Speaker 1: You're listening to I Choose Me with Jenny Garth. Hi, everyone,
Speaker 1: welcome to I Choose Me. This podcast is all about
Speaker 1: the choices we make and where they lead us. I
Speaker 1: have a really fun episode for you today. Something that
Speaker 1: is so great about this podcast is that I get
Speaker 1: to take you listeners with me for fun and interesting conversations.
Speaker 1: And today I choose to live out one of my
Speaker 1: childhood dreams because you guys, I am recording this episode
Speaker 1: at the Brady Bunch House. Yes, that's what I said,
Speaker 1: The Brady Bunch House. My guest today is known for
Speaker 1: playing the beloved Peter Brady and in recent years has
Speaker 1: made appearances on shows like The Masked Singer and A
Speaker 1: Very Brady Renovation. And outside of acting, he's also an
Speaker 1: accomplished entrepreneur. Please welcome Chris Night to the podcast.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much.
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, this is such an Are you tripping?
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I tripped here, I'm tripping. Yeah, you'll come
Speaker 3: out of it eventually.
Speaker 2: It's now real.
Speaker 3: So it is a trip, but not as as poignant
Speaker 3: as it was when we first completed it.
Speaker 1: Because we're sitting here in this house that you all
Speaker 1: have redone to look exactly like what was the set?
Speaker 1: Right of the interior.
Speaker 3: Better than the set, as it turns out, because it's real. Now,
Speaker 3: this set was a pretend place.
Speaker 1: You know it is really no how I know. I
Speaker 1: just went to the bathroom in your parents' bathroom.
Speaker 2: And that added toilet.
Speaker 1: It worked.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and they work everywhere because essentially it's a real
Speaker 3: Allison has to have an occupancy permit.
Speaker 1: Okay, well they I occupied.
Speaker 2: It couldn't faithfully replicate that part. No toilets.
Speaker 3: You know why we didn't have a toilet on the
Speaker 3: show on the show because you weren't allowed to show
Speaker 3: a toilet for nine nine o'clock. There was standards and
Speaker 3: practices at the time, and actually that.
Speaker 2: Anybody was going to be wanting to use the toilet.
Speaker 1: The toilet, the toilet itself, It wasn't there.
Speaker 3: There's a tub, there's and there's something missing that's obvious.
Speaker 3: Article in every bathroom in all not that there was.
Speaker 2: But one bathroom that was really featured on the show.
Speaker 1: Wow, when did that change? Do you think because we
Speaker 1: had toilets online? Or you want? Oh, good for you, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we really will.
Speaker 2: We're built of different materials.
Speaker 1: Back in the sixties, they must have decided that toilets
Speaker 1: are okay to show on prime time.
Speaker 3: Is someone read through the manual and said, you know,
Speaker 3: we've got to update this.
Speaker 2: These are real people.
Speaker 3: I don't know, you know, things, times changed things. I mean,
Speaker 3: you know, do my podcast on our show. We're watching
Speaker 3: the show for the first time in fifty years, and
Speaker 3: it innocuous, is the Brady is. There's quite a few
Speaker 3: episodes where we'd have to change some.
Speaker 4: Of the dialogue.
Speaker 1: I want to ask you a question about that. You're
Speaker 1: watching the show from the very beginning. Is that something
Speaker 1: that you had ever done before? Number have you ever
Speaker 1: watched one full episode well when they.
Speaker 2: Were first on on Friday nights in primetime. Other than that, no, so.
Speaker 3: Kind of avoided it, you know, stumbling through the channels
Speaker 3: and there it is. If it's Tevieland or whatnot, I
Speaker 3: wouldn't watch it, you know. I don't watch my own work,
Speaker 3: you know. And though it's you know, somewhere around forty
Speaker 3: years afterward, it was distant enough to be able to
Speaker 3: be watched objectively. I'm an adult and there's nothing there
Speaker 3: for me, you know, as to consume. I didn't think
Speaker 3: but in doing this house in the in the HGTV project,
Speaker 3: it became apparent that so many people over the years
Speaker 3: have driven down the street and taking photos of this
Speaker 3: house that was sort of utilized to become the house,
Speaker 3: and that it could much to my surprise. Yeah, it
Speaker 3: now gives this tenth character an opportunity to exist in perpetuity.
Speaker 3: And Tina, who owns it, has been gracious enough to
Speaker 3: allow well, podcasts like this to occur here, limited productions here,
Speaker 3: and us access to the house. And it's very comforting
Speaker 3: because it really was a special place, and you know,
Speaker 3: it's just it's remarkable that it's still that we were
Speaker 3: able to do it to this kind of detail, or
Speaker 3: that HGTV kept at it so that this detail was
Speaker 3: faithfully reproduced.
Speaker 1: You said that the tripping would pass, but it hasn't
Speaker 1: passed yet.
Speaker 2: I'm staring weeks or months. It's a couple of years now.
Speaker 1: I'm talking to Peter Brady.
Speaker 3: Guys, never left home.
Speaker 1: No, I used to watch your show every day. I
Speaker 1: lived on a farm way on the country and Illinois, Illinois,
Speaker 1: and I would come home down state upstate central central Illinois. Well,
Speaker 1: I would sit right there in front of the big
Speaker 1: TV with the wood around it, and.
Speaker 2: I would watch remote controllers. You have to turn you
Speaker 2: had to actually get up, don't turn that die.
Speaker 1: I sat close enough to turn the dial like this.
Speaker 2: Well, of course we all did.
Speaker 1: That wasn't bad for my eyes.
Speaker 3: Right, I was supposed to, like, you don't watch television
Speaker 3: like that because to do something to your teeth. I know,
Speaker 3: it's a bunch of a bunch of wives tales, you know,
Speaker 3: I think television or rot your brain, you know all.
