An Ode to Alice

If, like me, you’re in your 40s, you hung out with the Bradys every day after school — their astroturf backyard, their jejune peccadilloes, and their always-there, always-winsome housekeeper, Alice. Hank Steuver, a fellow GenXer and my favorite pop culture columnist, has penned a wonderful piece that is part tribute to Alice (Ann B. Davis), and part homage to growing up in the 1970s. Here’s a taste:

No matter how quiet and empty the house was when you got home, you could turn on the TV just as the theme song began (“Here’s the story…”) and Alice was there, in the center of that joyful, blended-family “Brady Bunch” grid. She was in the kitchen getting dinner ready. She offered cookies and milk and sound advice.

She was, I suppose, whatever June Cleaver had been to the previous generation. The years went by, the 117 “Brady Bunch” episodes kept rerunning (the Grand Canyon trip, the Hawaii trip; Davy Jones dropping by, Joe Namath dropping by; Jan buying a wig, Peter’s voice cracking) and Alice kept filling some need for nurture. The entire premise of the show seemed to acknowledge, at least in subtext, that Alice was filling the need that Carol Brady (Florence Henderson) could not fill. It’s the great unspoken truth of “The Brady Bunch,” particularly in retrospect: Ann B. Davis was the better mother.

Read the whole column (get a tissue).

To get more Hank, read his book on pop culture Christmas (Courtney shot the cover photo).