She was my mom. She was everybody’s mom. Florence Henderson didn’t just play a role, she portrayed an idealized parent few of us had but everybody wanted. Sure, her kids were a handful, but otherwise nearly perfect. She was perfect. Even that big ugly house was perfect.
Talk about setting some impossible standards.
From producer Sherwood Schwartz, who gave America “Gilligan’s Island,” came the “Brady Bunch” on ABC. For the mother, he cast an actress with musical theater chops, someone who moved like a dancer, was always “on” and relentlessly cheerful, someone who handled mundane domestic challenges with optimism and aplomb.
As Carol Ann Brady, Henderson made parenthood cool, transcending archetypes and sitcom cliches to such a degree, and with so much success, that she became one herself.
That Henderson died on Thanksgiving night, on what is the biggest family feast of the year, seems a little ironic, a little just. She rallied baby boomers, became their mullet-wearing Madonna, at a time when fractured families needed reassurance.
For five years starting in 1969, Henderson raised six children in gentle-tough, no-nonsense style. “Kids need rules” was the message. And they need attention. Otherwise they feel bad for constantly disappointing you. That’s a simple message, and a timeless one.
Granted, her character had a lot going for her. A handsome architect husband who was always around. A full-time housekeeper. Gorgeous kids, gorgeous stepkids. No Ritalin. No Wi-Fi.
Not in movies, not in literature, has the nation ever seen the American dream captured quite like this. The show didn’t have producers and writers so much as it had stylists. The clothes, the hair, the mod tonal palette.
Notice how it never rained on the Bradys? The seasons didn’t even change. The only way you could tell that time was advancing was that Mike Brady’s hair got longer and curlier, and the kids were getting taller.
That checkerboard opening quickly defined the show. On one side, the sons. On the other, the daughters. Let the games begin.
It wasn’t schmaltz, but it sure danced the line. Sibling rivalry was a constant:
“All day long at school, I hear how great Marcia is at this or how wonderful Marcia did that. Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!”
With a snippet of dialogue, the show captured childhood frustrations that could shape a life. “Marcia-Marcia-Marcia” became a pop-culture battle cry for every silly, overwrought sibling rebuff.
Slyly, there was more to the show than first seemed. You could easily argue that the “Brady Bunch” marked the moment – the tipping point – when the nation became more obsessed with children than with adults.
Certainly, it sprang to life in the late ’60s, when the nation was recalibrating, unsteady and angry at the status quo. When children started making important cultural and political calls, along came the “Brady Bunch.”
As a rule, sitcoms were bigger concepts back then. Mothers were witches. Martians moved in next door.
In the face of that, all Henderson had to offer was common sense. That’s what she gave us in perhaps TV’s most-iconic role – a good mother in turbulent times. Sound familiar?
That’s why Henderson’s passing late Thursday, at age 82, seemed like a death in the family. Because it was.
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