Speaker 1: That's that's what my mom always said.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they were born in the same era.
Speaker 1: I think I connected with this show on such a
Speaker 1: deep level because I was from a blended family, were you?
Speaker 1: And if I'm not mistaken, I think The Brady Bunch
Speaker 1: was one of the first shows, at least to my recollection,
Speaker 1: that ever really spotlighted a blended family on television.
Speaker 3: Purposefully so because if you look at Sherwood, Sherwood had
Speaker 3: two shows that are.
Speaker 2: You know, wildly popular, Gillian's Island in The Brady Bunch.
Speaker 3: He had a third that only lasted thirteen weeks. But
Speaker 3: oddly I can still remember the theme song from which
Speaker 3: is one of the things that Sherwood is very famous for.
Speaker 2: Theme songs. You can't forget, and that was it's about.
Speaker 3: Time, It's about time, it's about it's not in the
Speaker 3: human race, And all three are the same premise, and
Speaker 3: that is disparate people learning to get along, forced to
Speaker 3: get along.
Speaker 1: So on Gilligan's Island, they were forced because they were
Speaker 1: stuck on the island.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 3: And it's about time, it's about space less only two
Speaker 3: astronauts stuck in space. I don't know how that would
Speaker 3: have lasted over years, but okay, being forced to get
Speaker 3: along in a very small space. And then the Brady's
Speaker 3: is this idea of new family being zippered together and
Speaker 3: now watching it and getting caught up to where the
Speaker 3: audience has.
Speaker 2: Been with it.
Speaker 3: It's clear what you know, the vision that Surewood had
Speaker 3: on the show in those first two seasons, but those
Speaker 3: you know, first twenty thirty shows are about a family
Speaker 3: that is coming together and not easily being having but
Speaker 3: then learning the benefits of getting along. And then by
Speaker 3: the second or third year there's you know, there's never
Speaker 3: any mention of you're not my sister ever, which probably
Speaker 3: isn't real, but getting to that place is so important
Speaker 3: because that really then is the family. When when when
Speaker 3: It doesn't matter where.
Speaker 2: You're from, that you are my sister.
Speaker 1: It was his and hers and it became ours.
Speaker 3: Well, there was a movie like that, His Heres and Hours,
Speaker 3: His mine and ours.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was my My family was his hers, and
Speaker 1: I was the Hours. So basically I was Tiger in
Speaker 1: your family?
Speaker 3: Were you part of Were you not the blend? Were
Speaker 3: you the the the biological child was the blend?
Speaker 1: You were the biological child of the two that had
Speaker 1: his and hers, So they came together and then they.
Speaker 3: Had so you were the Yeah, you're the next evolution
Speaker 3: of what we were. You would have been Oliver born
Speaker 3: to Carolyn.
Speaker 1: Forgot about all.
Speaker 3: That's a whole flip on that because he wasn't.
Speaker 2: So he's the inside out version of you.
Speaker 1: He's the cousin though.
Speaker 3: The cousin that wasn't even part of wasn't even on
Speaker 3: the radar screen.
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean a cherub found on the street.
Speaker 1: I think that that's what's so cool, because I know,
Speaker 1: being on a show in the nineties, your show really
Speaker 1: represented the seventies, and being on a show that represented
Speaker 1: the nineties, you're sort of forever frozen in people's minds
Speaker 1: as a certain image, you know, like, I'm sure people
Speaker 1: look at you and stare at you the way I'm
Speaker 1: steering at you right now with that look of like
Speaker 1: I can't believe what I'm seeing. And I know, people
Speaker 1: it's weird. I'm tripping out because I'm I'm experiencing it.
Speaker 1: I'm doing it to you, but I've experienced.
Speaker 3: It as you, so you're doing it to me, but
Speaker 3: seeing yourself do it to me.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's deep.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I feel like I should have a doctorate
Speaker 3: psychology to.
Speaker 2: Be here, right.
Speaker 1: But how does that? I mean, I know how I've
Speaker 1: dealt with it over the years, and what a role
Speaker 1: my show and the significance of my show played in
Speaker 1: my life. What would what is the significance that the
Speaker 1: Brady Bunch played in your life? Like overall, would you
Speaker 1: say pretty significant?
Speaker 3: I mean, it's pretty much unlike your show's where you
Speaker 3: sort of became an adult, a young adult before the
Speaker 3: intersection of that celebrity, we were kids. I mean those
Speaker 3: formatal years you were ten, tended to the pilot just
Speaker 3: just about eleven, and then eleven twelve in the first season,
Speaker 3: but then ended at sixteen, so you know, kind of
Speaker 3: all that kind.
Speaker 2: Of childhood years.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, so you're forming yourself. You know, you're forming
Speaker 3: an idea self.
Speaker 1: Do you think it's a realistic when you're in that bubble,
Speaker 1: do you think that who you're forming is a realistic Well?
Speaker 3: I think in my case it was very helpful because
Speaker 3: it wasn't it offered exactly what the show people watching it,
Speaker 3: But for me it was in three D.
Speaker 2: It was around me.
Speaker 3: I mean it was more than just assumed through the script.
Speaker 3: It was lived in this environment. It's a really wholesome environment.
Speaker 3: And I do laugh at it because it's not exactly
Speaker 3: I wouldn't if I had kids, I would try to
Speaker 3: keep them away from show business until the're eighteen. I
Speaker 3: don't think there's any success of consequence to anybody in
Speaker 3: this industry, you know, as a child, that will help
Speaker 3: as an adult, and the chances of you falling apart
Speaker 3: in the process making that leap.
Speaker 2: Let me do it.
