Hey,

It's a Sunshine day! So I think I'll go for a walk outside! LOL!

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Anyway, back in the first season of Brady Bunch do you guys remember the original opening? I do! The traditional Brady Bunch "Squares" would appear and the logo "In Color" would be shown at the bottom of the screen! There would be a brief musical interlude that would go....."Da Da Dee Dum, Da, Da, Dee, Dumm....Da da da da daaaaaaaaa."

Then, the regular "Here's the story.." theme song would begin. The only other difference was in between the last scene and the tag, a still screen of the "squares" would appear and most often, one of the kids would say, "The Brady Bunch Will Return in a Moment"

I alway that that little musical introduction was kind of catchy! Back then, the shows were all in there original uncut format. (The phrase "In Color" was used often back in the late 60's early 70's to announce a program!)

As a sidenote, it's stange because I don't really remember watching Brady Bunch in prime time until maybe about the 3rd season. My first strong memories were watching it when I slept over at my grandparents house and it was on like Saturday or Sunday mornings. When Brady Bunch first came out in 1969 I checked a paper a few years ago to research and our station didn't even run it prime time until the second season! (If I remember correctly, the original ratings on the show bombed. The pilet, according to my research, was first shown on a Saturday afternoon at 4:00 in my area (One day after the prime time national premier.) Maybe my local station wanted to attract a younger audience at that time by moving the show to an afternoon timeslot.

It's amazing how a show that some thought never would get off the ground has become such a treasured classic!

I believe the opening "In Color" shot used the famous pose of the Bradys standing on the stairs, rather than the Brady Squares. This was left in the 70s syndication prints, but was cut from the 80s prints (it's restored on the Columbia House tapes). There were two different "In Color" pictures, with two different musical interludes, but they were both on the stairs. It appears that the picture was retaken mid-first-season, because in the second photo, Marcia's hair is still in ponytails, but Carol has lost her big bouffant (the CH tapes have both of these). They continued to use the second picture and music into the second season. They stopped using whole "In Color" intro in the third season.

For "The Brady Bunch will return in a moment" message, they used the squares for the first two seasons, then switched to the staircase pose for the last three seasons. The staircase pose used for the third season was different than the opening "In Color" shot used for the second season. It was retaken again for the fourth season, and again for the fifth season. For the fifth season shot, the cast was no longer standing on individual steps -- they were all sitting on the landing at the bottom of the staircase, and the picture was taken from a different point of view. Columbia House hasn't restored these for their tapes -- too bad.