The Brady Bunch Legacy

One a day for all Of may....

The Brady Bunch started it all. Well, what is "it" you ask? Good question. (Good use of diction as well, I might add.) The Brady Bunch started the sit-com trend to exploring the comedic bass line behind peculiar living arrangements. Here you have a single woman with three daughters and a single man with three sons. Throw them all together under one roof, toss in a live-in maid, and you have comedy.

Does this sound like "Step by Step"? It should. It's the same show, only 25 years later (minus the live-in maid). Odd living arrangement. Comedy.

"Who's the Boss?" Now you have an entire show built around a live-in maid, only with this hilarious twist of irony, the maid is a man. And there is a sexually-active grandmother up in the mix. Odd living arrangement. Hilarity ensues.

"Golden Girls." Again, more sexually-active geriatrics who happen to be living together. [I still can't get my mind around how this became a show.]

"Alf." Here's a weird living arrangement for you: A normal, white, suburban family with a talking, sarcastic, pun-spittin' alien for a pet. Now that is funny!!

"Growing Pains." This wasn't a weird living arrangement, but it had a character named "Boner." I don't care where you are from, that's hilarious.

"The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air." Take a well-to-do, cultured, upper-class African American family in Bel-Air, CA and throw a wacky, urban, "Fresh," teenager in the house. That's an odd living arrangement. And that's hilarious. I can hear the producers around the table brainstorming about this: "Oh! Maybe he can do something crazy and RAP!"

The semi-current and current mutations of the Brady Bunch legacy? "The Real World." "Friends." "Will and Grace." Odd living arrangements. Funny. Pure, comedic genius from the outset.