Speaker 3: Either way, you successful as a kid, being successful as
Speaker 3: an adult, you know, is difficult because you're going to
Speaker 3: have to it's a whole different person then, and no
Speaker 3: success leaves you then with what.
Speaker 2: So either way you're kind of setting yourself up.
Speaker 3: And isn't that your parents' job to work, not you,
Speaker 3: because having a childhood.
Speaker 1: Is why did you work as a child.
Speaker 3: Well, because my dad was an actor and he had
Speaker 3: access to getting us agents, and my brother who's a
Speaker 3: year older, thirteen months older, we got an agent at
Speaker 3: the same time. I was seven, he was eight. I
Speaker 3: immediately started working, much to my mom's surprise, because she
Speaker 3: thought he was the outgoing one.
Speaker 2: I was the interviewed one.
Speaker 3: He had no idea what went on inside that room, right,
Speaker 3: because moms don't go in the room with you when
Speaker 3: you're going on your interview, and we didn't go in together.
Speaker 3: You know, we were just so close in age that
Speaker 3: we would be up for the same commercial together. I
Speaker 3: got the first interview, at the third interview and just
Speaker 3: kept working and.
Speaker 2: He never did.
Speaker 3: And she thought he would be the one working because
Speaker 3: of her relationship, you know, with him and his outgoingness
Speaker 3: in my quiet, you know, reserved sort of so and
Speaker 3: self wasn't anything she thought would sell inside of a room,
Speaker 3: and so she was quite surprised.
Speaker 2: I didn't learn about that until I was an adult.
Speaker 1: What was your secret? What'd you do in that room?
Speaker 2: I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think what I did is I is
Speaker 3: I lit up because in my environment it was hard
Speaker 3: to even you know, take a breath. And so this
Speaker 3: is what the Brady's provided, you know, the stuff that
Speaker 3: I wasn't getting.
Speaker 2: Similarly, in that room, I.
Speaker 3: Was getting stuff I wasn't getting because of the environment.
Speaker 3: I had an older brother, you know, pecking order being
Speaker 3: what it was. Who you know, he even laughs at it.
Speaker 3: I was literally trying to kill me when we were
Speaker 3: one and two and and and I guess it's not
Speaker 3: unusual or impossible when when you live in a in
Speaker 3: an environment that is chaotic and and and not not abundant,
Speaker 3: when survival is palpable.
Speaker 2: You know, my dad even said.
Speaker 3: To me at one point, or told my mom when
Speaker 3: because he's an actor, an unemployed actor raising two kids
Speaker 3: in New York City, it was like, you know, there's
Speaker 3: not a we don't have enough milk to feed the kids,
Speaker 3: he said, feed him every other day.
Speaker 2: His environment from the old world. I mean, it's like
Speaker 2: not all, not all your kids lived. That was his.
Speaker 3: Mindset might be. You know, he had a brother, didn't
Speaker 3: that that didn't make it. You know, it's like a
Speaker 3: lot of it's really a jungle law. You know, a
Speaker 3: lot of the Fittest Survival of Fittest.
Speaker 2: And so Brady's is not that.
Speaker 3: Brady's probably was an extension again of that interview, which
Speaker 3: is if somebody's asking me my uh, asking me questions,
Speaker 3: asking me about something that doesn't.
Speaker 2: Happen at home.
Speaker 3: At home, it's that you talk to and you know
Speaker 3: you're just in the way, and and so you kind
Speaker 3: of receid. You know, you don't want to buck that.
Speaker 3: So been an interview all of a sudden you can
Speaker 3: come out. So that's probably where that began. And then
Speaker 3: here I really felt it. I mean, I remember one
Speaker 3: episode Bob redirected and we were very inexpensive show, and
Speaker 3: you got six of us, and so we got a
Speaker 3: director coming in.
Speaker 2: He's going to do.
Speaker 3: This scene with six of us, and you know, maybe
Speaker 3: seven eight of us in the scene. So you three
Speaker 3: stand there, you come up, you stand here, and we'll
Speaker 3: do the scene like the static. So nothing organic about it.
Speaker 3: But he's trying to get done by the end of
Speaker 3: the day, and how else are you going to block
Speaker 3: this thing?
Speaker 2: And then here's Bob read first thing in the morning.
Speaker 2: It's a show that you know, I'm featured in and
Speaker 2: he says, so, how do you see this blocking work?
Speaker 2: How do you see this work? And it was like, wow,
Speaker 2: I'm valued.
Speaker 3: I have an idea, but no one's ever asked me
Speaker 3: my idea to that degree before. And that's where that developed,
Speaker 3: you know, And that probably wouldn't have happened at home
Speaker 3: until I did it for myself at some in some
Speaker 3: rebellious kind of way, and so it shaped me.
Speaker 2: It shaped me, and it gave me an idea of
Speaker 2: how family can be cooperative.
Speaker 3: My mom was dead set against even believing that families could.
Speaker 1: Be really Yeah, so it sounds like, much like myself,
Speaker 1: you found the Brady Bunch sort of like a safe space,
Speaker 1: a sanctuary.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I didn't know how safe it wasn't until
Speaker 3: you know, it was gone.
Speaker 2: And then when I was an adult.
Speaker 3: At that point, I was sixteen, but I realized that
Speaker 3: the space that I was left in at like at home,
Speaker 3: it's like, I need to escape this so that I
Speaker 3: can go make something closer to that for myself.
Speaker 1: That's that's a really interesting story.
Speaker 3: It's like, and my mom and I we'd have I mean,
Speaker 3: it wasn't like we were close friends when she passed away,
Speaker 3: but because we discussed it all. You know that she
Speaker 3: had different ideas based on her experiences in life and
Speaker 3: the hardships that she was under and the you know,
Speaker 3: the difficulties that were day to day confronting her.
Speaker 2: And she did the best that she could.
