This Day in Pop Culture for November 28

1976: The Brady Bunch Put on a Variety Show

On October 8, 1976, four of the Brady Bunch stars (Florence Henderson, Maureen McCormick, Mike Lookinland and Susan Olsen) appeared as guests on the Donny & Marie variety show on ABC. The ratings for that episode were huge, so ABC’s president, Fred Silverman, made plans to produce another variety show built around the fictional Brady family. The first episode appeared less than two months later.

Created by Sid & Marty Krofft, The Brady Bunch Hour has gone down as one of America’s worst TV shows ever made. It starred all but one of the stars from the former show. Eve Plumb, who played Jan Brady, wanted to do just five shows, but ABC demanded that she appear in all of them or none of them, so she left the project. Jan’s character was recast with Geri Reischl who many called “Fake Jan.” Barry Williams (Greg Brady) wanted to do the show so bad, he resigned from the Broadway musical, Pippin to do so.

The new variety show was made without the involvement or even permission from Sherwood Schwartz, the creator of The Brady Bunch, who had been involved with every other Brady Bunch project. Just as Donny & Marie featured ice skaters, this show featured “The Krofftettes”, a water ballet dance troupe/

The show was supposed to air every five weeks, but it didn’t always work out that way. The first episode dealt with the Brady kids concerned that their father didn’t have enough talent to perform (he had been an architect in the original series after all) and Bobby attempted to have him replaced by guest star Tony Randall. Song numbers featured in the first episode included “Baby Face”, “Love to Love You Baby”, “Splish Splash”, “Cheek to Cheek”, “Dance with Me”, “I Could Have Danced All Night” and “Shake Your Booty.”

Nine episodes of the show were made and appeared on TV with the last episode airing on May 25, 1977. (Image: ABC)

1895: America’s First Driving Race

It was on this day in 1895 that the very first driving race was held created and sponsored by H.H. Kolsaat, the publisher of the Times-Herald. He got the idea after hearing about the first race held in France.

Originally planned for July 4, the race began with only six cars competing, four them were gas-powered while the other two were electric and failed shortly after the race began due to the cold. Frank Duryea was the big winner of the day driving 52.4 miles which took about 10 hours and 23 minutes to cross the finish line.

1859: Washington Irving is Buried in Sleepy Hollow

American writer, Washington Irving who is probably most famous for writing the short story, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, died at the age of 76 in Sunnyside, New York on this day in 1859. He was buried in the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery located in New York.

Irving is also famous for writing the story of Rip Van Winkle and a number of Christmas stories found in The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. Despite his success with fiction, much of his later works were focused on biographies and history.