almost immediately go wrong: Cindy decides to breed rabbits for sale, but buys two males by mistake, while Bobby tries to sell Nice and Neat hair tonic, but can only get Greg to buy a bottle.
When Greg slaps on the tonic, he doesn’t get a cool, slicked-back look — he gets a big, ginger ‘fro a la Carrot Top. Greg panics, but an emergency trip to the beauty parlor with Carol (Florence Henderson) gets everything sorted out in time for the graduation festivities, and Greg remains BMOC to the end.
And the final line of the series? That honor went to the oft-loathed Cousin Oliver. In fact, not only does the irritating tot delivers the show-ending line — but also the line, in answer to the question of who should get Greg’s room when he goes away to college, is “Me, Cousin Oliver! Gosh, it was only a suggestion.”
However damning it might feel to have Cousin Oliver end the series, we can take solace in knowing it wasn’t intentional — the cast didn’t know that “The Hair-Brained Scheme” was their final episode. Rather, as the show had crossed the 100-episode threshold that season (shows need 100 episodes before they can enter syndication), the network decided it was simply time to pull the plug.
Where was Mr. Brady?
Everett Collection
Throughout the episode, there’s a strange absence that becomes all the more pronounced every time they mention Greg’s upcoming graduation: Mike Brady is nowhere to be found. It’s dealt with in a tossed-off line as the Bunch comes back from Greg’s ceremony; Carol tells him she is proud of him for graduating with honors and remarks, “Too bad your father was out of town and had to miss it.”
But Mike Brady didn’t miss his eldest’s graduation due to a business trip — rather, Robert Reed simply refused to participate in the episode. Reed was known for being something of a curmudgeon on the Brady set; he was said to often take issue with silly plot lines or inexact language. His refusal to participate in the final episode was due to just such a quibble — producer Lloyd Schwartz later revealed that Reed objected to the episode because “hair tonic can’t do that to hair.” Though he didn’t appear on camera, Reed did show up to set that day to make his displeasure with the episode and its writing quality known — never knowing it would be the last time he ever sat in with his TV family.
Well, sort of the last time, as Reed did show up on the (infinitely sillier!) Brady Bunch Variety Hour in 1976. Perhaps he left his hair-trigger temper at home that day.
Remind 
1974 (50 Years Ago)
January 2024
In this time capsule issue of ReMIND Magazine we look back 50 years ago to 1974!
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