Speaker 3: But the result of that was these reverberations were you know,
Speaker 3: a need to create something different.
Speaker 1: Did your mom go to work with you?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Since you were, she gave me every day. And
Speaker 2: I mean, I have a brother seven years younger. I'm eleven.
Speaker 1: Did he come who was? No?
Speaker 2: He's left home with my sister who's three years younger.
Speaker 3: So it's like, you know, she's he's been raised by
Speaker 3: a seven year old.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I you know, I didn't get to witness that,
Speaker 3: but you know, talking to my sister and you know,
Speaker 3: you know, that's tough. And that's why when when friends say, oh,
Speaker 3: my kid is so cute, he should be in show business,
Speaker 3: And I said, do you realize what would happen if, like, say,
Speaker 3: they live in Ohio and they want to come out
Speaker 3: for pilot season again, a pilot they you know, you're.
Speaker 2: Successful, What about the other kids? Where are you going
Speaker 2: to live? What do you do to the family, and.
Speaker 3: You shouldn't me work for you know, and support your
Speaker 3: kids and then let them do what they want.
Speaker 2: At eighteen.
Speaker 1: I became emancipated when I started working. I think I
Speaker 1: was sixteen.
Speaker 3: So you can't get a massipated earlier than that, right,
Speaker 3: I think sixteen is when you first can be it.
Speaker 1: I believe so. And so you could drive, I could drive.
Speaker 1: I drove myself. I went to work just like an adult,
Speaker 1: like I didn't have my mom.
Speaker 3: Barry got himself emancipated because for a time my mom
Speaker 3: would be on set and his mom wouldn't, and she
Speaker 3: would be his guardian for that day until he got emancipated.
Speaker 3: His mom was there mostly in the first year. I
Speaker 3: think that was the second year, because he didn't really
Speaker 3: need or want his mom around, but he legally was
Speaker 3: needed to have someone there looking, an adult looking after
Speaker 3: him and.
Speaker 2: Till that happened.
Speaker 1: Did they sequester the parents away from the set.
Speaker 3: Oh no, They were very much part of the entire program,
Speaker 3: because True's idea was that we first he wanted you know,
Speaker 3: I don't know how much he actually took in to
Speaker 3: account parents when he was casting us, but I'm sure
Speaker 3: he had some I out for that. He didn't want actors.
Speaker 3: He wanted kids to kid act. So he wanted kids,
Speaker 3: he wanted he wanted people that they were people first,
Speaker 3: person persons first before actors. And I'm sure part of
Speaker 3: that process and looking for that was not just what
Speaker 3: he got from the interview in the room, but somewhere
Speaker 3: along the way there must have been. But it is
Speaker 3: tough because you're not interviewing parents, right, So how do
Speaker 3: you know what you're getting with the parents?
Speaker 2: Are like, So, yeah, that's a tough question. I've really
Speaker 2: not thought about it.
Speaker 3: He couldn't have known too much about how the parents
Speaker 3: worked out, and luckily it worked out. You know, we
Speaker 3: had distinctly different kind of parents like Marine's. She lived
Speaker 3: not too far away, but her mom couldn't drive. Her
Speaker 3: dad was a school teacher, so and she was the youngest.
Speaker 2: In her family. Her brother's rolders.
Speaker 3: She had one brother whose special needs mom had some
Speaker 3: eye condition tunnel vision or something.
Speaker 2: So you couldn't drive, We drove. We drove them.
Speaker 3: I mean that gave me an extra couple hours every
Speaker 3: day to be like a quasi brother some Marine growing
Speaker 3: up in the back of a car.
Speaker 2: But it worked. I mean, the parents weren't the typical
Speaker 2: None of them were the typical set parents.
Speaker 3: Set parents, or you know, pushy kind of like this.
Speaker 2: Was also at the stage was it was an ensemble.
Speaker 3: Now we're at times it would just it would show
Speaker 3: itself in defense of those things that were important to
Speaker 3: that person, like Eve's hair. She had this incredibly long,
Speaker 3: gorgeous hair, but to keep it like that required a
Speaker 3: lot of brushing. Mom was constantly brushing and brushing because
Speaker 3: it wasn't I mean again, light lightly budgeted. Wasn't like
Speaker 3: we had an abundance of hair and makeup people so
Speaker 3: that they were probably you know, giving it a couple
Speaker 3: couple of strokes before taking care of Florence.
Speaker 2: It was. It was.
Speaker 3: It was Eve's mom constantly on her brushing right up
Speaker 3: until right.
Speaker 1: I have just such a vivid imagination of what that
Speaker 1: was like. But you did, her hair looked amazing. But
Speaker 1: that's why now we.
Speaker 2: Know takes a lot of brushing. Well, thank god for
Speaker 2: mom's right.
Speaker 3: So stage momming is important to some extent.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So do you feel as if you're frozen in
Speaker 1: time when you walk around.
Speaker 3: Today or have a lot of us to reconcile this.
Speaker 3: You know they say about electrons, they don't really have
Speaker 3: a place. They can be in two places at once. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and that is kind of what happens when this occurs.
Speaker 2: Right, we did something long ago, it still exists, it
Speaker 2: still lives, and then I exist now, So I have
Speaker 2: two existences.
Speaker 3: I'm not really frozen in time, but I understand that
Speaker 3: somebody could see me frozen at time. That's what's fun
Speaker 3: about doing the podcast is I go back and learn
Speaker 3: what people have thought about me and why by watching
Speaker 3: the show.
Speaker 2: You know and.
Speaker 3: I'm amazed were both are about how much we were
Speaker 3: gaining from watching.
