Reader TTS

Christopher Knight, 65, will always be known as the middle brother, Peter, on the iconic show _The Brady Bunch_. Since 2020, Knight and Barry Williams, 68, who played his older brother,

Greg, have been taking listeners on a nostalgic journey of the show in their weekly Apple podcast _The Real Brady Bros. _Knight and Williams recap episodes,_ _share their memories of making

the show and discuss how _The Brady Bunch_ resonated with viewers when it first aired and still relates to the present day. HOW DID THE PODCAST COME ABOUT? There was a suggestion from

someone from the distribution company [Knight was doing a non-_Brady Bunch-_focused solo podcast]_ _about this new genre of podcasts that are becoming quite popular — episodic recaps. My

entire life has been entrapped, enrapt, gloriously wrapped in Brady — bow-tied in Brady — but I didn’t actually think in that way, initially. … If someone would have gone to Barry Williams

to ask him to do a podcast, the nature of Barry would have been to do it about _The Brady Bunch_, because he wraps himself most tightly in it. If [episodic recap podcasts are] popular, I

thought, it shouldn’t be led by me, but the man who wrote the book [Williams wrote a 1992 memoir titled _Growing Up Brady]. _  WHAT IS IT LIKE FOR YOU TO WATCH _THE BRADY BUNCH_ NOW? It’s a

totally different experience because it’s a different person watching it. Now, there is objectivity, because it’s so long ago. The things that upset you about watching yourself … you forget

about. And now, you’re just really watching the show the way your audience always watched the show and chuckling at it for the content that is there not for, I don’t know, how your hair was

looking that day. So, it’s a much more honest approach today. And at times, it’s surprisingly funny and touching, and at other times beguilingly just odd and stupid. DO YOU HAVE AN ALL-TIME

FAVORITE _BRADY BUNCH_ EPISODE? When our audience asks us what our favorite episode is, we all answer, “Hawaii” [a three-episode trip in season four], not because of any content of the show,

but because we got to go to Hawaii. DID ANY OF THE GUEST STARS MAKE AN IMPACT ON YOU? I was a [L.A.] Rams fan, and [NFL player] Deacon Jones was a giant hero, a local hero. Having him on

the show was an exceptional moment for me. Everyone’s favorite football player Joe Namath came through, and that caused some excitement. I wish I was more mature, because some of the people

I would grow to admire even more. Vincent Price — I had seen him in some things and I heard he was a huge movie star — but he didn’t act like my image of how the all-powerful movie star

would act. So here was a revelation that movie stars could be really humble and real people.  WOULD YOU TRADE YOUR TIME ON_ THE BRADY BUNCH_ FOR A REGULAR CHILDHOOD? This blended family

"became the Brady Bunch" in 1969. The show aired for five seasons. Everett Collection By being part of _Brady — _even though it wasn’t real — I got a view of what a functional

family was like, because mine wasn’t. The difficult part was that I had a mother who didn’t have any respect for the show. She was an artist herself, and thought that the show was banal and

milquetoast and all the things maybe it was, but she was grading it on an adult scale. The fact is, for 53 years, looking back trying to understand why this thing is still discussed —

there’s something in it that rings true or provides a warm blanket to continual generations. I think it is simply because it is about a functioning family. It was aspirational, and there’s

nothing wrong with that. WHAT QUESTIONS DO _BRADY_ FANS ASK YOU THE MOST, AND WHAT’S YOUR ANSWER? “Are you all friends? Are you still friends?” The initial five years of our existence

together was shooting a show, but then there’ve been countless reunions and other things, and we’ve become very close friends. We’ve grown up together, we’ve grown old together, we’re a

fictional but real kind of family. That’s the life we recognize.