The Brady Bunch Variety Hour: Pilot

The Brady Bunch Variety Hour: Pilot
ABC
November 28, 1976
Variety
DVD
B+

The grade obviously doesn't so much reflect quality as the level of my eyes bugging out and my ears doing double-takes.  Yes, I watched this at the time.  Duh, it was the Bradys and I even watched the variety shows for the Captain & Tennille (I loved the "Bionic Hat" sequence) and for Shields & Yarnell (mimes).  Catching an edited down version of this on Nickelodeon about fifteen years later, with a suitably cheesy introduction by Casey Kasem, enough time had passed for me to watch in disbelief.  Honestly, if I hadn't lived through the '70s, I would think this was all, as the Bradys would've said, a put-on.  Let me just copy down from my mental list, and forgive me if I've left anything out:

• Blindingly glitzy sets and costumes in a rainbow of colors;
• Mostly good singing, matched with ridiculous choreography and/or cheesy orchestration;
• "The Hustle" and "Shake Your Booty," with special guest star Alice;
• Special guest star Tony "I do everything professionally" Randall reciting poetry to people in animal costumes and telling Bobby, "Well, up your nose with a rubber hose";
• More ABC plugs than they even dared to do on Welcome Back, Kotter, including the in-joky "Barbarino in a bubble" reference, while Robert Reed is sitting right there saying nothing;
• Marcia complaining that Dad bent her Led Zeppelin album, so Greg tells her about when Mom and Dad were their age in the '50s, seguing to
• A sequence set in a roller rink, where the Brady guys ogle the Brady girls, but it's OK because they're playing other characters, with names like Pitsy and Hickey, and everyone except a coked-up McCormick thinks the way to sound '50s is to have a vaguely New York accent;
• Donny & Marie as the Donz and his sister (it sounds like Carol calls her the Nazz, but that can't be right) show up and deliberately fall on the floor while skate-dancing, unlike Williams, whose earlier spill looks unscripted;
• Bizarre line readings, from Marie sounding vaguely Chinese on "The Donz really wants to be liked" to Carol's "Do you think your father likes wearing tights?  [Awkward pause] No," as well as,
• Bizarre lines, like Marcia's suggestion that her critical siblings stop "hitting on dad";
• A Risk game parody for the scene where Peter (who's now in college and "majoring in girls") learns the lesson that "the trouble with lying is you always get caught";
• Greg claiming their old house didn't have a bathroom (it was actually the toilet that was missing); 
• Fake Jan "at that emotional age";
• Flashbacks to the Bunch pilot and "Kitty Karry-All Is Missing," so we get a glimpse of Eve Plumb;
• A Rocky Horror reference; 
• Underwater fire-fighting clowns.  Underwater.  Fire-fighting.  Clowns.  UNDERWATER FIRE-FIGHTING CLOWNS!!!

So why not an A- or higher?  Well, there were lulls where I didn't question my sanity, or theirs.