Speaker 1: It, Right, isn't that the case?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that we always get the same question, right, what
Speaker 3: is your favorite show? But it dawned on me that
Speaker 3: wasn't a question. We were answering it without regarding the
Speaker 3: question as it was being asked. We always said why
Speaker 3: because we have to go to why that would be
Speaker 3: our favorite experience, not necessarily favorite show. So all of
Speaker 3: our answers are about the experiences of doing a show. Well,
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm thinking going in that my favorite shows
Speaker 3: were those when I was older, right, because that's when
Speaker 3: all of a sudden you're more conscious making conscious decisions,
Speaker 3: and I watched the show. The shows are not nearly
Speaker 3: as good as the first couple of years because the
Speaker 3: show had a structure in those first couple of years
Speaker 3: that kind of untethered as the show as we got older,
Speaker 3: because it's power early, if you will. Its real strength
Speaker 3: was in that you know, six to twelve, fourteen year
Speaker 3: old kid realm. As soon as you get fifteen sixteen,
Speaker 3: your issues are not as simple to conclude as they
Speaker 3: are or as they can be. They're not as primary
Speaker 3: like the colors on the show. The issues that we
Speaker 3: dealt with best were very primary issues. I'm you know,
Speaker 3: getting along, telling the truth, you know.
Speaker 2: Just it's it's a parable, modern parable.
Speaker 1: But so simple like for those of us watching it.
Speaker 3: Yes, well life for a kids should be simple. It
Speaker 3: gets more complicated out that front door. Oh yes, so
Speaker 3: the more reasons you know, like you don't, I mean,
Speaker 3: if there's if there's like Vietnam was it was in parallel,
Speaker 3: you know, I was like a year from being drafted
Speaker 3: doing the show, and so there was all that you know,
Speaker 3: tumult you know around us, and we're doing the show
Speaker 3: already felt like it was out of time.
Speaker 2: And if you think about it.
Speaker 3: The Brady's as this kind of family was already a
Speaker 3: throwback in the late sixties to the families of the
Speaker 3: late you know, reminds me of leave It to Beaver,
Speaker 3: you know, as you know, a blended leave it to
Speaker 3: Beaver like family, and that was late fifties, you know,
Speaker 3: and really hasn't been done.
Speaker 2: And I don't know if you can.
Speaker 3: I mean I think that they're like, I don't know
Speaker 3: you can cycle back to that kind of that kind
Speaker 3: of innocence again.
Speaker 2: You will just laugh at it.
Speaker 3: And that's why the movies laughed at it, because it's
Speaker 3: like when you're an adult looking back at yourself as
Speaker 3: a child in the ways that you thought, you laugh
Speaker 3: at how simple things were for you, but they're purposefully simple,
Speaker 3: like you know, the the you know, if you're ten
Speaker 3: years old or eleven years old, I'm not sure your
Speaker 3: parents want you watching the news of the war that's
Speaker 3: going on, you know, and the and the body count
Speaker 3: and stuff like that. Keep you in a different space
Speaker 3: because you'll have enough time to deal with that as
Speaker 3: you get older.
Speaker 1: That's the thing with kids these days now, you can't
Speaker 1: keep them from seeing everything all at once everywhere.
Speaker 3: Which is troublesome. Yeah, I don't know how you know. Yeah,
Speaker 3: everything all at once is not necessarily not.
Speaker 1: I did well to just take my Brady Bunch, followed
Speaker 1: by my Happy Days and then my Laverne and Shirley.
Speaker 2: You did it naturally for yourself, yes.
Speaker 1: Yes, Well did you when you left the show? When
Speaker 1: the show was over, how did you feel like? Did
Speaker 1: you feel.
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 4: I was.
Speaker 2: Happy, at least initially, because I wanted to go to school.
Speaker 2: I wasn't my idea.
Speaker 3: To be an actor, though I was getting so much
Speaker 3: from it and very much appreciated it. I hadn't decided
Speaker 3: on what I wanted to do with my life.
Speaker 2: And I knew that you're only sixteen right when it
Speaker 2: went off.
Speaker 3: I was, yeah, halfway through eleventh grade, so I was
Speaker 3: just turning yet seventeen. Just about seventeen, I was sixteen.
Speaker 3: You're right, I was sixteen, but high school was only
Speaker 3: I only had a year and a half left of
Speaker 3: high school.
Speaker 2: I hadn't gone to my real high school yet.
Speaker 3: We went to a private school tenth grade so we
Speaker 3: could do the singing, dancing, concert stuff that I didn't
Speaker 3: really want to do.
Speaker 2: But I'm part of this group and being sucked along
Speaker 2: by it.
Speaker 3: And so now the show's going off, and I'm it's
Speaker 3: like the twentieth week in going up to the second
Speaker 3: semester of eleventh grade, and finally I get to go
Speaker 3: to the high school that's right down the street, and
Speaker 3: the friends in the neighborhood they go there, and I
Speaker 3: hadn't gone yet. Brother goes there. I was big into science,
Speaker 3: but there was no science of being taught laps.
Speaker 2: You know, biology and chemistry and physics.
Speaker 3: All the stuff that interested me were stuff that I
Speaker 3: couldn't get unless I went back to my high school.
Speaker 3: And luckily I got just I got out just in
Speaker 3: time to start catching.
Speaker 2: Up on someone else.
Speaker 1: Did anybody ever pick on you?
Speaker 3: Well, that happened, Well, I was. I to seventh grade
Speaker 3: is a new school. The first season the show was.
Speaker 1: Out, you were still in school, Rul I went.
Speaker 3: The only year was tenth grade when we went to private.
Speaker 2: I went. Every we finished.
Speaker 3: We start the day the monday that school got out,
Speaker 3: and we were all in public schools.
Speaker 2: We were on the same system. So they did that
Speaker 2: money that.
Speaker 1: They could keep so they didn't have to work you certainly.
