Discover the most popular TV show the year you were born

1969: The Brady Bunch

Here’s the story, of a man named Brady… The Brady Bunch is a TV show whose legacy has spanned generations and has been referenced and parodied countless times on TV, in movies, and in every other possible way. The ABC sitcom revolved around the Brady family, a mixed family headed by Mike Brady and his wife Carol. Mike was a widowed architect with three sons, Greg, Peter, and Bobby. Carol was also the mother of Marcia, Jan, and Cindy. The family struggled at first to blend together, but soon enough they were as close as any other family.

Funny enough, when the show first aired, it was never really a critical or ratings success during its original run. It was after the show went into syndication in September 1974 that its popularity really soared. The success of the show in syndication lead to a whole bunch of new projects and spin-offs, including The Brady Bunch Hour, The Brady Brides, A Very Brady Christmas, and two theatrical satirical comedy adaptations of the series, The Brady Bunch Movie in 1995 and A Very Brady Sequel in 1996, which showed the Bradys — still stuck in their 1970s lifestyle — navigating the grungy 1990s.

The show’s legacy will continue on for decades to come, with one of their season three episodes “Getting Davy Jones” even landing on TV Guide‘s 100 Greatest Episodes of All-Time, landing at #37.