The Brady Bunch, and A Very Brady Sequel

Here's the story, of a lovely lady, who was bringing up three very lovely girls -- come on, you all know the words -- all of them had hair of gold, like thier mother, the youngest one in curls. I know that most of you youngsters out there may not have the same warm feelings I do about the Brady's, but given the years of reruns, I know you've seen them more than once. And if you've seen these films, you've seen it more than twice.

The Brady Bunch Movie: We find our heroes and heroines in '90's LA -- or at least everyone around them. They still seem to be stuck in the same early '70's groove they were in when we last saw them in series form (forgetting about the assorted TV movies and the rather silly variety show most of them starred in). The story? The next door neighbor -- Larry Dietmeyer -- is trying to sell his block to a developer to build a residential mini mall. Everyone but you know who has agreed. Unfortunately for the Bradys, they've forgotten to pay the property taxes, and they have 5 days to cough $20,000, or their house will be auctioned off. The kids find out, and they start trying to raise money (Greg tries to be a rock star, Marsha and Jan try to be Teen Models), while Mike tries to sell a design to get the money (the designs for a gas station, fast food joint, and health club are all the same as his house) It seems hopeless, but he makes the sale -- Deitmeyer finds out, and spoils it for him. The kids save the day when they win a "Search for the Stars" contest and come up with the $20,000 -- just in time to stop the auction.

A Very Brady Sequel: This time around finds the Brady's preparing to celebrate Mike and Carol's anniversary, only to be interupted by the unexpected return of Carol's husband. Except he's not her husband, but his old assistant Trevor -- and the one responsible for his disappearance. He's after a horse statue, that's worth millions of dollars. The horse is out being cleaned (Jan spilled grape juice on it), so he waits around for it's return. Then, it goes to a charity auction (Zsa Zsa Gabor outbids him on it), and he steals it from there. Then, when the kids confront him about not being Carol's long lost husband, he pulls a gun and kidnaps Carol to Hawaii. Mike, Alice and the kids follow them, where thay all meet up at some rich guy's mansion, and we find that Carol's husband, "The Professor" and the rich guy's son Gilligan were both lost on the same boat -- The S.S. Minnow. Trevor goes to jail, the Horse and the Brady's all go back home -- and Mike throws Carol a suprise reenactment of thier wedding as an anniversary gift. They all live happily ever after, until Barbara Eden shows up looking for her former master and husband, Mike.

These films have several things in common with the 2 Addams Family movies -- both were popular TV series, and in both of them, the sequel was the more entertaining film. Not that the first one wasn't fun -- but too much of the humor relies on fish-out-of-water jokes. And of course, there are the obligatory guest stars from the original -- Greg comes back as a record producer, Peter comes back as the gym teacher, Alice is a truck driver who rescues Jan, and Carol comes back as Carol's Mom.