Speaker 3: Now and work they could work us seven hours right,
Speaker 3: they could work us well, let's eight hours seven as
Speaker 3: opposed to just you know four, right, because once the
Speaker 3: school starts. On that day that the school begun, we
Speaker 3: were in our classroom when we weren't you around the
Speaker 3: camera or in front of the cameras. Matter of fact,
Speaker 3: they had to invent rules, like you know, putting us
Speaker 3: into school and taking us out five minutes later is
Speaker 3: useless for school, so you have to leave us there
Speaker 3: for at least I think it was fifteen minutes or
Speaker 3: twenty minutes.
Speaker 2: And then because.
Speaker 3: We'd be featured, our welfare worker was just brilliant, classic
Speaker 3: school marmish, wonderful woman, Francis Whitfield. And she was our
Speaker 3: welfare worker and our teacher. She was accredited up through
Speaker 3: eighth grade, so there was another teacher for us when
Speaker 3: we got beyond eighth grade.
Speaker 1: I want to know, like when you go out in
Speaker 1: public and people stop you, as I'm sure they do
Speaker 1: a million times, what goes through your.
Speaker 3: Mind depends on what just happened, like what their interrupt
Speaker 3: because sometimes I have no hope for humanity, like where
Speaker 3: you have that right though, I'm with my brother who
Speaker 3: we've always had, Like I said, a relationship that's on an.
Speaker 1: Edge, a little competitive, right, and he.
Speaker 3: Oh, I never never closed on that. So we go
Speaker 3: on these same interurgers for two years and I can
Speaker 3: he never worked.
Speaker 1: Oh, that must have really never worked.
Speaker 2: And then finally said, why am I wasting my time?
Speaker 2: Living in Woodland Hills. You had to drive into house.
Speaker 2: I mean that's like an hour two hours, you know,
Speaker 2: and it's like, why am I going on this? I
Speaker 2: don't want to go anywhere.
Speaker 3: So he didn't have to at that point, I'm now
Speaker 3: doing you know, by that point, just about doing the
Speaker 3: Brady button.
Speaker 1: Okay. So you're at lunch with your brother now as
Speaker 1: grown man, and someone comes up to you and says.
Speaker 3: Well, this is this is the thing about humanity my
Speaker 3: brother and I. So somebody recognizes me. This is some
Speaker 3: years ago, ten years ago, and then turns in are
Speaker 3: you somebody?
Speaker 2: And it's like, I don't even want to look him
Speaker 2: in the eye right now. I didn't do it. It's
Speaker 2: not my fault. I'm not I'm not going to you know, And.
Speaker 3: It's like, hey, you know, what do you say to
Speaker 3: this person?
Speaker 2: You know? And what do you say to your brother?
Speaker 3: You're not gonna say any of your brother because hopefully,
Speaker 3: you know, he'll.
Speaker 1: You know, handle it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's just like I'm not But I knew
Speaker 2: at a young age too. Why are people asking for autographs?
Speaker 2: What are they gonna do with that?
Speaker 3: They're gonna he's gonna draw and it's gonna disappear forever
Speaker 3: and there it's a handshake. It's their way of interacting
Speaker 3: before cell phones, it was.
Speaker 2: It's a way up. But they don't know that.
Speaker 3: They're wanting to just say you've intersected my life positively,
Speaker 3: or I liked your work.
Speaker 2: Can I can I just say hi, thank you?
Speaker 3: It takes a real adult to do that, but until
Speaker 3: not everybody ever gets to be a real adult to
Speaker 3: handle it that way. So mostly it's just doing what
Speaker 3: somebody else has done, which is asking for an autograph.
Speaker 3: But you know, it's really just to interact. When I
Speaker 3: figured that out self, want to make it so much better.
Speaker 3: Just take the selfie because now I'm a life size collectible.
Speaker 1: It doesn't bug you. You're a life size collectible.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I love that, And it's so much easier. I don't
Speaker 3: sit down and write terrible handwriting, you know, and what's
Speaker 3: your name?
Speaker 2: And how do I spell?
Speaker 1: That it's like it seems though, that you have such
Speaker 1: a deep appreciation for the show and its significance in
Speaker 1: television history and in so many people's lives.
Speaker 2: I know this.
Speaker 3: I know I had a really contentious relationship with my
Speaker 3: mom growing up that predated The Brady Bunch, and you know,
Speaker 3: and we worked that out as adults, so we had
Speaker 3: we had little problem as adults. We were a family
Speaker 3: that shared exactly how we were feeling, which has a
Speaker 3: good side and it can have a bad side. Chaotic
Speaker 3: and independent, uh, can be desperate, loud. Yeah, So that
Speaker 3: relationship wasn't something I thought was healthy, but I felt
Speaker 3: what whatever we were doing here was it was a
Speaker 3: depiction of it and it set me up to realize that,
Speaker 3: you know, there are good things that can come from this.
Speaker 3: Although we were derided in the press, I mean, as
Speaker 3: a show reviewed, we're banw and you know, just.
Speaker 2: Because that's what we were.
Speaker 3: There wasn't anybody reviewing from the point of view that
Speaker 3: the show was trying to deliver on because there was
Speaker 3: no children's programming per se. I mean, there was Disney,
Speaker 3: but people didn't look at if Disney wasn't really trying
Speaker 3: to provide entertainment for children at that but there wasn't.
Speaker 3: They didn't review children's programming separately. Then you reviewed any
Speaker 3: other kind of art, and with the same reviewer. It'd
Speaker 3: be doing theater and doing television, and so we were
Speaker 3: kind of like, what the hell is this doing on television?
Speaker 2: This is you know, television itself was derided as being
Speaker 2: a entertainment below art, art.
