There was almost a sequel to the story of a lovely lady. According to Susan Olsen, who portrayed Cindy—the adorable baby of the family on the hit ‘70s sitcom The Brady Bunch—a revival series about the famously blended family was in the works at CBS, then was canceled due to her conservative political views.
While appearing on the Walk Away Campaign podcast, Olsen said that her support of Donald Trump, her beliefs about Covid vaccines, and her stance on the LGBTQ+ community led to CBS scrapping the revival series, which would have followed the life and times of the adult Brady Bunch children.
In the revival series, Olsen says Cindy would have been a libertarian podcaster—but she also claims that CBS did not want her to appear on the program due to her political beliefs. “I did have a phone call with my [TV] siblings and my agent,” she said. “Everybody was saying, ‘We’re sorry, but they just won’t budge. They just will not have you in this.’ I was like, ‘Wow, I’ve been canceled.’ A role that I’ve played for over 50 years, I can’t play it now because I’m too dangerous. I was like ‘Well, okay guys, good luck, I hope you can sell it.’”
Although the actor says CBS was reluctant to cast Olsen in the first place, she also claims that talks had continued for about a year when she had a phone call with the revival’s showrunner, its producer, and the son of Sherwood Schwartz, who created the original Brady Bunch. On the podcast, Olsen referred to the three execs as “the Inquisition,” and said they asked her questions about her political views. Olsen said that the trio had “drank every drop of Kool-aid” and maintained that “by now, we know the vaccine was not safe or effective.”
According to Olsen, the revival was going to thrust the Brady Bunch family into the modern era. One of Jan’s children was going to be trans, and one of the Bradys was going to have a Black spouse. This, perhaps unsurprisingly, did not sit right with Olsen. “To that I was like, come on, let’s not be so obvious,” said Olsen. “Let’s make this Black spouse somebody who has a really close relationship with another Brady, and that’s how this Brady met them. Give them a foundation so this isn’t a token position.”
This isn’t the first time Olsen has allegedly lost a gig due to her conservative views. Olsen was fired from LA Talk Radio’s Two Chicks Talkin’ Politics after sharing anti-LGBTQ views on social media in 2016.
According to Olsen, the revival series is now “dead in the water,” but perhaps a series following five out of six of the Brady siblings isn’t out of the realm of possibility. All three Brady Bunch boys, Greg (Barry Williams), Peter (Christopher Knight), and Bobby (Mike Lookinland) are still around, as are the other two girls, Marcia (Maureen McCormick) and Jan (Eve Plumb). (Robert Reed, who played patriarch Mike Brady, died in 1992, while Florence Henderson, who played Carol Brady, died in 2016. Ann B. Davis, who played housekeeper and center square in the title sequence Alice Nelson, died in 2014.) Even down one Brady, society needs a Brady Bunch revival series, if only to get to the bottom of Marcia’s pronunciation of the word “werewolves.”
Vanity Fair reached out to CBS for. comment.
