40 Years Later And ...

You know the story about a lovely lady who was bringing up three very lovely girls who had hair of gold like their mother and the youngest had curls and the story of a man named Brady who was busy with three boys of his own. Well we know the two had gotten together and wed on Sept. 29, 1969.

It's hard to believe "The Brady Bunch" recently celebrated 40 years of being on television and with it comes Mike Pingel's book, "The Brady Bunch: Super Groovy After All These Years!"

At first I thought secrets would be revealed and maybe there would be some on set scando's revealed but unfortunately none of that happens. But my second thought was Pingel would break down the show, spinoffs and the movies. Nope doesn't happen.

All we're given is pretty much what we've already learned in the past.

There are new interviews with creator Sherwood Schwartz, son Lloyd, cast members Ann B. Davis, Susan Olsen, Florence Henderson, Barry Williams, Robbie Rist and "fake Jan" Geri Reischl (who also has a holiday on Jan. 2 known as "Fake Jan Day," something I discovered on my own). The interviews themselves really don't tell us anything as they're presented in a Q&A format and most of the questions are the same only with different takes on a given situation. The book sort of becomes its own repeat.

Pingel does make a mistake when recounting the episodes, especially episode 21 titled "The Hero." He makes reference to Bobby saving a little girl at the toy store when in fact it was Peter. After each recap of the episode Pingel does bring up a little tidbit about the show as to what Alice was cooking, various houseguests and a sex-o-meter of the show.

While there are some groovy tips, I think Pingel should have looked at the layout of the book prior to publication since there are a lot of grammatical errors, but it just might be the perfect book for the Brady fan in your life (or even for you).