Speaker 1: Form below keyword. So later in life you pivoted to
Speaker 1: business entrepreneurship.
Speaker 2: I pivoted right in high school.
Speaker 3: When I left and went into high school, it was like,
Speaker 3: that's this is it, you know, because I was happy,
Speaker 3: you know, just I got my I was getting my sciences,
Speaker 3: and I'm now going to figure out what i want.
Speaker 2: To do with the rest of my life. And I
Speaker 2: didn't know that I had a learning disable.
Speaker 3: I was learning disabled, you know, kind of got buried
Speaker 3: in all that other stuff they had. This dyslexia and
Speaker 3: I had would turn out to be add but I
Speaker 3: had a real difficult time with the subjects I didn't
Speaker 3: care about, you know, And I then went off to
Speaker 3: UCLA and realized that I was going to get buried.
Speaker 3: I had no problem in any of the sciences, but
Speaker 3: as soon as I went into litt in English and
Speaker 3: then asked.
Speaker 2: I was going to get buried, and it's like, how
Speaker 2: am I going to finish this?
Speaker 4: And that?
Speaker 3: Right at that same time, here comes the entertainment industry
Speaker 3: back asking me to do something I don't want to do,
Speaker 3: which is music.
Speaker 2: But I said yes to it, and that was.
Speaker 3: The Variety Show because I realized as well, half my
Speaker 3: friends at UCLA we're North campus, you know, studying theater
Speaker 3: and cinema, and it's like I'm and I'm just dropping that,
Speaker 3: and whatever whatever advantage I had in that industry, I'm
Speaker 3: just disregarding as perhaps I need to leverage that, maybe
Speaker 3: I need to look at that again. So I use
Speaker 3: that as the entree to get back into it, and
Speaker 3: that would last for a number of years, and then
Speaker 3: I found myself just drifting into into the realm of
Speaker 3: computers when you know.
Speaker 2: Just naturally just got.
Speaker 3: Attracted to him and ended up in a career in
Speaker 3: the computer industry for twenty five years.
Speaker 1: So when the cast came back together to do the
Speaker 1: renovation show for the house on HDTV, how was that?
Speaker 1: Would you? Was that a good?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Well, well look at it was come.
Speaker 1: Back together the gang was back together.
Speaker 3: It was just odd the way that it all came We,
Speaker 3: like everybody Lancepass included, read that the house was for sale,
Speaker 3: it was in the USA today, and then a few
Speaker 3: days later, agents are getting contacted about this house that
Speaker 3: HGTV or Discovery body.
Speaker 2: I wanted to know if we could meet with them.
Speaker 2: It's like, okay, we had no idea really what this
Speaker 2: was about.
Speaker 3: What it was for them to tell us that they
Speaker 3: had bought the house and that they were looking at
Speaker 3: doing something with it, and then we told them about.
Speaker 2: The history of the house and they didn't even know.
Speaker 2: They had no idea.
Speaker 3: It was just because it came up on the market
Speaker 3: and somebody was reading it during a production meeting or
Speaker 3: some development meeting. We should buy the Brainy House, and
Speaker 3: then somebody said, yeah, we should, And within two days.
Speaker 2: They're making it off our house. They didn't know it's
Speaker 2: the fiftieth anniversary. It all came to just kind of
Speaker 2: came together.
Speaker 3: It's like, well, that's a present to us, you know,
Speaker 3: if they're going to have us involved, I don't know
Speaker 3: what it's going to be, but hey, you know, making
Speaker 3: that doing something at the house is like a way
Speaker 3: to acknowledge the.
Speaker 2: Fiftieth anniversary, and it turned out to be much.
Speaker 3: More than that, and in a way to you know,
Speaker 3: resurrect this eleventh cast member.
Speaker 1: Right, I love that. Well, speaking of the eleventh cast member,
Speaker 1: we've got to bring in Dina Treyhan, who is the
Speaker 1: owner of this beautiful, iconic home.
Speaker 3: Hi.
Speaker 1: How are you?
Speaker 4: I'm well? Thank you? How are you?
Speaker 1: I'm good? I need to know why you bought this house.
Speaker 1: Were you a fan of the show?
Speaker 4: Well, I watched it every day after school, yes, growing up.
Speaker 4: So when I heard the house was for sale, I
Speaker 4: just knew I had to buy it. I did not
Speaker 4: know why. I knew I wanted nothing to happen to it.
Speaker 4: I didn't want it to get torn down or anything
Speaker 4: like that. What I didn't know is what I was
Speaker 4: going to do with it.
Speaker 1: HGTV.
Speaker 4: I bought it from them, so they had already done
Speaker 4: the addition and made it just like the show. So
Speaker 4: what I did, I just added a bunch of things.
Speaker 4: I've added over three hundred things I've lost count from
Speaker 4: the show, like Kitty carry all.
Speaker 1: I saw her upstairs, she's sleeping.
Speaker 4: Right, and the cars, and you know, so I did
Speaker 4: I did a lot that way, and I turned the
Speaker 4: garage into the car port just like they had without
Speaker 4: a permit. So I got a violation.
Speaker 1: Oh no, that didn't make the news good.
Speaker 3: So what Tina has would to all of us. Obviously,
Speaker 3: it's a museum, it's a you can't make it.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 1: First of all, I heard a rumor that you have
Speaker 1: slept in this home. Have you slept over?
Speaker 4: I have a few of my friends have come out
Speaker 4: to LA and they wanted to sleep in the house.
Speaker 1: Whose room did you sleep?
Speaker 4: Well? They slept in Carol and Mike's and I slept
Speaker 4: in the girls room.
Speaker 3: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: Can I have a sleepover with you?
Speaker 4: Absolutely?
Speaker 1: Amy, and I will be right over You. Guys are
Speaker 1: having a really incredible event here, so can you tell
Speaker 1: me about that.
Speaker 4: Yes, we partnered with No Kid Hungry and we're doing
Speaker 4: a sweepstakes where five people and they each get to
Speaker 4: bring a guest get round trip airfare, hotels, ground transportation
Speaker 4: and meals. And but what's going on at the house.
Speaker 4: It's we're calling it the Brady Brunch, So you have
Speaker 4: brunch with Brady cast members. And yes, we are serving
Speaker 4: also pork chops and apple sauce.
Speaker 2: Wi.
Speaker 4: Yeah, buy someone dressed like Alice.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, are you going to be here?
Speaker 2: I didn't know about the Alice part. I yes, I
Speaker 2: plan to be here.
Speaker 3: So we don't know the date that it's going to be,
Speaker 3: but it's based on professional availability. I will work, however,
Speaker 3: I as hard as I can to make certain that
Speaker 3: I am one of those. I am local so I
Speaker 3: don't have to be flown out. I know that Barry
Speaker 3: has shown interest in Ev has shown interest in Mike
Speaker 3: has shown interest, and whether or not they can be
Speaker 3: here on the date that is selected will have to
Speaker 3: be determined.
Speaker 2: But they'll be a Brady.
Speaker 3: Here, a Brady at least you at least.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's enough for me.
Speaker 3: Well, and I'll take I'll bring my version of Tiger.
Speaker 1: Before I let both of you go, I'd like to
Speaker 1: ask you both, what was your last I choose me moment?
Speaker 1: What was the last time you choose yourself?
Speaker 2: It's endless.
Speaker 3: I choose me all the time. I think more important
Speaker 3: for me is my first I choose me. And that's
Speaker 3: when we were doing the singing and dancing. We were
Speaker 3: literally doing concerts for our albums, and I hated it
Speaker 3: and I couldn't sink, and I thought we shouldn't be
Speaker 3: doing it, or this one shouldn't be doing it. And
Speaker 3: I'm my mom was like the business manager of the
Speaker 3: be She was kind of the the she put it together,
Speaker 3: It's like.
Speaker 2: You and I'm not doing I got no.
Speaker 3: Musical I should be kept as far away from a
Speaker 3: microphone as possible.
Speaker 2: And I just covetched a lot.
Speaker 3: And she finally said, well, if you don't want to
Speaker 3: do it, you should quit.
Speaker 2: I go, I will so well. You got to write
Speaker 2: a letter of raggedy. I wrote two sentences. I quit.
Speaker 3: And that was the beginning of me doing things for
Speaker 3: me because I didn't this industry. You end up getting
Speaker 3: caught up and doing stuff that others make me feel
Speaker 3: you have to do. And I realized, no, no, if
Speaker 3: you're gonna you got to.
Speaker 2: Do what's right for you.
Speaker 1: I love that so much.
Speaker 2: That was it. That was at seven sixteen.
Speaker 1: That's so early. That's great. Good for you. So, Tina,
Speaker 1: what was your last I Choose me moment?
Speaker 4: My last I choose me moment was when I bought
Speaker 4: this house because so many people were like, what are
Speaker 4: you going to do with it? Why are you buying
Speaker 4: the house? And some days I did question, wait, why
Speaker 4: am I buying the house? But I chose me, and
Speaker 4: I bought the house.
Speaker 3: And didn't you get a response recently from somebody who
Speaker 3: saw that you were running the sweepstakes and they had
Speaker 3: something positive to say to you. Some member of the family.
Speaker 4: Yes, oh my gosh, yes, my daughter's father, his mother.
Speaker 1: That's getting your ex mother in law.
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, yes, sorry, she was one of the people
Speaker 4: that thought I was nuts.
Speaker 1: As the mother in law did exactly.
Speaker 4: So after she saw the Today Show, she sent me
Speaker 4: and I have two very nice text messages that said,
Speaker 4: oh my gosh, I thought you were nuts, and now
Speaker 4: I see all the good you're doing because we've done
Speaker 4: other charity things here at the house. So she was
Speaker 4: proud of me, she said, was a big deal.
Speaker 1: You chose you in buying the house, but really it
Speaker 1: was a choice for other people too. Yes, how do
Speaker 1: people get in on this sweepstakes?
Speaker 4: Oh so you enter at the Brady Experience dot com.
Speaker 1: Okay, you heard it, hear people straight from the Brady House.
Speaker 1: You can come here too. Thank you for being You
Speaker 1: can have your own just like it. It is a
Speaker 1: trip that was fun, getting to live out one of
Speaker 1: my childhood dreams today, Oh my gosh. I want to
Speaker 1: thank Chris and Tina for being a part of it,
Speaker 1: and we'll be sure to put all of the info
Speaker 1: in our show notes for how to enter that incredible
Speaker 1: brunch they are hosting. I think I'm going to enter myself.
Speaker 1: As we continue to choose ourselves each week, I want
Speaker 1: to encourage you this week to tap into your own
Speaker 1: childhood feel good memories. What did you love as a kid,
Speaker 1: A certain kind of food or a song, a type
Speaker 1: of music, a specific board game. There are things from
Speaker 1: our childhoods that still bring us joy to this day
Speaker 1: as adults, and sometimes it's fun to act like a kid.
Speaker 1: So this week, take some time to relive your own
Speaker 1: childhood memories for a little bit and see how much
Speaker 1: fun you have doing it. Thanks for listening to I
Speaker 1: Choose Me. You can check out all of our social
Speaker 1: links in our show notes. Make sure to rate and
Speaker 1: review the podcast, and use the hashtag I Choose Me
Speaker 1: anytime you feel like it. I'll be right here next week.
Speaker 1: I hope you choose to be here too.